Chapter 43
Vince was a friend of Saima’s brother-in-law.
I met him at a dinner party in her house.
Saima and her husband had obviously had an argument before we arrived.
Binto was snapping at her, ordering her about, complaining that she’d forgotten the oyster crackers when she was laying the table, while he sat on his ass doing nothing.
There were two other couples there, and one older guy.
I gave Saima sympathetic looks and Vince, the older guy, seated opposite, caught me and glanced at me while turning his head slightly to the side.
I think we were all in silent agreement that Binto was a putz.
Later, when Binto went to have a cigar outside with one of his work buddies, while ‘the little wife’ went to the kitchen to get dessert, Vince leaned over and said, ‘I mean, what kind of name is Binto anyway? His real name is Reginald.’ I bust out laughing.
When we were all saying goodnight on the porch, Vince offered me a ride home, but I had my car.
‘Damn,’ he said, ‘can I at least get your number? Or am I too old for you? I’m too old, right?
Just tell me straight out, I promise I’ll take it like a man. ’
I told him I’d be shocked if he took it like a woman and gave him my number.
On our first date in Legal Sea Foods, I learned that Vincent Delgado’s wife, Anjelica, had died in a car crash four years earlier.
He was fifty years old and had two boys aged nineteen and twenty.
I was thirty-four. Vince was a mechanical engineer and had his own company installing and maintaining air-conditioning units in factories, offices and all kinds of commercial buildings.
His sons were smart boys, living and studying in Berkeley, California. Despite the distance, they were close to their dad and called and visited every vacation. He flew out to San Francisco once a month to spend the weekend with them.
We bonded quickly. He and his boys were ice hockey fans, and we went to see the Bruins play whenever we could, with or without the boys.
They were taken aback by my age, I guess.
Carmine and Nick did everything together.
I thought they were sweet. They never said anything disrespectful to me and I made it clear that I was devoted to their dad and would never try to replace their mom.
They were Italian-American Catholics and, though they didn’t attend church, they were good people in the way that mattered.
My dad was the one who was upset – he was only nine years older than Vince and couldn’t accept that I could fall in love with a man with such an age gap.
I was forced to point out the ten-year age gap between Kathy and him, and that stopped him in his tracks.
Poor Dad was ageing rapidly as he tried to keep up with Kathy, who loved to travel, particularly to ski resorts in Colorado and Utah.
Dad broke a wrist the first time but bravely went the next few years until he broke a hip.
This was before the fire that ruined his hands.
Without the full use of them, he had slowed down a lot.
I talked to Kathy, explained to her that maybe Dad should think about taking early retirement, at least from the investment business.
Kathy wasn’t the brightest, but she accepted this, I thought, until the following year when they went to Miami, and she took him skydiving.
I was horrified, but Dad was totally exhilarated by the experience.
He’d been harnessed to an experienced skydiver, and insisted that I should try it.
I decided to butt out then, and told myself it was none of my business.
I also had to tell Dad that my relationship with Vince was none of his business. But, feeling bruised by my previous experiences, I hired a private investigator within the first two months. Vince had one DUI when he was seventeen, but apart from that, he was clean as a whistle.
Mom met him when she visited the following year, 2016.
She wasn’t bothered by the age gap but worried that one of his sons might fall in love with me.
Vince and I laughed about that. Both boys were in stable relationships with Californian girls.
They had no interest in me. Carmine told me he was glad that his dad had a new relationship, because he’d been broken-hearted by the death of Anjelica, and now that he had me, they didn’t have to worry about him as much.
Anjelica was ever-present in our relationship.
She had been outgoing and gregarious. Vince’s friends often mentioned her when I was around and then would look apologetically at me.
In Vince’s house, her photo stood on the piano.
She looked nothing like me, a striking brunette with a megawatt smile, heavy eye make-up and crimson lipstick.
He talked about her sometimes, recalling what she used to order when we were at his favourite restaurant, how she hated the garbage collectors because one of them had wolf whistled at her through the window when she was breast-feeding Nick.
She had been outraged and called the cops and the waste-management company.
He said she never wore jeans as she considered them too masculine.
