Chapter 32
CORA
After they take all my personal belongings and wave a metal-detector wand around my body, there is paperwork.
I didn’t know what to expect visiting a jail.
I thought it would be like the movies I’ve seen, and I’d have to sit across from Finn through plexiglass and talk on an old-looking phone receiver.
That’s not how it is. I’m escorted to a room that looks like a small cafeteria.
I sit on a green plastic chair at a small table and watch them bring him into the room.
He’s in a jumpsuit. I had forgotten about that, and seeing him looking so submissive and afraid makes me feel pity for him despite how little he deserves it.
He sits across from me. His eyes are pleading.
“Cora, I—I didn’t do this. I know you hate me.
I know, but you gotta believe me,” he says, with a hopelessness and despair I’ve never seen before—not in all the years of ups and downs.
He’s never looked like this. There is still a small part of me that wants to walk away and let him suffer, but just because he’s a terrible husband and shit human being doesn’t mean he deserves this.
“I know. I believe you,” I say, and his eyes shift, he straightens up. It’s the last thing he ever expected me to say, I can tell.
“You what?” he says. And I know we’re being watched and recorded, so I try to keep eye contact so he knows what I’m doing, how I need him to respond.
“Is there anything else? The warrant? Anything I need to know besides what I told you myself?” I ask, because I do need to know if there is anything more we are dealing with so I can maneuver around it, but the script Paige gave me feels stiff and unnatural, and Finn can tell.
He’s confused, but he’s following my lead regardless.
“The only thing the warrant found that they didn’t already have was his DNA. A hair in my car. Cora, I swear to God on my life that kid was never in my car. All of this is—”
“Don’t worry about that. Mia hung out with him sometimes. That explains the car. Is that it?”
“What? She what?” he asks.
“Is. That. It?” I repeat.
“Uh, you mean besides the massive box of bullshit evidence Paige gave them?” he asks.
I make sure to speak clearly when I explain to him what happened.
“Look, there is a video. It shows Lucas’s car leaving the scene that night at 10:33.”
“I’m sorry. What? I wasn’t there, so there is no way—”
“Stop. What I’m saying to you is that I know that you were covering for him when you said you drove that night, but you don’t have to cover for him. You need to tell the truth,” I say, trying not to leave any breathing room for him to interject something stupid.
“He dropped you off at ten and went back out to confront Caleb. It’s on video, so you should be released as soon as we turn this video over,” I say, and he’s blinking as he stares at me like I am someone he’s never met before.
This side of me he’s never seen was suppressed by years of self-doubt and insecurity, but now he’s seeing the real Cora.
I gain more confidence as I see he’s catching on and this could work.
“So you can tell me the truth. You were covering for Lucas, right?” I say, giving him a look so piercing I think I will him into nodding his head, but he doesn’t.
“What?” He tilts his head. He’s smart enough to know he needs to pick up on something but doesn’t really have a clue what.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We know it was Lucas. The video shows it, so just stop. It’s serious now.
You could be in real trouble if you don’t just tell the truth,” I say, and his eyes dart, his brow is furrowed.
Then he nods and swallows hard. I know that it might work to say Finn drove him home and then Lucas must have left again, but it’s not a clean story.
Between the DNA in our car and the front-bumper repair, I want to keep that out of it and create something that makes more sense, feels more seamless.
“You said you passed Caleb hanging out by those park benches at the neighborhood entrance on your way in, and Lucas said he wanted to go back and talk to him,” I say. “I remember you telling me that. We didn’t think anything of it then.”
“Right,” he agrees, still unsure.
“But now it’s time to tell the truth. You can’t protect him,” I say.
“We’ll get you out of here.” Then I stand up and walk out.
I relish the thought of being the one to save his ass.
After everything he’s done to me, I had the last word.
I had the knife at his throat, and I could have pressed it in, but instead I let him go.
He gets to watch me saunter out of his life with my head held high, not crying and begging the way I have done so many times—from the first time in an Applebee’s parking lot years ago when I found a text saying Come over, baby and he said it was just his coworker making a joke to all of the times in between until the last when I flipped a table on the redhead at a wine bar and was scolded like a child all the way home.
That woman doesn’t exist anymore. I feel him watch my back until I am out of the room, clicking the door shut behind me.
Realistically, they could both go down, and I hold the power to make that happen. What I just did was a kindness, yet somehow, the high road feels like the best revenge.
On my way to my car, I call Paige to tell her it worked, and I share the whole conversation: that he did exactly what we needed him to do, and we all agree it’s time for her to go to the police.
I don’t want to go home right away. I don’t want to face the empty house.
I don’t want to fill it with mindless television and too much wine.
And right now, I don’t want to be with Nicola.
The talking about Lucas and planning and crying has all been exhausting.
It’s almost over, and right now there is nothing more I can do.
I pull into the Moretti’s parking lot as dusk is settling in.
The only time I have felt like myself in weeks, or maybe years if I’m honest, has been in the company of Grant.
I long for a moment where I’m not worrying or mourning or angry—where I am just in the moment, feeling listened to and understood. Sometimes even feeling wanted.
I see him in the warm glow of the restaurant window.
He’s in a white apron. He’s leaning on the bar, talking to a patron, a tall, bony man with a napkin tucked into his shirt collar.
I can tell from here that he is describing, in too much detail, the bottle of wine he’s holding in his hand.
I could turn off the ignition and go inside.
He’d be surprised to see me. I could ask to talk to him privately, in his small office in the back, maybe.
I could start something we’ve both been resisting for a long time—something we both deserve. We wouldn’t talk. I wouldn’t answer him when he asks why I’m here and if anything is wrong. I’d simply kiss him, hard, against the wall until his surprise gave way to reciprocation and...
I stop myself then. I watch him pour the man at the bar a sample with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
I am simultaneously angry at Paige for throwing him away and at myself for my willingness to betray her friendship after knowing what the deepest of betrayals feels like.
I pull away from the restaurant and drive back to my lonely house.