Saturday, October 2
Old Forge, New York
Willa,” I said, opening the door.
She smiled, cocking her head to the side. “I’m back.”
“What are you doing here?”
We hadn’t spoken—not so much as a text—since everything had gone down. Part of me felt bad for believing the worst of her, but the other part knew I had nothing to feel bad about—there had been so many lies, it had been impossible for me to separate reality from fiction.
“Right,” she said. “I kept going back and forth about whether I should call first, but in the end, it seemed best to just show up. Plus, I lost my nerve on the drive over.”
“How did you even know I was—”
“I have my ways,” she smirked. And when I didn’t smile back: “Nothing illegal, promise. I guess you bought this place, right? You pay one of those companies fifty bucks and they’ll give you all the public records. It’s nice, by the way.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
She bit her lip, shifted her weight from foot to foot. She wore stylish but comfortable sneakers, jeans cropped at the ankle, a chunky sweater, and a leather moto jacket on top. No more Balmain, Moncler, or Chloé, but she looked fantastic, still. More than that, she looked happy. Almost . . . at peace.
“I’m leaving the country tomorrow,” she said. “Starting fresh.” She reached into her handbag, pulled out a small navy pouch. “But I really wanted you to have this.”
She pressed it into my hands, and I took it, feeling its weight, lifted the flap of the pouch, and pulled it out.
A Cartier Love bracelet, in warm rose gold. No diamonds. No frills. Just the circle motif that felt so clean, so timeless. I had wanted it, this exact one, but George had always thought it was too flashy.
“Cassandra said this was your favorite. It’s the only one we didn’t sell. Thank you for covering for us.”
I ran my finger along the smooth, hard edges of the bracelet. “Thank you,” I said. “Of course, I’m not sure a country girl in Old Forge can pull off Cartier.”
“You can pull off anything,” Willa said with a smile. “Trust me, Mary. After what I put you through, you’ve earned it.”
I laughed, then slipped the bracelet onto my wrist, taking a moment to admire it. “I guess I have.”
“Well, I should be going,” Willa said, shifting her weight once again. “I just wanted to give you that . . . and to say I’m sorry. For everything.”
I nodded, then stared at her, standing on my front porch. “Unless you want to come in?”
Willa eyed me a moment, as if to see if I really meant it, and then finally: “Okay,” she said. “I’d love that.”
I poured her wine, grabbed us a couple of waters, and we set up in the empty living room amid the boxes, a single reading lamp illuminating us. We talked about Alex and how he was adjusting, and we talked about where she’d been these last two months—back in the city, but on her own this time, on her own for the first time—and when I was on my second glass of wine, I finally got the nerve to ask her.
“What happened that morning, with George?”
Willa pressed her lips together, then took another sip of wine.
“You didn’t sleep with him again, did you?” I asked hesitantly, knowing it would hurt me if she did. “Because Jack thought you did.”
Willa shook her head. “George saw me in town and followed me home to Rich’s that last night, the one before he died. He threatened to call the police if I didn’t give him back the jewelry.” She shrugged. “I knew I couldn’t, but I’d just seen you that night, and you’d told me that you slept with him. I figured he thought he actually had a chance to win you back. And I don’t know.” She eyed me. “Maybe he did.”
“Go on,” I said, not wanting to answer. It was something I hardly understood myself. I hadn’t wanted to go back to George, but would he have worn me down, had all of this never happened? I honestly didn’t know.
“When I went over that morning, I told George I’d tell you everything if he bothered me anymore. He seemed to accept it, and it all would have been fine, but then I couldn’t help myself. I taunted him. Said what I really thought of him, how pathetic he was.”
My eyes widened. “And he . . . hurt you?”
“Yes,” she said, the sinews of her muscles tightening. “He lunged at me, hands on my throat. He squeezed so hard I passed out. He might have killed me, but then finally I came to, and I could tell he was as freaked out as I was . . . I would never have gone back, if not for my necklace. See, when I moved to the city, I’d left this stupid controlling prick behind, and when I got my first real set of tips at the restaurant, even though I owed Cass money, she said I should treat myself. It was totally irresponsible, but it was like a personal fuck-you to my ex, a celebration of leaving. Something mine, just mine, that a man didn’t give me. The jeweler let me finance it through some program. I paid a hundred a month for it for a couple of years. I couldn’t let George have it.” She sighed. “I grabbed a rock on the way over, for protection. For a moment, I thought maybe I could do it—kill him—I was so angry, at what he’d done to you, to Cass, at the way he’d nearly killed me. But when I got there, he was already dead.” She laughed. “I can’t imagine what you thought when you overturned my bag and saw the bloody diaper. You must have been so sure.”
“I was,” I said as I took it all in. “But I know now I was wrong.”
She fingered the necklace. “Thank god Morales let me have it back when I was cleared. All of that and to still lose it in the end—would have been tragic.”
I laughed briefly, then looked at Willa. For the first time in our entire friendship, I felt like we were on equal footing, messy as it was. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were over there that morning?” I asked. “Before, I mean. We could have gotten ahead of it.”
“You never would have believed I didn’t kill him. And I don’t blame you, after everything I did to you.”
“You know, Jack said you almost hurt Jack Junior,” I said. “That he thought you might have actually hurt other kids.”
“Never,” she said solemnly. “I hope you know that about me.”
I nodded. “I do.”
I was quiet for a moment, then felt moisture in my eyes. I brushed away a tear. “You know, Jack choked me, too,” I said. “That last night.”
“I’m sorry, Mary. I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about him. I never thought in a million years he would kill George, but I knew he wasn’t a good person.” She paused, as if considering. “You know, the police in the city have reopened the investigation into the death of Jack’s wife.”
“What?”
“He told me she died in a car accident, but it wasn’t that at all. She fell down the stairs. And you know, when someone falls down stairs, it’s almost never an accident.”
“Wow,” I said. “Christ.”
“Right?” she said. “I hope he rots. I hope they all do. They’re all the same, all of them.”
“You don’t really think that,” I said.
Willa took another sip of wine. “Sometimes I do. You know, I read somewhere that of the one in four women who experience domestic violence, something like sixty percent of them will be strangled. Can you believe that? It’s like some kind of instinct, in these men. Push the right buttons and their hands find your throat. Rich was the only nice one. I suppose we should all go for Marxists!” She laughed. “And even he was still shit at splitting the mental load.”
I laughed, too, but then I pressed my lips together, serious again. “Alex won’t be like that,” I said.
“No,” Willa said. “But only because you’ll raise him right.” She set the glass down, looked at me, eyes wide, earnest. “Because you are good, Mary. Real and good.”
She smiled.
“And in my new life, I hope to be, too. I hope to make up for everything I’ve done.”