He was not being critical. Vince rarely commented on what I was wearing – I don’t think he noticed.
He proposed a year into our relationship.
I had sensed it was on the cards and that maybe Vince thought that five years was a respectable amount of time to leave between burying one wife and marrying another.
Apparently, his sons had already given their approval.
I said yes. I told myself that this was love.
There didn’t have to be sparks and whistles, just a man I could trust.
Vince needed to know if I wanted children, and how many.
I could see his relief when I told him I didn’t want to have any.
I said that my career was too important to me.
Vince had raised two awesome young men, and now admitted he never wanted to change another diaper in his life.
He had been a hands-on dad, and Anjelica had been a wonderful mother.
He didn’t need to say that it would be impossible for him not to compare us.
I didn’t mind having this ghost hovering over our relationship, because I had one too, though I never told Vince about Milo.
Since the Boston Marathon in 2013, he had appeared in my waking thoughts and middle-of-the-night dreams even more regularly.
Why had he been determined to serve a full sentence rather than admit the truth?
It bugged me that he was trying to be some martyr-like figure, all the time Margie was sending me letters and making sleazy insinuations about what I was doing in New York, not to mention trying to have my dad’s church burned down.
I hated that he had turned into such a manipulator, but as desperate as he had seemed in prison, the wound in my heart had reopened in some undefined way.
I’d expected to hear from him and was scared that he would turn up one day.
I kept my distance from Fenway Park where I knew he might be likely to go see a Red Sox game.
I’d put out some feelers through my friends.
They said he was back working in Billy’s Diner.
I discovered that he too was keeping tabs on me when a letter from him landed in my office in 2016.
Dear Erin,
I know that you won’t welcome this letter, but I’ve been out for three years, and I need you to know that you’re still the most beautiful girl I ever saw and the only one I ever wanted.
I hope that guy you married knows how lucky he is.
I won’t bother you again. Margie says my broken heart will mend one day.
I’m not sure I believe her, but I got to make a life for myself though I don’t know how I’m going to do that without you.
You will be a great wife and an awesome mother, but you can’t use the names we picked for our kids, okay? Though I don’t imagine you will.
I appreciated those monthly parcels when I was inside. I got to tell you, they were a godsend and sometimes they saved me from trouble. Thank you very much.
I don’t know what to say about Ruby. When you came to the prison that time and told me she was an alcoholic, I wasn’t too surprised and I’m not sorry for her, but if she has to live with a lie her whole life, even now when she’s a grown-ass woman, there are consequences to that.
I’m not taking responsibility for it. My mom drowned herself because of Ruby’s lies and maybe that’s why I can’t see myself forgiving her any time soon, or ever.
I served my whole sentence because I wouldn’t tell a lie.
I thought you knew me better, and that’s what hurts the most.
By the way, Margie did not send you any emails or letters and I can hardly believe you would think she’d set fire to a church, but then I think of what you believe about me and I’m just not sure any more.
I read all about you in the Globe. They said you were publishing books. I’ve read them all, even the kids’ ones, and you sure know what readers want, but I meant what I said about your stories, Eri. They were better than anything you’ve published. Please don’t waste your talent.
M x
A day later, I got a text from the burner phone I had logged as Margie. There were photos of naked women in crude poses with my head superimposed on them. They looked real. I was totally freaked out. The text read:
I’ve uploaded these on to some Boston escort sites. Expect some calls.
The calls came and within two days I had to change my number, which was hugely inconvenient for business.
The calls and photos I received were disgusting and depraved.
I had to report this to Hernandez. She was as helpful as she could be.
They were able to find my doctored image on three escort sites.
I had to obtain a court order to get them taken down and it had to be done fast, as my reputation was on the line, though anyone who knew me knew that I was not shaped like any of these women, with their enormous butts and plus-sized breasts.
Hernandez talked to Margie, seized her laptop again and came up empty.
No evidence. I got another screaming voicemail from Margie on her regular number, begging me to leave her alone.
I handled all of this on my own. I did not respond to Margie; I did not tell Dad or Vince.
When was this going to stop?