WHAT IS THE PERFECT MARRIAGE? When I first met Conrad, I felt like acceptance was the key. I was at a fellow teacher’s cookout. A rare public venture, since even back then my past followed me everywhere. But it was May, a beautiful sunny day after another long Boston winter, and I wanted one afternoon of feeling like everyone else. So I showed up, a young teacher, hanging out, eating slightly charred chicken in a colleague’s backyard.
I heard his laugh. That’s what caught my attention first. Booming. Natural. Unencumbered. In my family, my parents’ house . . . I don’t remember ever hearing anyone laugh like that.
Conrad was standing in the corner near the fence, sweaty beer in hand, ketchup stain on a blue Hawaiian shirt. He was clearly holding court, regaling the gathering throng. So I drifted closer, still on the outskirts, but listening now.
Windows. He was telling stories of windows. Of five-by-three windows that arrived being fifteen inches by thirteen inches, and custom creams that showed up pine green, which he was then informed was merely a darker shade of cream, and even better the order he placed for a fancy home in Barrington, Rhode Island, that the factory claimed it couldn’t deliver because Rhode Island wasn’t a state—surely he meant Long Island instead.
More laughter. More swigs of beers. More stories from the road.
I don’t know how long I stood off to the side before he noticed me. He glanced over once or twice, taking in the crowd, but surely not zeroing in on a slim woman with dirty-blond hair, still nursing her first beer, which was more of a placeholder than a beverage.
Then, suddenly, he stood before me. The crowd had disappeared and the man himself had appeared. Up close, he was compact, muscularly built, with light brown hair and deep blue eyes. His features were tan, and when he smiled his teeth were a flash of white against his sun-darkened skin.
He looked . . . strong and capable and funny and honest and like all my hopes and dreams rolled up into one package.
Then he shook my hand. Reached over and simply took it, and the feel of his calloused fingers against my skin . . .
I wanted him right then. In a way I’d already taught myself never to want anything. I didn’t move. I didn’t smile hello. I didn’t offer my name. But it didn’t matter. He did the talking for both of us. He did the laughing for both of us. Later, he asked for a walk around the block, just so we could get to know each other, and he asked me so many questions, that I found myself answering.
None of my answers fazed him. Not my job as a math teacher (great, a woman with brains!), not my legendary father (that must be interesting, I don’t have any family left), and not what had happened one day when I was sixteen, that still left me gutted and reeling and untethered to real life (I’m so sorry, I lost both my parents several years ago; you never get over the loss).
By the time we hit the end of the street and were headed back, I was hooked. I wanted the boom of his laugh, the brightness of his company, the way he looked at me, truly looked at me. As if nothing I could do or say would shock him. Or make him not want me.
That’s who I fell in love with in the beginning. A guy who seemed to accept me, unconditionally.
It wasn’t until later that I realized that Conrad was also the kind of guy who seemed to get everyone. Strangers gravitated toward him in a crowded bar. Neighbors lingered just to talk to him.
It was his superpower, what made him so good at his job, traveling to job sites, speccing out high-end windows, soothing irate customers.
Everyone loved Conrad. Everyone felt heard and understood and acknowledged by him.
Yet how well did any of us know him? A guy who logged so many hours on the road with little or no accountability? A guy with no family to visit and tell stories about his younger years?
A guy who did all the talking but never really told you anything about himself.
Then there was the locked door.
Innocent enough. I ran out of packing tape in the kitchen. Walked up to Conrad’s office, thinking he’d have a fresh roll. He was traveling, his office door shut. No biggie, I thought. I went to turn the knob only to discover that I couldn’t.
Confusion. A locked door in my own house? Followed shortly by disbelief. Why would Conrad even bother? There was only me hanging around and it’s not like a custom window business involved state secrets. Followed shortly by . . . curiosity.
A locked door is a puzzle. And no self-respecting mathematician can walk away from a puzzle.
