Chapter 38
Ileft Frannie’s place still struggling to formulate some kind of plan. All I knew was that I didn’t want Lucy around when I confronted Rebecca and William. And it had to happen today or I might explode.
Thirty minutes later I wiped my sweaty palms on my dress and took a deep breath. Ready to make my entrance, I knocked on Rebecca’s office door and waited for my cue.
“Thea,” Rebecca said, taking off her reading glasses. “How was your event last night?”
“It was great. The place was packed.” I was going for easy, breezy as I sat down in one of her guest chairs, but my voice wobbled. “Actually, I came in today because something so momentous happened last night that I couldn’t wait to tell you both about it. William’s here, I hope?”
Rebecca’s face beamed as she picked up the phone and summoned William.
A moment later he appeared, and Rebecca motioned for him to close the door behind him.
“Hey, Thea,” he said, dropping into the guest chair next to mine.
“So”—Rebecca leaned forward with her elbows on the desk—“tell us. What’s the big news?”
“Rosa came to my event last night,” I said in as steely a voice as I could muster and stared hard at Rebecca, watching her reaction.
“Rosa?” William said. “That’s great. So she finally came back from Guatemala?”
“Rosa said she hasn’t been to Guatemala in over twenty-five years,” I said.
“Well, that’s what she told—”
I cut Rebecca off. “Please stop, both of you. Enough with the lies.”
“We’ve always been honest with you,” William said, a puzzled look in his eyes.
“Are you sure about that?” I said to William, before flicking a glance at Rebecca. “Based on what Rosa told me, it seems you two hid the truth about Sam’s death for the last six years. I’d hardly call that ‘honest.’”
William squinted, first at me, then at Rebecca. She didn’t meet his gaze.
“Neither of you thought it would have helped me to know the truth about why Sam went for a run?” I prompted.
Rebecca sat frozen, so William answered for her. “Thea, what are you talking about? No one was home. No one could possibly know why Sam went for a run. Right, Rebecca?”
Though Rebecca said nothing, her wild eyes were all the confirmation I needed that she’d never told William.
Relief coursed through me. At least William hadn’t betrayed me, too.
Sadly, this also meant the truth I was about to force into the open was going to break his heart all over again.
A thought that made me feel physically ill. But what choice did I have?
“What’s going on here?” William asked, looking from Rebecca to me.
“Are you going to tell him or should I?” I crossed my arms and glared at Rebecca.
“I never meant for any of it to happen. I swear. I was in complete and total shock when the police arrived and told us what happened,” Rebecca said, practically whispering. “The lie that none of us were home just popped out of my mouth. I couldn’t face what I’d done.”
“Oh god, Rebecca,” William croaked. “What in the world did you do?”
Rebecca buried her face in her hands and her shoulders started shaking.
“I’m so ashamed,” she choked out. “When the sonogram fell out of Sam’s bag, I lost it.
The last words Sam ever heard from me, his own mother, were venomous stupidity.
That argument will forever be the greatest regret of my life.
” She looked back and forth at William and me with beseeching eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
William’s face paled. “I need to know exactly what you said to Sam.”
“William, please, you have to understand,” Rebecca pleaded. “I wasn’t thinking of that grainy image as an actual person. As our granddaughter.”
“Just tell me what you said,” William said through gritted teeth.
“OK.” Rebecca’s voice shook as her gaze turned toward the window.
“I told him he and Thea were irresponsible. And I told him that a baby would be a distraction and that he had no idea how badly it would disrupt his life and training. I said there would be plenty of time for babies later.” She turned to face her husband and, in a voice that was barely audible, confessed, “And then I suggested Thea have an abortion.”
William’s head dropped to his hands as the floodgates he’d been forced to hold back for years, through Rebecca’s sheer force of will, flung open.
“Oh, William, I’m so sorry,” Rebecca said, coming out from behind her desk and kneeling beside him.
“Please, I’m so sorry. I never told you because all I wanted was for you to find peace and some measure of happiness again.
That’s why I supported you with all the tennis for Lucy, even though, for me, the daily reminders of Sam felt like walking on hot coals.
