Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
S HANNON
When I woke up this morning, a shroud of gloominess hovered around me... a sense of something being off. I got through the first half of my workday without anything coming to fruition. I figured the bad feeling would stem from something happening at work, but it’s been a fine day so far. There have been no stuffy meetings, and Will has stayed away from me. Maybe the feeling stemmed from my internal distress over not having a chance to explain to Troy that yesterday wasn’t what it looked like. Over not having a chance to tell him what I’ve been feeling. Or because seven days from today, I’m scheduled to stand before the same judge with Troy and our lawyers to finalize our divorce. To confirm the end of us.
Tillie and I step inside the doorway of the restaurant in Aron Falls, and the heat flowing from the overhead vents is like heaven on my wind-burned face. Even the short walk from the car to the door is harsh today. Temperatures are dropping rapidly, and the snowfall is expected to pick up significantly in the next few hours. I dust the snow off my coat while Tillie requests a table.
While we’re waiting to be seated, I glance up, and my eye catches on the smile of the beautiful woman sitting at a table about fifteen feet from me. She’s wearing a trendy winter hat on her head that makes her look adorable and gorgeous at the same time. She looks familiar, though I can’t quite place her, and she’s radiating as she smiles, then laughs, and I swear there’s a twinkle in her eye. She’s young, definitely younger than me, anyway, and I wonder if she’ll always be so happy or if life will kick her in the butt and mess up her dreams.
In the next few seconds, everything changes when reality bitch slaps me in the face. I wish I had only noticed her and moved on to idle chatter with Tillie, checked my email on my phone, or kept staring at the woman. I wish I hadn’t angled my head to see who she was smiling at like that. To see who was making her laugh like I haven’t laughed in a long time.
Now, standing near the hostess stand of this restaurant, I realize I was wrong to let my guard down about today. What I’m seeing feels cataclysmic to my heart. Because my husband is the man sitting across the table from her, he’s the man making her smile like that, making her laugh. He doesn’t notice me—not like I sensed his presence the day Will tricked me into lunch— because he’s too focused on her. He’s smiling, too. A smile that meets his eyes. A smile like I haven’t seen in ages.
I can’t think. I can’t speak. I stare, hoping that any second, something will clear this all from my vision and assure me it’s all a misunderstanding. Tillie must see something in the expression on my face because she shakes my shoulder a bit and then follows my line of vision.
I know she recognizes Troy when a slight gasp escapes her. “Fuck,” she whispers.
I don’t remember following her out of the restaurant. I just remember the vision seared into my brain of what my husband looks like with another woman. A woman who lets him make her smile and laugh like she’s full of joy. She looks like... a fresh start.
No!
This must be something benign. It can’t be a lunch date, which is absolutely what it looked like.
* * *
The first hour or two after seeing Troy blur. Tillie drives me home in my car, then stays with me for a while despite my protests. We don’t talk, and she eventually helps me to bed—the only place I want to be—and tells me to nap, saying she’s already arranged for someone to pick her up. It takes a while to fall asleep. That happens when you cry so much you can’t breathe through your nose.
When I wake up later, my heart hurts. Deep inside me, there must have been a part of me that thought Troy would never move on, especially this quickly. The same na?ve part of me hung onto that fantasy that I would be the only woman this man ever loved.
I know this kind of thinking is entirely selfish. I asked for a divorce, and then I’m not ready to accept him being with someone else, to accept him moving on. Eventually, when the shock dissipates, it’s replaced with anger. Fury.
The odd thing is I don’t know who I’m angry at. Maybe myself that it took me seeing him with someone else to get my true emotions fully to the surface. Maybe him, even though I know, in theory, he hasn’t done anything wrong. And at her. For being beautiful and younger than me and smiling at my husband like he hung the moon.
My husband.
I’ll text him. I have to.
Me: Do you have time to talk?
I’m grateful this weekend is the weekend the kids are all with Ben, Trina, Shyley, and my parents at the indoor water park. I didn’t think I could fake my way through it. Usually, Troy and I go on the weekend trip, too. I wasn’t up to it without Troy this year. Sure, Lincoln isn’t there yet to be with Shyley, but he’s driving down tonight. I didn’t want to be the odd man out.
