34. 34
Annabelle
Then
I bribed Laura with a cheap bottle of wine and grocery store sushi if she’d come over and keep me company while I pack Kyle’s office. I’m grateful for her ongoing emotional support. It’s been three months since he died, and I haven’t brought myself to deal with this room yet.
After a promise of donuts for breakfast tomorrow, I put the kids to bed a little early tonight, so that Laura and I could work without interruption.
“Ah, look at these old preschool photos of Grace,” Laura coos, pausing in her task of cleaning out the filing cabinet. Smiling, she thumbs through them before holding one up for me to see. “God, she was such a cute kid.”
“Hey, she’s still a cute kid!” I protest. “She just acts like a miniature adult.”
“You know what I mean.”
Smiling, we return to our tasks. I’m cleaning out the drawers of Kyle’s desk. So far, the contents are benign—office supplies, old bills, some random junk mail that never got thrown away, and the like.
I groan when another country song plays from the speaker on Laura’s iPhone. “How many country songs are on your freaking playlist?”
“Shut your pie hole, woman. I’m giving up my Sunday evening to help you, so the least you can do is listen to my music,” she sasses with a smirk.
I roll my eyes but stop arguing because she makes a good argument.
“But for you, I’ll switch to Taylor Swift.”
The song loml drifts through the room. Not one of Taylor's upbeat tracks, but its somber tone fits the moment.
“Hey, is this…” Laura trails off without finishing her question.
From my perch on Kyle's office chair, I spin to face her, and I see that she’s holding a cell phone in her hand.
I nod. “Yeah, that’s Kyle’s second phone.
The one I found in the garage.” I blow out a breath.
“I burned the rest of the stuff I found that day, but I didn’t know what to do with the phone. ”
My earlier smile is gone as my stomach bottoms out. I hate the reminders of that day. Pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes, I huff out, “This sucks.”
“It does. It royally sucks.” Laura fiddles with the phone. “But… do you have a charger for it? Maybe we could try to crack the passcode again. ”
I make a face. “I got drunk a couple of weeks ago and tried so many failed passcodes that now I can’t try again for another decade.”
One corner of Laura’s mouth quirks up in an understanding half-smile. “Maybe it’s better not knowing the details.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I pause, considering. “Although if I can get answers, I want them.”
Spinning in my desk chair, I get back to work. Closing the cleaned-out top drawer of his desk, I open the next drawer and spot a manila envelope with Kyle’s name written on it in large black letters. Morris, Kyle . It’s stamped with the address of the Nashville Police Department.
My heartbeat flutters. A wave of overwhelming anxiety rushes through me.
These are Kyle’s personal effects from the day he died. When the coroner handed me the envelope after the wreck, I never had the heart to open it. Seeing his wallet and wedding ring would have been too much.
Hell, even after three months, it still is. But I force myself to do it. Carefully, I rip open the envelope and pour out the contents.
“What’s that?” Laura asks, hearing the clatter of items hitting the wooden desktop. Seeing the look on my face and what lies on the desk, she gasps in understanding. “Oh.”
I finger his platinum wedding band; the metal is cold against my skin. I squeeze it tightly in my hand, wondering if I’ll feel some connection to him. But I don’t. I’m not sure whether I should feel sadness or relief. I blink back the tears that threaten to spill over.
Next is his old, worn leather wallet. I’d been bugging him for years to replace it, but he never would. I can’t bring myself to open it, to see his smiling face on his driver’s license, so I leave it closed .
His key ring is there too, weighed down by a multitude of keys. Lifting them up, I thumb through each one individually. So many keys for one man. I’m not even sure what all they go to—the cars, the front and back doors of the house, probably some for his office at M I can’t sleep; I can’t eat. I can’t look at myself in the mirror.
I can’t keep living this lie.
I’m sorry that I don’t have the strength to tell you this in person, but I can barely write the words on paper. There’s no way I could say them aloud. There’s no way you would ever forgive me. How could you, when I can’t even forgive myself?
I don’t think I can return home and see the pain in your eyes knowing I caused it. I’m too weak to keep going. I’m not the man I want to be. You’re better off without me.
When you read this letter, I want you to know that I loved you and the girls as best I could. For their sakes as much as mine, please keep my secrets, Anna.
I’m so sorry.
Kyle
I reread the letter as I scramble to make sense of it. My heart is beating out of my chest, and my breath is stuck inside me. This cannot be true. Surely, I’m misconstruing Kyle’s words. But after I read it again, slower the second time around, I reach the same two startling conclusions.
And I’m not sure which one is more shocking .
That my husband was gay.
Or that I think my husband committed suicide.
I thought that I’d already gone through the most painful thing I ever could—discovering that my husband was cheating on me and having him die on the same day, leaving me as a widow with two small children.
But I was mistaken. Our entire relationship was built on a foundation of lies, and that blatant betrayal cuts deep.
Did I ever really know the man I was married to for years?
Our field of dreams engulfed in fire / Your arson's match, your somber eyes / And I’ll still see it until I die / You’re the loss of my life
The final notes of the song fade, slowly evaporating into nothingness, taking with them everything I thought I understood about my world.