It became a game for me. Every time the door was closed, to wander by, test it. Conrad watching TV downstairs at night. Door unlocked. Gone for an afternoon meeting. Locked. Business trips, definitely locked. Two A.M. when I got up just because I had to know, locked again.
I never said a word, of course. That would imply that I didn’t trust him—wouldn’t it?
Anyway, I grew up with a mom who regularly manipulated reality to best suit her needs. I didn’t want to be told an answer. I wanted to learn it for myself.
So I did what any dysfunctional adult who is accustomed to chronic lies would do: I waited till my husband’s next business trip; then I picked the lock to his private office.
My hand shook when I first cracked open the door. My heart was pounding. I felt like Bluebeard’s wife, stepping into the very room she’d been warned about. The next thing I would see would be the hanging corpses of past wives.
I discovered file cabinets. Stacks of window catalogues. A printer/scanner. And a cleared spot on the desk where Conrad’s laptop usually lived. I went through the files. Once you’ve committed B and E you can’t just walk away. I found project files, various blueprints for homes up and down the East Coast. I found vendor files, handwritten notes on upcoming product changes, and new and improved color options.
In the end, I got on my hands and knees. I searched for documents taped under the desk, files slipped behind the cabinets, maybe even a computer code stamped to the bottom of the executive leather chair. I felt crazed. A woman having an out-of-body experience. It struck me that this was exactly what my mother would do. My poor husband was simply in the habit of locking up, and here I was, turning it into sordid drama.
Why couldn’t I simply trust him? Or was it me I didn’t trust? Did I figure that anyone who loved me the way he loved me had to have something wrong with him?
I crawled around the office on my hands and knees. I went through every single scrap of paper. If Conrad hadn’t been out of town, if he’d returned home early, there’s no way I would’ve been able to justify my behavior, the total gutting of his neat and almost hyperorganized professional space.
Except I’m a mathematician, raised by one of the world’s best intellects. And part of brilliance isn’t just solving a problem; it’s seeing a problem no one else realizes is a problem yet.
A locked room, in the privacy of a man’s own home, containing only files and not even a computer . . . Why? Why lock it at all?
A puzzle. I needed the solution.
Then I saw the lone piece of semivaluable equipment. The printer/scanner. With a memory cache.
I fell in love with Conrad for his loud laugh, his smile, his personality. And, no, I didn’t find any bodies of murdered wives that day. But in the end, I did find a bread crumb. An image of a scanned document, a record of a bank account that I never knew existed.
Not a crime. Not even anything I could mention without having to reveal how I discovered it. But a piece of a puzzle.
Which, of course, I churned and worried and worked. Until I waited for him to go on trips, just so I could once more rip apart his space. Except then he started regarding me through narrowed eyes upon his return, probably because I didn’t put everything back perfectly, so he knew something was off even if he didn’t quite know what.
I started taking pictures. Of exactly how the office looked upon entry, so I could carefully replace each item. Then, when he still seemed unsettled, I started checking the doorway for tricks I read about online—a piece of hair positioned across the doorway, which would be broken upon entry. Easy enough to replace with one of my own upon exiting. Or lint positioned just so on top of a slightly skewed open drawer. Which I photographed and returned to its exact location.
A duel of sorts. Months, years. A period of strain followed by a period of shame when I swore to myself I’d stop this madness. Conrad was a good guy. Conrad loved me. If he had financials that were his own, frankly, so did I. That made us independent adults, not government spies or nefarious criminals.
But eventually I would break again. And back into the office I would go, tearing apart my marriage in search of answers to a question I couldn’t even ask.
What is the perfect marriage? Acceptance, I had thought. But I’d assumed it would be my husband’s acceptance of me. I’d never stopped to consider that maybe I’d prove incapable of accepting him. That maybe my mother, via the lie that had become my adult life, had warped me even more than I’d understood.
