St. Helena, Napa County, California
September 2022
THE BLOW PUSHES KYLE BACKWARD, leaving him clutching his jaw with his hand. When he sees the source of the impact, fear flickers in his eyes. He stands back up to his full height, looking from me to Andrew as Andrew circles him like he’s prey.
“Look, I’m not sure what you think is happening here, but I’m just talking to my fiancée,” Kyle says, raising his hands in either defense or surrender. “I know you’re Andrew Smith. June said she saw you watching her in Brooklyn. If you’re following us, or if you want something with her, you can take it up with me.”
Andrew’s eyes are vacant, and for a second, I think he’s going to turn around and leave. I stare at Kyle, who is now standing with his fists clenched by his sides, like he’s preparing to throw a punch back if he needs to. It’s completely out of character. Kyle isn’t capable of hurting anybody. He doesn’t even kill spiders that he finds in our apartment; instead he uses a wad of tissue to deposit them on the balcony. But obviously Josh isn’t the only man who has lied to me.
“I got your message,” I tell Andrew. “I know what you were trying to tell me. But please—I need to ask him myself.”
Andrew is breathing heavily, like he wants to intervene. But instead, he nods curtly, giving me the space.
I turn to face Kyle. “Did you know who I was when we met? Has our entire relationship been some kind of sick revenge for what happened to Michelle?”
Kyle rubs his jaw with his hand. “I didn’t know who you were. Even when you talked about your husband Josh, I didn’t put it together. It’s not like you showed me photos or anything, and you didn’t tell me his last name. I didn’t go to high school with Michelle. I only saw her at tennis camp every summer. We weren’t even friends, more like acquaintances with tennis in common.”
I so badly want to believe him. “Did she talk to you about Josh? Did you ever meet him?”
“No,” he says, a thin sheen of sweat on his hairline. “No, and no. I just heard … rumors.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“About Josh. Michelle was close with the girls from camp, and the summer she was with Josh, I heard a lot of people talk. Her friends were worried about her. Somebody knew another girl Josh had dated, and there was this nude photo scandal that involved Josh and his twin brother, and her friends were trying to warn Michelle about Josh.”
“Did she listen?” I ask, already knowing the answer. Did I listen, when everyone warned me about getting married too fast?
“I never saw her again after that summer. At camp the next year, everyone missed her … It just wasn’t the same anymore. The girls were going on and on about Josh. About how he must have done something, because she couldn’t have just drowned.”
When Andrew finally speaks, his voice is measured. It’s clear that whatever he’s about to say has been marinating for a very long time.
“I overheard Josh and Michelle arguing a couple of days before she died. About a boy from camp who wanted to hook up with her. He’d apparently called her after camp was done?”
“It wasn’t me,” Kyle says, visibly surprised. “I didn’t even have her phone number. I can think of a couple other guys who had a crush on her … and looking back, I’m sure part of me did too. But I’d never have acted on it, and I certainly didn’t call her.”
Andrew looks unconvinced. He turns to me, as if he hasn’t heard Kyle at all. “After Josh died, I became obsessed with finding out who killed him. I spent hours on the computer. I looked up everything—everyone from Josh’s life, and then from Michelle’s, because I felt like they had to be connected. Two drownings—how could they not be? There was a photo of Michelle and Kyle on the camp’s website. I remembered his name—Kyle Parker.”
“It was one photo,” Kyle says. “What motive would I have to hurt your brother? You think I’d kill a person based on some rumors?”
A small burst of relief. He’s right. It sounds so far-fetched, and Kyle is a person who thinks everything through.
“I wouldn’t have thought about you again,” Andrew says, his eyes focused on Kyle. “But then my mom mentioned June’s wine bar to us, and Sadie looked it up. She found June’s Instagram.” He turns to me. “That’s when she saw the pictures of you with him. I didn’t think anything of it, until I saw his name. It sounded familiar, and I couldn’t figure out how, until I googled him and remembered. Michelle’s friend from camp, engaged to my dead brother’s widow.”
“I know it’s a huge coincidence,” Kyle says. “But like I said, I never even met Josh, just like I’ve never met you, until today. Were you following June, in Brooklyn?”
“No,” Andrew says. “I was in Brooklyn, but I was trying to find you. Because there was no way it was a coincidence. Josh’s death, your connection to Michelle, your relationship with June. I was figuring out how to approach you, but then you flew out here … so I came home.”
I level my gaze at Kyle, tears collecting in my eyes. “You knew Josh was a twin. You knew there were rumors about him. And you never told me.” Kyle knew things about Josh that I never did.
Kyle stares at his hands. “Look, by the time I found out Josh Kelly was your husband who died, we’d been together for a couple of months and I didn’t want to bring him up and wreck things. It felt like we were finally making some progress together, and if I told you what I knew … I thought you might freak out and break things off.”
He’s right. I would have found every reason not to believe him. It would have been Kyle’s word against my dead husband’s. Josh wasn’t there to defend himself, and I would have taken his side. But still: Kyle isn’t someone who lies by omission, no matter how hard the truth is to hear.
“Besides,” Kyle continues. “My connection to him was barely there. I’m telling the truth about Michelle. I only knew about Josh Kelly from some rumors, nothing more. I agonized over whether I should say anything. It was torture—should I tell you and be honest, or not tell you, and spare you the hurt? For all I knew, the rumors weren’t even true.”
