Paul is staring at me, his eyes gone glassy and distant. I know I’ve gone too far. But I can’t stop.
“Michael played me. I know that. He faked the amnesia. He faked a version of himself living in Arizona at the address of Laura’s old boyfriend, Doug Wiseman. He left me that voicemail, he wrote a message on the boathouse wall. That was all him, trying to throw me off. To throw us off. A little fun and games, as a prelude to Laura’s real revenge, a massive lawsuit. And you know what? We deserved it and worse. But you . . . they were just all in your way. Just something to get rid of. You’re sick, Paul. The very definition.”
Paul’s face twists with contempt. He’s not hiding it anymore. “Oh, like you’re so virtuous, Emily. You know what I did? You want to know? I called Frank Mills. After your accident with the fucking deer. You were passed out at the hospital and I went through your phone, and I saw your texts with him. I told him to back off. And not just because of the whole Bishop situation. But because I knew.”
“You knew what?”
“I knew how you felt about him.”
“Are you kidding me? Frank Mills was a cop. He was there for me during a difficult time.”
“You’re telling me nothing happened? All these years? You just keep in contact with some random cop from your past? Come on.”
“He’s a friend.”
Paul snorts and shakes his head, incredulous.
I want to tell Paul the real reason that this all unfolded the way it did. That, though Michael was following a plan made with his mother, he diverged from it. He followed his own course.
Why?
Because he fell in love with our daughter.
As sick as Paul is, I want to tell him this because it’s about our daughter. I want to tell him that while Joni may have sided with Michael and Laura against us, Michael sided with Joni against Laura. He wouldn’t have actually hurt me, or Sean, because he came to love Joni. Initially, she surely gravitated to Michael the way she’s gravitated to other young men in the past. But then the two of them fell in love. And her love changed Michael, changed the course of everything.
It’s normal to want to share the glory and joy in your children, even with an ex-partner. But I don’t.
And I’m not telling him about Sean, either.
Sean, who has been awake for over two weeks now. Sean, who remembered the sailing accident and cleared Michael of any wrongdoing.
Sean, my son, who is now gone again, just a couple of days since he fully recuperated. Gone, since I confessed everything to him. Gone back west, considering whether he’ll ever be able to forgive me for what I’ve done.
“Where are you going?” Paul asks. He seems to gauge the distance I’ve opened up between us.
“Nowhere,” I say.
We stand, watching each other in the twilight. The lake laps against the docks and makes those hollow sounds in the boathouse. The crickets sing in the high grasses and ragweed. Bugs dart through the air.
No, there’s nothing more to say.
It happens quickly, then. Even in the scant light, I can see Paul’s features change again, going from that look of incredulity to a smoother, eyes-wide look of revelation.
He’s just worked it all through. That’s what’s happening. He’s decided on the reason I’ve stood here with him, talking. Why I asked him about David Bishop.
And the fact that he admitted to killing him.
Paul lunges for me, and he’s fast as a snake. He grabs my shirt and rips it open, popping the buttons, revealing the wireless microphone taped to my chest.
For a moment, everything seems to stop. Paul stares at the small device, then at me. After that, he checks his surroundings. He’s expecting the cavalry, but there is none. Like Paul said, he’s been watching the house. I don’t know my husband as well as I should, but that was something I banked on — if the police were here waiting, Paul would never have shown. This was the only way. And once I glimpsed him in the woods three days ago, the time had come.
The next thing I know, Paul has a hammer. It was tucked into the back of his pants. Now he holds it in a fist, and he stares at me.
“What did you do?”
“I loved you,” I tell him.
His face is ghostly, an apparition. But I can see the anguish that ripples over his features before they harden into mindless hate. Paul raises the hammer, ready to drop it on my skull.
Instead of running, I just stand there. I close my eyes.
I deserve this.
The sound of footsteps sends my eyelids flying open. Paul is still standing in front of me, but he’s just turning his head to the side. Michael comes lunging out from beside the garage. His face is a blur of wide eyes and gnashed teeth.
The hammer goes flying as Michael slams into Paul, tackling him to the ground. A moment later, the two men are grunting and fighting and rolling in the gravel. I step farther back, just as Joni comes running out of the house. She stops beside me. She screams: “Michael!”
Michael manages to get on top of Paul. He straddles Paul at the waist. Paul grabs for Michael’s throat, but the younger man is quicker, stronger. He bats Paul’s hands away, then lands a punch on his cheek. Another on his mouth. And another. And another.
Paul killed his father. This is the payback that’s fifteen years in coming.
“Michael!” Joni runs for him. I grab at her but miss.
She reaches Michael and grabs his shoulders. His head whips around to her and he stares up, murder in his eyes. His fist hangs in the air, blood on the knuckles. Paul is a beaten mess beneath him.
Michael sees Joni. Really sees her. Lowers his fist. His eyes and mouth soften. He lets her help him off Paul and gain his feet.
They stand there, the two of them, looking at each other. Then Michael glances at Paul one last time. He spits at him.
Finally, the two of them turn their attention to me.
My tears are flowing. My body vibrates like I’ve been electrified. Slowly, without intending it, I drop to my knees. I stare up at these two children who’ve inherited this mess. Who never asked for it.
“Please forgive me,” I say to them.
The two of them gaze back at me impassively. Joni has her arm around Michael’s waist. Now he puts his arm around her shoulder. Like this, they turn from me and start walking away. They move down the long driveway, disappearing into the darkness.
My chin drops to my chest. I kneel there and sob. It all just comes out of me. I have no bones. I have no breath. I am just this repentant soul on the ground.
After a moment, I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up, sniffing back the tears and the snot.
Frank Mills looks down at me. “Hey,” he says. “You want me to go pick them up?”
I shake my head. “Let them go for now.”
“Okay.”
Frank checks Paul, who’s not moved from where Michael left him. I can see the rise and fall of Paul’s chest. I can hear the bubbly quality of his labored breathing. He’s alive, which is more than he deserves.