24. Avery
24
AVERY
I ’m expecting an explanation.
A few moments pass.
He’s just lying there frozen on the bed.
A few tears roll down his face.
Now I’m waiting for a denial or some flimsy excuse.
Nothing.
More time passes, and he still hasn’t uttered a word.
I’m done waiting.
I need to get out of here before he has time to come up with a pretty lie to try and turn my head.
That was Kyle’s favorite thing to do, and he was exceptional at it.
No matter what he had done or how badly he’d hurt me, he always managed to twist it around so it was my fault.
When I told him he’d hurt my feelings, no, he didn’t. I was just overreacting and being hysterical. Then it was my fault he got upset and had to yell at me because my feelings were setting him off.
When I told him he humiliated me in front of his friends at the country club, no, he didn’t. All he was doing was providing a gentle correction to help me fit in, and how dare I fly off the handle. It was for my own good.
When I got depressed because I was so downtrodden and isolated, it wasn’t his fault. I was just, and I quote, “fucking insane.”
Then when I was right at the edge of a complete and total breakdown, he’d give me a beautiful speech about how perfect I was for him, how wonderful I was, and how he loved me more than air.
The speech was usually accompanied by a grand gesture like a fancy weekend trip, a rose petal bath, color coded sticky notes on the wall detailing all the things he loved about me, or a new jewelry piece from my favorite store—to name a few.
I worked hard in therapy to understand how toxic he was and how to start undoing all the damage he’d done. There was no way I was about to wait around for Jamie to do the same thing.
My hand is on the bathroom door when I hear him.
“Wait. Please, Avery, I can explain. I promise it’s not what you think.”
The sheer brokenness of his voice makes me pause.
“You have until I get dressed to explain yourself, and then I’m leaving.”
He makes several false starts, but each time, Jamie chokes up and can’t get more than a word or two out. I’ve seen this before with Kyle too, but with Jamie, it actually feels genuine. The fact that he can’t even manage to get the words out makes me inclined to trust him. If it were Kyle, he would have already told me some flowery story by now.
As I zip up the back of my dress, he finally manages a full sentence.
“I don’t think I can tell you without having a breakdown. Can I…” He takes a deep breath. “Can I show you instead? It’s only about twenty minutes away.”
“Yes, but I’m going to be sharing my location with Mia the entire time so someone else knows where I am.”
He recoils like I’ve hit him.
“That’s fair. I wouldn’t trust me either if I were you. I get it.”
Jamie disappears into his closet for a few moments, then comes out fully dressed with a lacquered box in his hands.
Neither of us utters a single word on the way to the van—Jamie because he can’t and me because I won’t.
Quiet isn’t unusual for us. We often have evenings where we sit in silence with our books, just existing together.
It isn’t like that now. This silence has the same stabbing pain as plunging your hand into freezing cold water.
He shrinks into himself when I refuse to allow him to help me into his truck, but he still doesn’t say anything.
The ride is dead quiet. He doesn’t even bother to turn on the radio.
My mind is full of questions I’m too afraid to ask.
Is he taking me to his other girlfriend’s house? His wife’s?
What kind of sick game is he playing?
Is he going to dump me in the middle of nowhere like Kyle did that one time?
You should have taken your own car, you idiot.
As soon as I see the cemetery, my chest is crushed under the weight of my own shame.
I am such an asshole.
When he offers his hand to help me out of the truck, I take it.
We’re still quiet as we walk, but it’s a somber silence rather than a painful one. Then she’s right in front of us.
Julia Murphy, a mystery wrapped in an enigma and the best friend you could ever wish for.
Now that’s an epitaph.
Jamie clears his throat. “Avery, I’d like you to meet my wife, Julia.”
“You never told me you were married. It still would have hurt my feelings a bit, but I would have understood why her name slipped out. Why is this the first time you’re telling me?”
“I promise to answer that question, but it’ll be easier if I start from the beginning.”
“Okay.”
He opens the box and hands me a photo album. “Go ahead, Take a look.”
I open the album and see a collection of photos of a blonde woman with traditionally Irish features. Some photos are of her and Jamie, who apparently had strawberry blond hair before it went silvery, but there are others of her alone, her with friends, and her with people who I can only guess are her parents.
If the pictures are anything to go by, she seemed like a happy, fun-loving woman.
In another life, I wonder if we would have gotten along.
“How did you meet?”
“Well, my grandparents still lived in Ireland, and just on a whim in my senior year, I applied to Trinity College, Dublin. To no one’s surprise but mine, I got in. My grandparents were thrilled and insisted on hosting me and helping with my tuition. My family did okay, but we weren’t so well off that we could turn down that kind of offer. So I went.
“We met freshman year. She was from Donegal, so she was living on campus, and I can’t tell you how much time we spent in her dorm room.” He shuffles his feet awkwardly. “Sorry, you probably didn’t want to hear that.”
“It’s okay. This is your story. Whatever you want to tell me is alright. Just don’t make the intimate bits more detailed than that, if you don’t mind?”
“I can do that.”
“Go on,” I encourage. “I’d love to know more about her.”