Tears start to blur my vision. I want to speak but don’t even know what to say.
“I put it out of my head,” Kyle says. “Who was I to wreck your memories of your dead husband? And what if you told me to go away? I was already falling in love with you.”
I wipe my eyes. If Kyle had been the first person to tell me about Josh and his past, things would have ended between us. But now I’ve been introduced to versions of Josh from multiple people, and it’s my version that doesn’t fit with theirs. Which means Josh was either lying to me, or lying to everyone else.
I force myself to speak, even though defending Josh no longer comes automatically.
“Josh sent me a text message that morning he disappeared that I’ve always suspected he never actually sent himself. You didn’t know me in the months after Josh died, but I’ve told you, I was a mess. What I didn’t tell you were my theories about his death. About that text message. He used a heart emoji. He hated emojis.”
Now I’m thinking back to the thousands of texts Kyle has sent me over the years, the thousands of heart emojis he’s used.
Andrew steps in, his voice clear and calm. “I already told June that Josh and I were supposed to meet up that morning. I kept it a secret, even from Sadie. She had no idea, back then, that I had a twin. But Josh wanted to see me. When they found his things at the beach, I just never bought that he went for a swim. Still, I wasn’t going to try and prove otherwise—I hadn’t talked to him for so long; I knew nothing about his life. But after I saw you and June together on her Instagram, I started figuring it out.”
Panic has made my limbs rubbery. I do the math: sometime after Josh and I started dating, he reached back out to Andrew. He hadn’t told me about Andrew sooner because he didn’t want to risk dragging his messy past into our new relationship. I felt that way with Kyle at first. I wanted the relationship to be fun and carefree. I never wanted to burden him. But because I loved him, I let him carry some of the load.
Maybe Josh was scared to tell me, or embarrassed about his dysfunctional family. Maybe it wasn’t about covering something up, but about being afraid of what I’d think. Afraid I’d run away. Maybe he would have told me eventually, but now I’ll never know.
My eyes burn with angry tears. I never considered that the same burden I shouldered was also weighing Kyle down. He had once mourned a friend, and I was mourning the man who might have killed her.
“I’m sorry,” Kyle says, looking at Andrew with pity in his eyes. “But I had no idea who June was when I met her—that Josh was her dead husband.”
“I tried to believe Sadie when she said my brother drowned, that it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” Andrew says. “Everyone was willing to accept that it was just a big coincidence that he died in the water, the same way Michelle did. That they both drowned.”
He puts a hard emphasis on the word drowned. My gaze flickers to Kyle, and his mouth is quivering, like it’s an effort to keep it shut.
“You’ve been through a lot,” Kyle says. “It’s terrible, what happened.” He reaches for my hand, but I pull it away.
“It is terrible,” Andrew says. “For years after Michelle died, I blamed Josh. I was convinced he’d done it. But as time went on … I realized how angry I was back then. I was looking for somebody to blame. Josh was the reason I got sent to boarding school, and I hated him for it. But it doesn’t mean he killed Michelle. I had no proof, and when he messaged me all those years later, it made me wonder if maybe I was very wrong.”
“Look, I’ve got nothing to hide,” Kyle says. “Do you want me to prove I wasn’t in San Francisco when Josh died? Because I can.”
Andrew steamrolls over him. “I spent a lot of time wishing Josh was dead too. He was dead, to me, for over a decade. But when he actually died, I couldn’t have prepared myself for what that would feel like to really lose him. There was so much I never got to say to him.”
He turns and speaks directly to me, as if Kyle isn’t even here. His eyes are wide and imploring, the same eyes that had looked so calculating when we were alone in his kitchen. I know he feels guilty for his own role in his estrangement from Josh. And most of all, for the horrible, unforgivable way he deceived Michelle.
“There’s no way it was a coincidence, or an accident.”
“June,” Kyle says, dueling for my attention. “I should have told you from the start, but I had nothing to do with Josh’s death. I know I fucked this up, but please, believe me.”
I want to take Kyle’s outstretched hand, get in the rental car with him, and drive away, but that would mean that I definitively believe him—that he’s innocent, and that Josh is guilty. It would mean I’ve spent the last ten years wondering how my life with Josh would have looked—exciting, passionate, deliriously happy. It would mean admitting that my fantasy was nothing but a lie.
I can’t bring Josh back from the dead. But I also can’t move on with the person who might have put him there.
“Is it true?” I ask Kyle. “It was only ever rumors?”
“It’s true,” he says, his jaw quivering. “I swear. Andrew has the wrong idea.”
“No,” Andrew says, shaking his head. I can see the defeat on his face. He needs this connection to make sense in his own brain, the same way I need it to be a coincidence.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Kyle says, reaching out to Andrew. “If you want, we can talk about this—or June and I can just go …”
Andrew extends his own hand, and for a second, I think he’s going to take Kyle’s in a handshake. But instead, he shoves Kyle to the ground. I stand rooted on the spot, unable to move. Andrew and Kyle grapple with each other on the ground, Kyle’s fists swinging, but then Andrew is on top of him with his elbow across his throat, and I’m powerless to make a noise, or do anything. All I can suddenly picture is Kyle on top of Josh in the water, holding him under. Kyle, sending one last text from Josh’s phone to the wife he knew was waiting.
Then the sound of a woman’s scream makes my entire body go cold.