To maximize the amount of money going to me, I was taking not only my half but also a lump-sum alimony payment, which meant I’d get almost all of the proceeds from the house. Our divorce decree also gave me half of Jason’s retirement account.
Now we were back here with Boyle again. “You’re about to end your marriage,” Dr. Boyle said. “How do you feel about that, Jason?”
“Terrible. Obviously. I know this is my fault. I never would have left you, Angela.”
I looked down at my lap to avoid crying. “I know.”
“Angela, you’ve been very clear that you initiated this divorce for practical reasons more than emotional ones. But the circumstances have changed since you first reached this decision, have they not? And yet you’re still going forward with the divorce. Would you like to talk about that?”
After Jason’s criminal case was dismissed, Olivia got Kerry’s lawsuit dismissed too, based on her unavailability. Rachel Sutton had accepted a $7,500 settlement in exchange for dismissing her claims and a mutual nondisclosure agreement over what I still believed was a genuine misunderstanding in Jason’s office—a combination of a mistimed change of clothing and a habit Jason may have formed of being a little too cute around attractive women.
“Maybe it’s from living all those weeks under a microscope,” I said, “but we still have no idea how this is going to play out. Kerry’s still missing.” The case dismissals were “without prejudice,” meaning they could technically be reinstated later. “They haven’t officially named Tom Fisher as a suspect. Any way you look at it, this is the sensible thing to do.”
Jason was still on the faculty at NYU, having agreed to a one-year research leave at half pay for the coming year. He also still had FSS Consulting, where he had lost some clients but was developing others. A week earlier, FSS and two of Jason’s investment clients had filed a lawsuit against Oasis for fraud, arguing that Oasis had failed to disclose material information about deals they had closed for water projects in Africa. Jason’s decision to back what he now alleged was a corrupt corporation was a minor dent in his reputation, but it paled in comparison to the earlier allegations. Meanwhile, the news coverage of his lawsuit against Oasis fueled media speculation that Kerry’s disappearance—as well as her seemingly false accusation against Jason—was tied to her work with Tom Fisher. It also sold a lot of books. Equalonomics was back on the New York Times list.
I was taking the bulk of our money—at least technically—but Jason would be back on his feet in no time. Olivia Randall was confident that the DA’s office would never agree to reissue Jason’s charges when (and if) Kerry reappeared. As for Kerry’s civil charges, the statute of limitations was a year. If they weren’t brought again by then, we wouldn’t need to worry any longer about her shaking us down for money, and Jason and I would be free to marry again.
“Did you tell Spencer you were signing today?” Boyle asked.
Spencer was spending the week with my mother in East Hampton, enrolled in sports camp. “We’ll tell him this weekend in person. We’re both going out to pick him up.”
“I have to ask you, Angela: Do you think it’s possible you’re using this arrangement to avoid saying that what you really want is to end your relationship with Jason?”
I shook my head. “Jason knows how I feel about him.”
Before we left the office, Dr. Boyle called in his receptionist, who acted as a witness to our signatures. Once the lawyer filed the papers, it would be official: we were getting divorced.
We walked the six blocks back to our apartments together, reaching his building first.
“Do you want to come up?” he asked.
I didn’t have Spencer as an excuse to go home. I could almost feel the papers tucked into my purse, pressing into my side. They weren’t filed yet. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. And if I’m ever not sure, I’m going to tell you.”
The first time was right after we accepted the offer on the carriage house, when it became clear we were really going through with the divorce. He came over to say good-bye to our home. He held me while we both cried, and when he kissed me, I could tell where it was heading. When I took a step back, he started to apologize, but I told him not to stop. Before I led him to our room, I asked him to let me set the pace. In return, he asked me to promise to stop if at any second I was feeling uncomfortable.
This would be my third time up to his apartment since.
When we were done, he asked me what had changed.
“We need to go back to Boyle to have that conversation.”
“Please don’t ever say his name while I’m naked.”
“Come on, Jason, what do you mean? Everything has changed.”
“I know.” He pulled me into the crook of his arm, and I curled up against him. “I meant, what’s changed about this? You were never like this before.”
Wasn’t I? I suppose not. Maybe it was that day with Colin, which I would never tell anyone about.
“Yes, I was,” I said. “You just don’t remember.”
“I’m so glad we’re back together again.”
I felt a wave of nausea—not like the flashbacks; to my surprise, I hadn’t experienced anything close to one of those. I felt sick, not about the past but about the present. Jason believed we were “back together,” only minutes after signing divorce papers, all because I had slept with him a few times. Those three years when we had stopped doing this—were we not together?
“Me too,” I said. “The next year’s going to feel like an eternity.”
“There’s something I haven’t told you, and I don’t want there to be any secrets between us anymore.”
I swallowed, knowing there would never be an end to the lies.
“I told her about you,” he said quietly, staring up at the ceiling. “About what happened to you in Pittsburgh. Not everything. I didn’t tell her about Spencer, but she knows about Charles Franklin.”
I clenched my eyes shut, not wanting to process the implications of what he was telling me.
“I’m so sorry, Angela. She was making you out to be an awful wife, and it just came out. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I owe you the truth. Kerry’s still out there somewhere, and she knows.”
My whole body began to shake. I didn’t want to think about where Kerry was now. The apartment’s air conditioning was struggling against the heat outside, but I felt as if I were standing in a freezer. I pulled the blankets up to my neck and forced myself to regain control.
“You didn’t tell her about Spencer? Only about me?”
I would never have told Jason the truth about Spencer except for the problems I had carrying a baby after we got married. My condition wasn’t temporary. It was structural, according to the doctors—an anomaly in the uterus. Not insurmountable, but how could I explain my difficulties bringing a child to term under the most privileged medical conditions on the literal planet, when I had supposedly given birth in captivity as a crime victim? He didn’t understand why I wouldn’t keep trying.
So I had to tell Jason. A year after Charlie kidnapped me, Sarah showed up. Spencer was born the following year. When we had to leave the house after the police came, Charlie decided that two girls and a baby was too specific a description. He killed Sarah, and kept me and Spencer.
Most of what I told the police was true, I explained, except Sarah was the one who got pregnant, not me. But she was younger, and always a little bit off, and I had taken care of the baby at least as much as she had. That was Charlie’s logic, at least.
When the rescue team descended on Niagara Falls, my only goal was to protect Spencer and keep him with me. I said he was mine. That’s why Mom said she’d sue everyone on-site if they tried to examine us physically. Spencer didn’t have my blood, but I was the only family he had left.
“I swear on my life,” Jason promised now, “I will take the truth about our son to the grave. But to have spoken even a word about your past to her was a terrible betrayal. It wasn’t my story to tell.”