But when you were on the court with her, or reflecting on her progress and potential, those seemed like the only times my old William—the playful, charming, optimistic man I married—showed his face after Sam died. ”
The whole time she spoke, William wouldn’t even spare her a look. In fact, he refused to look anywhere in her general vicinity, even as Rebecca was hysterically pawing at his arm, begging him for forgiveness over and over.
“Jeez, give him a minute.” I grabbed Rebecca’s water bottle from her desk, suddenly worried about the toll of all this on William’s health.
“Here, take a sip of water,” I said to him.
As his torso shook with ragged sobs, I knew he was once again enduring the collapse of his entire world.
I whispered, “I’m so sorry. I thought you knew. ”
William squeezed my hand.
I could no longer contain my fury at Rebecca. “You promised Rosa you would tell us. Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted to so badly, but the truth wasn’t going to bring Sam back.
” Rebecca, still kneeling, slumped back on her heels.
“In the beginning, I was desperate not to do or say anything that would cause you any more distress. I was terrified you would miscarry and we’d all be crushed again.
I revisited my decision not to tell you both a million times in those first few months.
But then Lucy was born and my worries shifted.
What if someday Lucy found out what I’d done?
Imagine learning your own grandmother had objected to your very existence and that’s why your dad died.
Staying silent was my way of protecting her from ever knowing that kind of pain.
Thea, I’m so sorry for what my lies and silence did to you.
I love you—both of you—and I never meant to hurt you.
” I couldn’t believe it. Rebecca Packer, the most in-control woman I’d ever known, was bawling on the floor of her office.
Before I could think of a response, William growled, “Rebecca, not once since Sam died have you displayed this kind of emotion.” He gestured at her.
“Sure you cried, but not like this. Not ever. Not when I arrived home to find the police in our kitchen. Not when we went together to the guesthouse to tell Thea. Not at the funeral. Not afterward. At first, I assumed your lack of emotion was because you were in shock. And then over time, I came to admire your strength,” William scoffed.
“Even when I felt like you were wielding it as a cudgel to dissuade me from grieving in the way that I needed. Never, not once, did I suspect the real reason you kept your feelings so close to the vest.” William’s voice cracked.
“I’m going to the club. I’ll give you until eight p.m. to grab what you need.
Please be gone by the time I come home.”
He pushed back his chair and rose to his full height. “Thea, you and Lucy are welcome to stay at the guesthouse. I’ll support whatever you want to do.”
Before I followed William out, I looked down at Rebecca. Her face had gone slack and her eyes were glassy with shock. As for me, I was still nail-spitting pissed off. “Oh, and newsflash? I quit,” I said and slammed the door behind me.
I watched from my car as William folded himself into his Porsche Boxster and peeled out of the parking lot.
I’d arrived at the office fairly confident William knew everything and that I was the only one in the dark.
That I was the only one who’d been wronged and was entitled to answers.
Now that I had them, I prayed it was worth the price of blowing our family to smithereens.
Because I was pretty sure that was what just happened.
In the past, I might have tried to summon a sign from Sam about what to do next.
But by busting the myths I’d clung to about Sam’s state of mind before his fateful run, Rosa’s disclosure made me feel more confident in my own instincts.
Even though I’d already paid Frannie back for covering my August rent, after discussing the situation with her, I made the decision to stay in the guesthouse until the end of the month.
For once, Frannie and I were in agreement about my need to stay put for a little while longer.
Lucy and I needed to spend as much time as possible with William before the kindergarten whirlwind.
After thirty-three years of marriage, he’d have trouble left alone for too long with his pain and anger.
William and I had both been blindsided by Rebecca, but I still had Lucy, whereas he would be left with no one after we moved out.
He’d lost his son, and now maybe his wife.
I couldn’t also tear his granddaughter from him at such a vulnerable time.
In the weeks that followed, we tried to distract ourselves with swimming and tennis and movies, but Rebecca was never far from our thoughts.
Although she’d moved into a hotel, followed by an Airbnb, there were reminders of her and the family we’d been throughout the house.
Some days it felt like we were trying to glue together a shattered vase.
We might have located most of the pieces, but would we ever fit them all together well enough to hold water?