It’s been ten minutes since I texted Troy, and there’s been no answer, the text left unread. When did I become the person whose text he doesn’t read right away? How did I get demoted in his life, in his heart?
Oh my God. What if it’s because he’s still with her? Maybe he’s not answering my texts because of her.
My phone dings to alert me that I have a text message, and I immediately grab it, only to see it’s my sister messaging.
Shyley: Hey, it looks like we forgot to grab Chase’s stuffed turtle before we left. Do you mind if I send Lincoln to pick it up? He’s ready to leave our house to head out here, but we’ll have one very upset boy on our hands if we don’t get Mr. Turtle to him by bedtime.
Me: Glad you realized it and crisis averted. Yeah, it would have made for a very bad night. I’ll get him ready. Text me if you think of anything else you need as well.
I head up to Chase’s room, and sure enough, Mr. Turtle is lying on the floor. I grab him and head downstairs. While I wait for Lincoln to arrive, I brew a half pot of coffee. Maybe I’ll get some of the bookkeeping I still do for Emily and Lizzy done to help keep my mind occupied and off the fact that Troy isn’t responding to me. Plus, I’m in need of some liquid energy.
While the coffee is brewing, Lincoln arrives, and I let him in. He doesn’t greet me with his usual hug.
“I have Mr. Turtle in the kitchen. Follow me.” When we enter the kitchen, the coffee pot beeps that it’s done brewing. “Do you want a cup of coffee to perk you up before you hit the road?” The trip is only a little over an hour long, but it can be monotonous by yourself.
Lincoln’s face is guarded, with no hint of his usual smile. “No. Just the turtle.” His tone is sharp, and I look up at him.
“What’s wrong with you? Why are you pissed at me?”
His eyes widen and his mouth falls slightly open as he releases an annoyed huff. “Are you being serious right now, Shan?”
I walk to the cupboard and pull down two coffee cups. He’s having a cup with me whether he likes it or not. I pour us each a cup and push his at him. “Drink it. And, yes, I’m serious. You’re giving me the cold shoulder, and Troy has been acting weird for days. He’s not answering my texts, so?—”
“You’re my sister-in-law, and I love you, but do you blame him?”
I’m taken aback by his words. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” I grab my cup and take a seat at the kitchen table. “Sit,” I order him.
“First of all, you’re not the boss of me,”—he pulls a chair out and joins me anyway—“and I get it. Technically, you didn’t do anything wrong, I guess, even though you’re not officially divorced. Did you have to flaunt it that you were out with another guy, though? You had to know how that would hurt him.”
“Oh my God. You’re pissed at me because of the restaurant? Nice. Well, maybe if you reached out and asked what was going on, you’d know it wasn’t what it looked like.”
He rolls his eyes at me, and my heart starts pounding as irritation bubbles up inside me. “Really? Coulda fooled me.”
Now I’m fuming. “Screw you, Linc. That man is my supervisor. Who, by the way, tricked me into lunch with him that day and has been inappropriate for weeks. I’m sorry if I was in shock when he touched my back and didn’t pull away from him fast enough. And what was I supposed to do, jump up from the table and interrupt Troy’s little flirt-a-thon with the cute blonde to explain? Especially when he’s been acting weird with me.”
Lincoln snorts, and I shake my head at him, my face tightening in annoyance.
“Really, Lincoln?”
“Sorry, it’s just you thinking he was flirting with her is hilarious. Do you want to know what he was talking to her about?” I nod. “He was talking to her about the importance of changing her smoke detector batteries every six months—mainly to keep himself from storming over to you and going all ‘my wife’ ragey on the guy.”
“Huh? He wasn’t flirting?”
“Uh, no. Not for her lack of trying, either. He’d never do something like that and risk hurting you.”
Yeah, but he’d have a lunch date with a beautiful woman and make her smile radiantly if he didn’t know I was watching.
“Yeah, well, if he would answer my messages with more than three words, I could have explained all of this to him.”
Lincoln swallows his last gulp of coffee, gets up, washes his mug, and puts it in the drying rack. “Look, I gotta go if I’m gonna outrun the snowstorm that’s coming but cut him some slack. This whole letter thing has him more on edge than he’ll admit.”
Huh?