You can’t sneak around in a marriage forever. Sooner or later, no matter how careful you are, you’re going to get caught. Yet I couldn’t stop. It’s almost as if I wanted Conrad to figure out what I was doing. I needed our marriage to fall apart.
Except, suddenly, two made three.
Then my mistakes truly came back to haunt me.
I DON’T KNOW what to do. I can’t go outside. Even this late at night, the media vans remain a solid wall of high-powered lights parked just across the street. I’m too keyed up for sleep, my brain jumping between images of Conrad’s blood-spattered body and our home’s burnt-out shell. I should rest for the baby’s sake. I should flee my mother’s house for my sake. I should do . . . something.
But I don’t know what. Sixteen years ago, confronted by a similar tragedy, I’d simply done what I was told and taken the blame. Now?
I hate the lingering sense of déjà vu. And worse, the feeling of once more being helpless.
I hadn’t lied to the detective. I still don’t know what happened to my father. One moment, I had a dad, my hero, my rock, the man I could always count on. Then he was dead. Just like that.
My mom’s response upon entering the kitchen . . . it wasn’t horror; it was outrage mixed with hysteria. That he’d gone and died? Or that he’d gone and killed himself, which is what I’ve always wondered. At sixteen, shell-shocked and traumatized, I’d never thought to question my mom. If she said we needed to keep what happened between us, then we needed to keep it between us. Denial was what my mother did best.
I followed her lead that afternoon. It wasn’t hard. A terrible tragedy had occurred. In my own mind, it was easy enough to substitute myself with the shotgun, maybe even easier than contemplating my beloved father positioning the gun beneath his ribs. Standing grimly in front of the refrigerator, which offered the safest backdrop for gunfire (when cleaning the shotgun, he’d instructed, always aim it at the stainless steel appliance). Then, upon hearing the crunch of my mother’s car tires in the driveway, pulling the trigger.
No, it was so much easier to lie than to picture any of that.
For all my father’s brilliance, I’d seen the dark shadows that lurked in his eyes. The way he sometimes smiled but still appeared sad. The times he squared his shoulders before walking into his office, appearing less like a gifted mathematician off in search of answers and more like a soldier burdened by a never-ending war.
The truth is, genius and depression have always gone hand in hand. Which was why I spent so many afternoons, sitting at the piano, playing and playing, because my father said my music soothed his spirit and allowed him to rest in a way a truly great mind could never completely be at ease. I did my best to music the sadness out of him.
And that day, walking into the kitchen, my father’s hot blood dripping down into my hair, I felt the weight of my failure. That I had loved this man so much, and tried so hard, and it still wasn’t enough.
Just like Conrad.
I hope my baby isn’t a boy, I think now. Because I just couldn’t take another such loss.
I SHOULD MARSHAL my resources, I decide. Money. I’m going to need some. Which is the first time I realize how lost I truly am. My wallet, cell phone, car keys, had all been in the house—which, according to the detectives, is now nothing more than a pile of charred ruins. I have a moment of growing hysteria: Next time you’re arrested for the murder of your husband, grab your purse!
But of course, I hadn’t, and the police certainly hadn’t offered to fetch anything. Meaning I have . . . nothing.
Not completely true. I have a head for figures. Including bank accounts. Just because I don’t possess a checkbook or debit card, let alone an unmelted driver’s license, doesn’t mean I don’t know my accounts and their exact balances. The savings account has some money. Not a lot, as neither Conrad nor I had high-paying jobs and it seemed like most of our checks were spent on home renovations.
Then again . . .
My head starts spinning. Suddenly, I’m thinking about a lot of things. Including scraps of documents in a printer/scanner. Conrad’s news upon learning we were pregnant. Other forms of photo ID.
The house was burned to the ground. Including Conrad’s precious office and all his customer files.
But some things he valued even more than his office. Some things he had made fireproof.
I am not helpless, I tell myself. I’m damaged and incredibly sad. But I’m not helpless.
And now, with a little help from my lawyer, I have a plan.