Chapter 38
Bennett
want to push too hard on a bruise. Traffic was nil, so he figured they’d be home in just over an hour. The road was dark.
Since Olivia was silent, he tossed her a glance. The light from oncoming traffic played in the hollows of her eyes, illuminating
them, then obscuring again.
Olivia caught his eye in a brief flash.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I think that’s fair,” said Bennett in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. “Considering what we just went through.”
He didn’t want to make her feel pressured to talk. On the other hand, tonight had taught him that they could no longer continue
as they had. The phrase “ships crossing in the night” came to mind. Olivia had been bearing five years of guilt. He had been
bearing five years of anger. Neither was justified. It was going to take Bennett a while to figure out how to not feel really,
really shitty about all that wasted time.
And it was going to take him a while to figure out what to do with his intense anger at a dead woman—not to mention Phelps.
He took the exit onto the toll road.
“I can’t believe she’s dead,” said Olivia, propping a foot up on the dashboard. She laughed awkwardly. “I know I was a complete
wreck all night. I have so much processing to do. About all of it.”
“Well . . . I hope you’ll do it with me,” said Bennett. He cleared his throat. “I don’t want us to be so . . . I don’t know.
So guarded. I’m not blaming you. It’s just . . . I want things to be better. You know?”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“Why did you . . . freak out?” He wasn’t sure this was tactful phrasing, but he forged on. “When Phelps and I came back. When
you ran into the cornfield.”
There had been no time to ask, amid the drama of Jenn’s death, the arrival of law enforcement, and Doug’s arrest.
She shook her head. “At that point I thought Phelps had assaulted me. Since I was so drunk five years ago, I wasn’t in any
position to give consent, you know? That’s what I was thinking. And then you two came in all buddy-buddy with this totally
different story . . .”
“Ah,” said Bennett. There was a sharp pain in the left side of his chest. He wished she could have told him. Wished she could
have felt safe telling him. What did it mean about him that she’d fled?
Olivia’s voice was soft in the dark. “Now that everything with Jenn is out, and hearing Phelps’s side before we said goodbye . . .
well, now I know it didn’t happen. That’s what actually makes sense, because I don’t have any memory of having sex. There weren’t even any—you know. Signs. But Jenn was so certain. And the circumstances made it seem possible, so . . .
I just hung everything on her story.” Olivia made a mirthless sound. “Even though it wasn’t what I thought, I do hate that
Phelps did . . . that.” She shivered. “I know he was in a different room when he—” She flashed Bennett a glance. “I don’t know if I have a mental category for it, actually. Except that I feel . . . gross.”
“That’s not on you,” said Bennett, his heart squeezing. “You want me to go back and beat the shit out of him? You want me
to cut him off? Tell him we never want to see him again? Because I will.” His pulse was thundering now. He squeezed the steering
wheel until it felt like his knuckles were going to punch through the skin.
Olivia made a noncommittal sound, then quietly said, “No. I think I just need . . . time.”
Bennett’s pulse slowly returned to a steadier rate. Okay. They weren’t going to be rash. One step at a time. He could do that.
“You must have really trusted Jenn,” he finally said.
“I think it’s more to do with . . . past scars. Actually—” Olivia took a deep breath. “I want to tell you about . . .”
Bennett waited. They passed a lit-up South Shore station like a lonely beacon in the night.
“The guy before you,” she completed. “I’m not ready to talk about it tonight. But maybe tomorrow. After we’ve slept.”
“Whatever you have to say, you don’t have to be nervous. About my reaction, I mean. I will support you one hundred percent,”
said Bennett fervently.
That would be a hard conversation—he had an inkling of what was coming thanks to Phelps’s slipup. Still, in spite of the tough
things ahead, it felt so good that everything had been put right with his wife. Not even Jenn’s death could mar that solid
sense of relief.
There was a huge truck cramping his style. He merged left to get around it. They were passing through Gary, Indiana. A depressing
place, Bennett had always thought, but he’d always held out hope too, that it would bounce back one day, that the whole region
would.
“We’ll have to show up for Will,” said Bennett as he cleared the truck and returned to the center lane. He always drove center. Olivia stayed firmly right, unless she was passing.
“Absolutely,” said Olivia. “I’ve been thinking . . . we could take his girls for a weekend. Maybe even on a regular basis.
I bet Norah and Mackenzie would get along great.”
“I kind of want to go to Indy right away,” said Bennett. His eyes strayed to the right, where a flame lit up the night: the
US Steel Gary Works. Always running. “Maybe in the next few days. You know, show our support early on.”
“How about you go tomorrow?” said Olivia.
Bennett reached his right hand blindly toward the middle of the car. Olivia took it.
He sighed. It felt good to have his fingers meshed with hers. To know they were in this together.
“So everything is okay between us?” he said.
“I can’t believe you thought I cheated and didn’t say a word for five years.”
Bennett laughed shortly. “I thought I was being a good man. You know. The strong silent type? The opposite of my dad, who’s
the shitty silent type?”
“Hmmm.” For a minute, Olivia seemed lost in thought. “Maybe strength and silence don’t always go together.”
He squeezed her hand and understood implicitly that she wasn’t just talking about him.
She added in a rare tone of wry humor, “I guess she really does look like John Rutherford Rhodes.”
It took Bennett a second. Then he laughed. Olivia laughed too.
“I’m sure she’ll grow out of it,” he said.
“And I’m afraid she won’t,” Olivia returned.
They sat in amiable silence for a while. Bennett let go of Olivia’s hand to adjust his seat belt. He adjusted his speed too—he’d
crept over eighty. They whizzed past the Skyway’s Welcome to Chicago sign.
It would be good to be home. They’d scare his in-laws by coming in at five in the morning, but oh, well.
He’d put on coffee. It was too late to go to bed anyway, considering the kids woke up as early as six o’clock.
Maybe he’d make pancakes for them all. New Year’s pancakes, with blueberries spelling out 2020.
Didn’t they have blueberries in the freezer?
“It’s just . . . sad that all that corn is going to waste,” said Olivia.
Huh?
“I missed something,” said Bennett.
“The cornfield,” she said with sudden passion. “By Phelps’s house. I just hate that it was all for nothing. All that time
and all that growth.” She breathed hard out her nostrils.
Wow. He’d had no idea Olivia cared that much about agriculture.
“It’s not going to waste, my eco-conscious wifey,” he said, flashing a reassuring grin in her direction. He scrunched her
shoulder with his hand. “It was too wet last summer, so they winter it. It loses moisture, and then they’ll harvest it in
May.”
In the silence that followed, Bennett stole a look in her direction. Her eyes were alert, riveted on the road, glittering
in the light, like she could see something in the distance. Slowly, her mouth curled into a smile, and Bennett returned his
eyes to the road.
“They’ll harvest it in May,” she repeated.
“Yeah. In May.”
She breathed a satisfied breath out her nose. “That’s good.” Then she leaned over in her seat and kissed a surprised Bennett
on the cheek. “That’s really good.”
They didn’t speak for a long time, but Olivia reached for his hand again and angled her knees toward him.
The Year from Hell was in the past, and so were its lessons, which had turned out to be total trash .
. . or at least pretty damn flawed. Bennett would have to sort through it all again.
There would be lessons to unlearn. Damage to repair.
New habits to develop and new patterns to make.
But it would be okay, because he wouldn’t do it alone this time. He’d do it with Olivia.
As they shot across the Skyway, he hummed “My Blue Heaven” and Olivia leaned her head against his shoulder.