“What’s that?”
“Courage,” said Kennett with regret. “I should have had the damn courage to say to Janet, ‘Hey, we need to split. I’m not happy, you’re not happy, and we need to live a different kind of life before we have no more life to live.’”
“Yeah, that was probably the right thing to do, but I’m not sure my circumstances were exactly the same as yours. I didn’t want to leave my wife.”
“Well, what did you want then?” Kennett asked.
“Comfort,” said Michael, pausing to think it through. He also wondered why he was confiding in this cop, but the need to speak his truth trumped his better judgment.
“Love, touch, connection,” he continued. “I don’t know. I wanted something different from what I had, that’s for sure.” Michael sighed deeply and then continued. “Natalie’s work stress, plus kid stress, put a lot of strain and distance between us, then her insomnia kicked in, made a bad problem a whole lot worse, and I couldn’t reach her anymore no matter how hard I tried. And a lot of it is my fault. Once I broke down and gave in to temptation it was like Natalie somehow knew. Without any evidence she became obsessed with the thought and fear of my cheating on her. And I guess I also didn’t have the courage to tell her the truth.”
“There’s nothing you could have done to save it?” Kennett asked with a look of true concern.
“Maybe if I owned up to what I did, Natalie could have stopped obsessing and half doubting me, half doubting herself, and we could have dealt with our troubles head-on, and she might have gotten a good night’s sleep for once. Maybe.”
“I’m guessing she somehow found out about the cheating.”
“There was a note,” Michael said. “I found it in a shoebox. So yeah, she finally got the confirmation she was after.”
“Damn shame,” said Kennett.
“A damn shame is right,” said Michael. He was thinking about his kids. The pain he felt in his chest was like a puncture wound. He kept ruminating over all they’d lose out on, all the family memories they wouldn’t have. Snapshots of what would never be flashed in his mind. His kids getting older in each vision, Natalie getting older, too. He saw the four of them growing older together, on vacation at some resort somewhere, together at Christmas, Thanksgiving, his kids coming home from college, settling into their old rooms like birds returning to the nest, all smiles and beaming, perfect for Instagram. But Michael knew all too well that behind those social media smiles, all the pictures posted by strangers, acquaintances, and friends, there was often hidden pain, suffering, sadness, loss, grief, and yes, betrayal.
He knew he and Natalie were headed for divorce; the tension in the house before they went to New York had been unbearable. Was the note in the shoebox the reason Natalie ran? He highly doubted it. If it had been about the note, she should have thrown him out, asked for a divorce, and that would be that. Finished.
“The thing about adultery, Mike, is that you can’t undo it,” Kennett said. “It happened, right? So what are you going to do about it? How do you move forward? Should you just put a bullet in your head because you screwed up? Seems harsh, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” said Michael, mulling over his regrets. There was no way to hide what he’d done. He felt lonely in his marriage and had a fling with the beautiful woman he met at the gym, those were undeniable facts that came with mountains of regret. “Sometimes I think a bullet is what I deserve.”
“Well, you don’t.” Kennett clapped him on the back, looking Michael squarely in the eyes so he’d know he was serious. “Don’t ever say that again. Your kids don’t deserve a lifetime of heartache for your momentary lapse of reason. I’ve been to too many funerals to listen to that bullshit, you hear me, Mike?”
“I hear you,” Michael said. He figured Kennett’s spurt of kindness was out of compassion for Michael’s kids more than anything.
“What you have to do is come clean,” continued Kennett. “Own what you did, all of it. Own it and accept the consequences of your actions—and make a promise to yourself that you won’t ever repeat those same mistakes again. You can’t force Natalie to forgive you. The only thing you can control is yourself. It’s not easy, Mike. Don’t fall into the trap of beating yourself up, thinking you’re a bad person. That kind of self-abuse is counterproductive. You don’t need Natalie’s permission to forgive yourself. Look at what you’ve done, learn from it, and change for the better. That’s honestly the best you can do. If Natalie never forgives you, that’s going to be her problem, her burden to carry, not yours.”
Michael let out a heavy sigh.
“I don’t think you’re a bad guy, Mike. I think you did a bad thing. But marriage is complicated, and it really takes two people to make it work, or otherwise … bad things may happen.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s right,” Michael said. “Maybe not.”
“Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? Lighten your load? Anything you want to share? That’s part of the healing process, Mike. Come clean.”
Kennett flashed his teeth in a crooked smile. Michael bristled inwardly as he glanced at the speedometer, which showed him going twenty over the speed limit. He let up on the gas.
Kennett’s smile only deepened.
“The thing about guilt is, Mike, no matter how fast you go, you can’t outrun it.”
CHAPTER 33
NATALIE
BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED
It was Saturday afternoon, just after her lunch with Tina Langley and Sarah Fielding at La Hacienda. Papers were strewn about Natalie’s usually tidy home office. She’d gone to the attic to retrieve several boxes of documents, most of which deserved a shredder more than a half-assed filing system. Those boxes were filled with old insurance invoices, bank statements from banks where they no longer had accounts, telephone bills for phone numbers no longer in service.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for. Maybe something with a mention of South Carolina, a yearbook from one of the local high schools with Michael’s picture in it, perhaps receipts or old invoices that showed a home address from Charleston. She’d come up short all around. Sarah Fielding could have sped up the process, but Natalie was hoping to keep her personal pain and office life separate as much as possible. As far as she was concerned, Sarah had linked Michael to Audrey and that was enough for her, at least for now.
Michael was out for the afternoon, running errands. The television was doing an okay job at keeping the children occupied, but Natalie knew it wouldn’t be long before she was needed again for this or that. She sat cross-legged on the floor, papers crinkling beneath her as she shifted position to get more comfortable, all the while thinking about another document she couldn’t find.