“Well, we fell head over heels in love, and she complemented me in many ways. Her wicked sense of humor helped keep me from getting too serious, and my gosh, was she a hopeless romantic. We didn’t even make it to graduation before we got married. I was twenty. She was nineteen. All of our family was there, and they were so happy for us.
“Right after we graduated, we moved back to the States because there were better business opportunities for me. Julia was nervous to move from the only place she’d ever known, but she told me she would follow me anywhere.
“I made sure we visited Ireland together at least once every year, and whenever we had a little extra money, I’d send her back home on her own for a little vacation. The only thing she wanted that I didn’t give her was kids. She was set on having them as soon after graduation as we could. Her career was in the art preservation field, but she felt like her true calling was to be a mother.”
“Is that how she passed?” I ask gently.
“No.” His voice is saturated with grief. “I kept putting it off, telling her we didn’t have enough money, the house was too small, I wouldn’t be able to take off enough time from work to help her, etcetera. She was patient with me. When I was twenty-nine, I felt like I was in a place where I could take care of her the way she deserved. My company was in a position where I could take all the time I needed to be with her when the baby came. We had enough space, enough money, so we decided it was time to add to our family.
“The first year, we didn’t have any luck, but we kept trying and then—” His voice breaks. “Then a few weeks after her twenty-ninth birthday, I came home and found her on the floor, and she was already gone.”
I put the album back into the tin and set it on the ground before holding him close and letting him grieve how he needs to. The shoulder of my dress quickly becomes damp with his tears.
He must have loved her so much.
It’s then that all the pieces fall into place. This is why he’s been so businesslike in the bedroom until today. That’s why he always struggles to voice any feelings he has, even though I can see them in his eyes.
I know I should be angry that he’s kept this from me, but I can’t seem to hold onto it. All I feel is compassion for him over the loss of the person he thought he’d spend his whole life with.
When he pulls away and wipes his eyes, I feel brave enough to ask the morbid question that’s been lurking in the corner of my mind.
“How did it happen?”
“She had a brain aneurysm. They found it when they… when they were trying to figure out what happened after she” —Jamie swallows hard— “After she passed. They said it was quick and she didn’t feel a thing.
“I felt everything. I really thought the grief was going to eat me alive. The only thing that got me through it was Phillip and Wesley dragging me out of the house. I leaned on them pretty hard, but it just never felt worth it to make that kind of connection with anyone again once I knew how quickly I could lose them. At least it hadn’t been until recently.”
The weight behind his words leaves me breathless. I don’t have the words to address it, so I go for the easier option.
“I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been for you, losing someone so unexpectedly. I’m sorry.”
“We had a good ten years together.” He smiles sadly. “Honestly, my only real regret is that I’d put off having kids. I know it would have been hard to be a single parent—especially now that I’ve seen you and everything you do for Leo—but if that meant there was a little piece of her still on this earth, I like to think I could have done it.”
“I’m sure you would have done a great job—at least based on how you are with Leo. And it’s not so bad being a single parent. It’s far better than it would have been if my ex had been in the picture.”
“He’s never met Leo?” Jamie’s brows lift in surprise.
“Never wanted to. Even if he did, it would've been hard to manage after the judge stripped him of his parental rights.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could cram them back in.
I can see in his eyes that he’s got a white-knuckle grip on his self-control.
“Tell me what happened.”
“It’s not important.”
My hand unconsciously drifts to my belly, and before I can yank it away, he catches the movement. I see his face pale as he puts the pieces together.
“Where is he?” he demands.
“Please don’t make this a big deal. It’s over.”
“You were pregnant and he put his hands on you. There’s no bigger deal than that.”
“Just let it go. What would your wife say?” I ask in an attempt to defuse the situation.
“You think I’m bad?” He chuckles. “In the time it took us to have that conversation, she would have successfully hunted him down. Even if I had Wesley and Phillip to help me, we wouldn’t have been able to pull her off him.”
“She sounds like a passionate person.”
“I’d say it was more like she had a strong sense of justice. Whenever Julia saw something wrong in the world, she wouldn’t have a moment’s rest until she’d done everything she could to fix it.” His eyes drop to her headstone. “It was one of the things I loved about her.”
“Do you think she would have liked me?”
It’s a selfish question, but it slipped out before I could stop myself.
“I think so, but more importantly, I think she would have approved of you. To be honest, I’m not convinced she didn’t have a hand in our meeting.”
A blush creeps over my cheeks. “I certainly hope I can live up to her standards.”
“I think you’ve exceeded them.” He takes my hands in his. “I’m sorry I didn’t take you here sooner. Are we okay?”
“Yeah, we’re okay.”
He presses a quick kiss to my cheek. “Ready to go home?”
I nod and start to turn away, but he doesn’t let go of my hands.
“Just one more thing before we go because I want her to hear it too.”
“What is it?”
“I let you change the subject this time, but I’m not stopping until I get to the bottom of what happened with your ex, and neither will Wesley or Phillip. I promise you, we will find out, and we’ll make sure he never comes near you again.”