Chapter Eight
Now
Carol Darius did not exist.
At least not online. Lulu and I checked into our hotel and quickly settled on our double beds to do searches on our laptops. I googled Carol’s name along with Durham. And then her name alone. Using every spelling combination I could think of, I searched her name and Ali’s together.
There was no trace of Carol Darius in North Carolina.
There was a Carol Darius in Cape Town, but I doubted she could be the Carol I was looking for.
Another hit turned out to be an Irish singer who had died two years earlier.
There were a couple of US-based Carol Dariuses in the Midwest, but they were in their late sixties. None of the other hits made any sense.
“How do we find someone if they have no online footprint?” I said as much to myself as I did to Lulu. There were no phone books, no other paper trails I could think to follow. “I’m so used to online searching for everything that I don’t even remember how to look anything up in real life.”
“Don’t get mad at me,” Lulu said haltingly, “but what was the name of that girl Ali was dating when he met you?”
“Lizzie Martins. Of course, my mind immediately went there too.” I’d googled Lizzie Martins now and again over the years.
She had a Facebook account that she stopped updating years ago.
There was nothing on it, except some quotes about being true to yourself and signs of toxic people. There was no photo of her.
“Do you know what she looks like?”
“I made Ali show me her picture back then.” It was stamped in my memory.
Blond. Pale-blue eyes. Beautiful in the way that all young people are beautiful but don’t realize that until they are old.
Mostly, Lizzie Martins was a regular-looking girl.
She and Ali were pictured in outdoor gear, the Shenandoah Valley behind them.
I wasn’t the only woman Ali took hiking.
We were both quiet as we worked on our laptops trying to track down the elusive Miss Darius. I called the city and county, trying to see if there was a way to find the deed to the house. Lulu called the utility companies. We both came up empty.
“There’s no deed to the house on file,” I said after getting off the phone.
Lulu looked up from her screen. “Who has the deed, then?”
“The county Register of Deeds office says they don’t have to be filed.”
Lulu made a face. “That doesn’t seem to be very efficient.”
“When I get back home, I need to go through all of Ali’s papers.” I had initially planned to delay that task indefinitely. Looking through Ali’s things would stir up lots of emotions, and I had more than enough of those at the moment. “Maybe the deed is somewhere in the house.”
The following morning, we went back out to Cozy Glenn. Again, no one was home. Tired and feeling defeated, I slid into a wood porch chair with white cushions that turned out to be very comfortable. It wasn’t a cheap set. “How much do you think they paid for this furniture?”
“So we’re doing this?” Lulu asked. “We’re sitting on her porch like we own the place?”
“Don’t we? I mean, don’t I? Ali paid the mortgage. I’m his widow.”
Lulu slipped into the seat opposite me. “If this is your house, why hasn’t anyone told you? Ali died weeks ago.”
“That’s the latest in a long list of good questions we have no answer for.”
“Did he have a will?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t think it was necessary.
Everything was in both our names. If one of us died, the other would get it.
” On Ali’s last birthday, once he turned forty-eight and it sunk in that he was pushing fifty, he started thinking about wills and trusts, but he hadn’t gotten around to doing anything about it.
“There has to be a simple way to figure out who pays taxes on the house.” She started searching on her phone.
While my sister tapped away on her device, I let my gaze wander, taking in the white-painted wooden porch floor and flowers beyond in the garden, the sweet scent of hydrangeas filling the softly humid air.
I thought about the fluffy chair cushions coddling me.
Had Ali sat on this porch? In this very seat?
Had he felt this comfortable? Ali was frugal.
The kids and I teased him about it all the time.
He would never have agreed to purchase outdoor furniture this nice.
At least, he would have complained if I tried to buy it.
Maybe there were different rules for Carol Darius.
“What for?” I could hear him saying as clearly as if he were sitting next to me sipping a glass of cold, sweetened iced tea.
“It’s a waste of money.” He always had a pitcher of tea in the fridge, made with both real sugar and artificial sweeteners to get just the right combination.
In that moment, I missed my husband with a burrowing longing that didn’t feel survivable.
Even though he’d had a secret house, and maybe even a questionable relationship with the woman who lived in it.
“What are you thinking?” Lulu asked.
I was afraid to tell her. As if saying the words out loud would make any emerging doubts more real. “Do you really believe Ali bought this house for his . . . for a woman . . . he might have been involved with?”
“Oh, Amira,” she said, her voice full of feeling. “I hope not.”
One of those trucks used by mowing services pulled up across the street. A man got out of the driver’s side and crossed over. I watched him come up the walkway toward us, half expecting him to demand to know why Lulu and I were sitting on Carol Darius’s front porch.
“Excuse me, miss?” he said in greeting, standing at the foot of the porch stairs. Startled, Lulu looked up from her phone.
“Yes?” I decided to act like I owned the place since there was a decent chance that I did.
“I’m Bob. I own the landscaping company that takes care of your lawn.”
“Hi, Bob.” I decided against sharing my name.
He shifted from one leg to the other. Bob was nervous. “I’m glad I caught you. I knocked on your door last week, but you didn’t answer.”
“I wasn’t here.” I wasn’t going to actively impersonate Carol Darius, but I was OK with Bob the landscaper making assumptions that meant learning why my husband paid for this house.
“It’s about the billing.”
“The billing?”
“Yes, I haven’t been paid in a month.”
“My husband usually takes care of that,” I lied. Or maybe it was true. “I’m not sure how he paid you.”
“Do you have a number where I could reach him?”
“Unfortunately not. He passed away.”
His expression shifted, shock followed by genuine sympathy—reactions I was becoming used to. “I’m sorry.”
My throat constricted, but I pushed through. “I’m just starting to catch up on all of the things he used to take care of. I must have missed your bill. Do you recall how he paid you?”
“Let me see. It came from a company.” He pulled out his phone to check. But I already knew what he was going to say. “Payment came from the Five A’s LLC.”
I wasn’t surprised. Ali’s secret company owned the house, so it wasn’t exactly shocking that it also paid some of the bills.
But the revelation did chip away at the hope, still lodged deep inside me, that there was an easy, uncomplicated explanation for Ali’s ownership of this house. “I’ll have to look into it.”
He paused. “Do you want me to mow the lawn today?”
Not if I had to pay him. “Maybe we should skip it for now. Do you have a card? I’ll call you and settle everything once I’ve looked through the accounts.”
“All right, then.” He frowned, not seeming to appreciate the answer. He drew out a business card and advanced far enough onto the porch to hand it to me.
I empathized with Bob’s need to get paid for his work, but there was zero chance I was going to pay this Carol person’s bills. “Thank you, Bob.”
He glanced between me and Lulu as if hoping for help from Lulu. When she just smiled at him, he sighed a little and said, “You two ladies have a nice day.”