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Kelly put her best face forward as she took Peter to LAX the following Friday.
“You’re going to have a great time in Boston. I’m thinking about coming out right before you start school. I’ll show you all my favorite places, and you can show me what you’ve discovered. Sound good?”
“Okay.” The answer was more a yawn than a word. Like his father, Peter had never been much of a morning person.
“No more sunny days all summer,” she said. “Thunderstorms can be wild in the east, especially during hurricane season. And snow ... you’ll need to deal with snow!”
She steered the Lexus onto the ramp to go the departures building. In the early years, she used to take John this way, dreading whenever he had to leave. She’d loved him so much then, she couldn’t bear to let him go. As the years settled in, their relationship had shifted, and he took a limo there and back.
Their marriage hadn’t been bad, but the passion of the early years had faded, just like it did for most people, based on what she heard in the teachers’ lounge. But unlike some, she and John had become partners in raising the children and being there for each other. And she could never complain that he didn’t provide for them.
These were supposed to be their golden years.
Now what was she going to do?
Stop the self-pity. There’s a lot to be grateful for.
She headed for the right terminal for Peter’s flight.
“Love you, Peter,” she said when they pulled up to the doors.
He leapt from the car and stood by the trunk as she released it. He almost flung his bags on the sidewalk in his rush.
Ignoring his anxiety to get away, she pulled him into a hug.
“Make me proud, kid,” she said, taking his face in her hands, just as she’d done when she sent him off to his first day in kindergarten.
“Okay, Mom,” he said, and like he’d done then, his lower lip trembled, and he clamped his upper teeth on it to stop it. He pulled away and picked up his bags. “Love you, Mom.”
“Call,” she said as he turned.
“Text,” he replied.
And then he was gone.
KELLY WAS ALMOST GRATEFUL that the traffic was a snarl as she left the airport. There was no one at home, so when she got there didn’t matter. It was going to be her first summer without John, her children, or Gail. What was she going to do with herself? The script on how to be a good wife and mother that her mother had drilled into her didn’t include a scene for this part of the play.
Maybe she should to go Italy. Why not? Funds weren’t a problem.
As she sat there in her air-conditioned bubble, surrounded by other drivers in theirs, she told her phone to call John’s travel agent, a woman she knew well from the times they’d used her to plan family trips or getaways for the two of them.
“How are you, Kelly?” the agent asked after Kelly identified herself. “I’m so sorry to hear about John. How are you managing?”
“Okay. School kept me going. But now my children are gone for the summer, and I seem to be at loose ends. I’m thinking of going to Italy for a month.”
“Lovely,” the agent said. “Italy is so amazing! The markets, the coffee, and the art will inspire you. It’s a perfect idea. I’m going to send a link to some information that will be helpful. I’ll also courier over some brochures for tours I think are fabulous. A group might be exactly the right thing for you at this time of your life.”
Kelly squashed the temptation to shout, “I’m only forty-four!” Instead, she said, “That would be very nice. Thank you.”
They exchanged a few more pleasantries, then disconnected.
For a few miles, she daydreamed about going to Italy and connecting with an over-expressive Italian male given to grand gestures her husband, even in his most passionate moments, never would have imagined much less performed.
She’d have to create some grand gestures for herself. No need to rush, though. She could begin with little joys, like practicing the piano every day.
John had been understanding of her need to feel the keys under her fingers in the beginning of their marriage, but once the kids had come, there had always been somewhere for her to take them or something to do for John. It had been subtle at first, but gradually her time at the piano had been eroded by her duties until the only time she used it was to prepare for her classes or concerts.
Once again, she dreamed of herself on a concert stage in an elegant gown, playing to a crowd that cheered and applauded her.
Getting her skills back sounded wonderful in concept, but in reality? Was there really a point?
She pulled into the garage, then closed the door and entered the house.
The only way she was going to make it through the day was to keep busy. Pouring herself another cup of coffee, she turned on her latest collection from the Berlin Philharmonic full blast and headed to John’s office. Time to finish the job.
She’d finish the file cabinets first. As she thumbed through the files, she realized that most of the files were what she’d surmised: client files John had worked on from home.
There were some other folders: household appliance information, insurance, financial records from companies that still insisted on doing things on paper. But she’d already been through most of these in the winter as she’d worked through the inevitable modern hassles of a person’s death.
Why did things need to be so complicated and obtuse?
She boxed up the client files and put them by the door. The standard stuff she put back in the drawer. As she did so, she realized this would forever remain her husband’s office. The furniture and décor was too sleek and modern for her. Rather than give her the focus John had claimed it gave him, it made her tense.
When she looked at the pile on his desk, her stress increased. The brown envelope in the middle of the stack seemed to be a ticking detonator, with the computer below it serving as the bomb material.
Once again she started with the familiar, filing the papers she’d thrown there into the folders she’d reloaded into the cabinet. Then there was nothing else to do.
She undid the clasp and slid the contents onto the now-clear surface.
Keys, sunglasses, folded notes of paper, coins, the expected wallet, and phone.
No. Two phones.
She sank into the office chair and stared at the items on the desk.
Why two phones?
She picked up the one she recognized and turned it on. Nothing happened. She glanced around the room. The charger lay on the windowsill. She plugged it in.
Then she returned to stare at the other phone again.
After a few moments, she picked it up and turned it on. Once again, nothing, but this time her search for a charger failed. Maybe it was in the locked drawer.
Quickly, she pawed through the keys, identifying most of them and finally deciding on one that looked like it would fit the drawer.
Her hand shook as she inserted the key.
It’s only a drawer.
It slid open.
The charger was there, so she set up the second phone. Would she have the courage to open it once it was ready?
The contents of the drawer were slim: a checkbook, a coaster from someplace called the Ascent Bar, and an envelope. She opened the envelope. A ticket to LaGuardia Airport in New York City for Monday the week after John had died, with a return the following Friday.
She searched her memory, trying to recall if he’d mentioned a trip. Was he going to tell her right before he left? He’d done that a few times.
And it had always been a trip to New York.
She picked up her own phone and searched for Ascent Bar. It turned out to be an upscale bar at the top of a building overlooking Central Park. What was he doing there? If he was with a client, why would he have brought home a coaster? That was the sort of thing a lovesick teenager might do.
Horror overwhelmed her. Had John been having an affair? How would she ever find out? Did she even want to?
She needed to talk to someone. But who? Did she want comfort or answers?
With anger flooding her body, she certainly didn’t want comfort.
She dialed her mother.
“Hello, dear. How nice—and unexpected—for you to call.”
“Was John having an affair?” Kelly got right to the point.
“John? For heaven’s sake. Whyever would you think that?”
“I found a second phone. And tickets to New York. And a ... well, something else.” The coaster seemed a prop in a bad comedy.
“It never does go well when a wife looks too closely at her husband’s things.”
There were a thousand things Kelly could ask after that statement, and all of them were things she didn’t want to know.
“So he was having an affair.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Look, he left you well provided for, and he was always there for you and the kids. Let the poor man rest in peace. Why do you have to know?”
The question was good. John was dead. Why did it matter what he did when he was alive?
Because she needed to know if she had been living an illusion all those years, if she had been following the rule book all by herself. If he had been having an affair, she’d never be able to forgive him. Never. No matter how dead he was.
And she’d never again be able to give a man her full trust.