I must wear confusion on my face because Lincoln stops, looks at me, then closes his eyes and sighs. “I should have known he wouldn’t have said anything. Forget I said that and go a little easy on him for a while.”
“Oh, no, no, no. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Shan—”
“Lincoln, I swear you better tell me right now.”
“Christ, you’re bossy. Just like your sister.” He shakes his head and plops himself back in a seat. “Three-minute version, his father sent him a letter, a long one.”
“Well, he probably didn’t read it,” I say.
“It’s different this time. He’s dying of liver cancer. Long story short, Troy did read it. Then he had set up some time to talk to his dad’s partner and when he talked to her today, she... she told him Doug took a turn for the worse in the last twenty-four hours. The doctors are saying he likely has a few hours up to a day or two to live.”
“Shit,” I whisper. “That’s heavy. Why wouldn’t he tell me?” I’m more asking myself than Lincoln, but I don’t miss the way one of his eyebrows lifts like he thinks it’s obvious why.
Without saying anything to him, I pick up my phone and press the picture of Troy in the favorites section of my contacts. It rings twice and then goes to voicemail. I hang up and look over at Lincoln as he’s watching me. His head is tilted, his brow furrowed. I can practically see the wheels turning in his head.
“You have to leave.” I stand up. When he doesn’t immediately stand, I wave my hand at him to hurry him. “Now, please. I’m going to his house to see if he’s okay.”
Lincoln’s eyes widen, and the look on his face changes, making him appear even more dumbfounded. Yet, he stands. “I’ll leave, but there’s no point going to his house. He’s not there.”
My lungs immediately tighten, my heart racing in my chest when I think about where he might be in light of what I saw this afternoon.
“I-is that why he hasn’t been responding to my texts or answering my calls?” I whisper.
Lincoln shrugs. “Probably. The roads are getting bad, and it’s a two-hour drive to Pennsylvania. He’s probably got his phone on ‘do not disturb.’”
“What? He’s going to Pennsylvania. He... he wants to see Doug?” I’m shocked. He’s always refused any contact with Doug. I guess this is different, though, and I’ve not lost a parent, so I don’t know what goes through your mind when it’s happening, even if it’s a parent you’re estranged from.
“Yeah, I know. I was surprised, too. I think he only told me so someone would know where he was. He got the letter a while ago, before your test, while we were on shift. Didn’t read it right away, but he did read one from Doug’s significant other, and I could tell it shook him.”
An overwhelming sadness fills me. Troy’s been dealing with this for more than a week, and we didn’t talk about it. He’s mostly been dealing with it alone. Then it hits me—after what I saw earlier today, maybe he isn’t alone. Maybe he has had someone to help him, and it isn’t me.
“He shouldn’t be by himself. Where is he going? Where in Pennsylvania?”
It takes a second, but it’s obvious when the realization of what I’m thinking hits Lincoln. “Oh no. No way. He’ll be furious if I tell you and you show?—”
“Did he take someone else with him?” I choke out the words, praying the answer is no.
“What? Of course not. But bad weather is coming, Shannon, and if I tell you and something happens… I can’t give?—”
“Lincoln, I swear on all that is holy that if you don’t tell me, I’m going to get in my car and start driving. I’ll call every hospital on the way to see if Doug is a patient there. I’ll be distracted and at much higher risk of an accident than if you just tell me.”
“Whatever. You wouldn’t do that. You’re all about non-distracted driv?—”
“Try me.” I narrow my eyes at him.
We partake in a stare-off that lasts a solid minute, and then Lincoln huffs. “You know, Shyley and Troy will both be pissed at me for this.” He pulls out his phone and taps away at the screen. A second or two later, my phone dings and I look at it to see he’s sent me the address of the hospital Doug is at.
“Thank you, now, no offense, but get out. I’ve got to get on the road.”
“Rude.” Lincoln grabs Mr. Turtle and heads toward the door. I follow and when we get there, he turns. Before he can do or say anything, I wrap my arms around him in a big hug.
“Thanks, Lincoln,” I whisper.
He squeezes me back for a second, then pulls away. “Text me when you’re there safely. And Shan?” His voice is hushed on his last few words.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for going. Take care of him, okay?”
I smile sadly at him. “I’m going to try. I promise.”