He moved his hand from the doorbell to the doorknob after deciding he’d walk in as if these were normal times. From down the hall came the melodious sounds of soft jazz played through the Sonos speakers—a system he had configured years ago that was no longer his to enjoy. This place he once thought of as being home now seemed alien. The kids weren’t around to greet him, which added to the strangeness. They were still staying with Harvey and Lucinda. Tonight marked Natalie’s first time back in the house since they left for New York.
As he moved down the hallway, past the framed photos and artwork, Michael suffered again from that odd feeling of disassociation, as though he were a stranger marching through a strange land.
“In here, Michael,” he heard Natalie call out to him.
Michael found his wife standing at the kitchen island, sipping red wine from one of their fancier glasses, looking gorgeous in jeans and a light-colored sweater. She’d let her dark hair down so that the wavy curls bounced gently off her shoulders in an alluring way. On the floor nearby were the red-soled shoes, the ones that she’d kept in the shoebox where he’d found the hidden note.
“Let me pour you some wine,” Natalie said.
“Why are those out?” Michael asked, indicating the shoes.
Natalie’s gaze went to them and back again.
“Oh, those,” she said dismissively. “I was going to get dressed up, wear that black dress to go with these shoes, soften you up a bit, but … I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“Soften me up for what?” Michael asked, curious.
“Later. Wine first,” she said.
The lights. The music. The dress and shoes.
What was she trying to get out of him? Michael wondered where the anger was, her rage. What had changed in a day?
Against his better judgment, he allowed for a ray of hope to enter his heart. He didn’t know why Natalie had asked to see him on short notice, she wouldn’t say on the phone, but now that he was here he was wondering. Did she have designs on repairing their rift? Could his family be put back together in a new and different way?
Michael couldn’t say why after all the venom she directed his way she’d forgive him for all he’d done, but something clearly had changed since her release from jail. What could it be?
“Dress or no dress, you look stunning,” Michael said. He moved to a spot that put him directly across from her at the kitchen island.
“Thanks,” answered Natalie coolly.
While she poured him wine, Michael had a chance to take in his wife’s beauty, admire her form, absorb her quiet grace, thinking he would miss her always.
Unless …
Natalie handed Michael a nearly full glass, leaving the bottle nearby.
“Thank you,” he said, clearing his throat, hoping to also clear away a deepening discomfort. Where could this lead? He felt his cheeks blushing.
“Feel like you’re on the hot seat, honey?” Natalie inquired, no doubt aware of his unease.
“I do,” said Michael, before taking a long drink. “I expected to find reporters hounding you.”
“The DA did a good job of keeping a lid on everything,” Natalie clarified. “She doesn’t want the embarrassment hindering her reelection, I guess.”
“What’s the technicality?”
“My lawyer reviewed all the warrants and got the DA to agree that some key evidence was illegally obtained and, therefore, inadmissible in court. They had no choice but to drop the charges and try to get new evidence.”
“Is there more?”
Natalie shrugged.
“Kennett dropped hints they do have something new, and big too—something with DNA. Kennett told me not to get too comfy at home, but for now, I’m free as a bird.”
Natalie punctuated her assessment with a jaunty smile to accompany a celebratory hoisting of her wine glass. Michael followed suit, raising his glass, but they didn’t touch rims.
“Well, that part is good news,” he said. “I’m really happy about that.”
“Lucky for me,” Natalie clarified, sounding contrite. “But Audrey’s still dead. Unlucky for her, right, Mike?”
Michael sighed out his stress. Audrey. How much does she know?
“What do you need me to say?” he pleaded.
She returned a tight smile, her lingering stare feeling cool and detached.
“Well, for starters, let’s clear the air straightaway. I know everything, Michael, so I don’t need any more lies about your poor dead mother. We had a lovely chat, just so you know.”
While she hadn’t come right out and said it during his jailhouse visit, Michael assumed Natalie somehow learned the truth about Joseph. Kate had called him by that name, but getting official confirmation from his wife incriminated him anew. Finding out that she’d also visited his mother only piled on the misery.
“So you met Marjorie?” he asked, feeling a tightness lash across his chest.
Natalie nodded in a delighted way.
“Where?”
“Your old house,” she said. “That meeting I had in Connecticut? There never was a meeting. I just made that up and took a trip to Rye. Very enlightening.”
She eyed him almost challengingly over the rim of her wine glass. She downed more of her drink, and he more of his.
“What do you want me to say, Natalie?” he asked. “It sounds like you now know everything about me.”
“Do I?”
Natalie reached for her purse, which she’d left atop the island counter. From inside her bag she produced a folded piece of paper, which she then placed in front of Michael. Recognizing the stationery as a match for the one that he found in the shoebox, Michael unfolded the paper slowly, certain of the content. Sure enough, the words written there were ones he’d already committed mostly to memory. They ran together in a long string of blurred letters that set his heart racing.
“I know who it is, your affair,” Natalie clarified, “the woman whose conscience ‘can’t take it anymore.’” At last she put some of the expected hostility into her voice. “It’s sick what you’ve done, truly sick.”
Michael knew his behavior was deplorably wrong, hurtful and deceitful to the core, but still, the arrows she’d slung felt outsized for his transgression.
“I was so lonely in our marriage,” he said, pleading his case. “I admit it’s horrible, and I know that’s no excuse.”
“Horrible?” The timbre of Natalie’s voice rose with pronounced incredulity. “Lying to me about who you are for more than ten years is horrible. This?” She snatched the note from his hand, waving it in front of his face like a taunt. “This is on a whole other level of depravity.”
Michael couldn’t reconcile why Natalie’s vitriol over his affair had eclipsed his other betrayal. There were two tigers here for him to tackle, but the tamer one appeared to be from his distant past, so he went there first.
“I had to leave Joseph behind,” he said, his voice going soft. “He was stained. He couldn’t have led a normal life.”
Natalie scoffed.
“So now you’re talking about yourself in the third person? Isn’t that rich.”
Her caustic tone wounded him.
“Mock me if you like,” he said bitterly, “but Joseph is dead to me, same as my mother and father are both dead to me. They turned their backs on their only son when I needed them most. So yes, I lied to you, Natalie, but not without good reason. I wanted a new life, a fresh start. Is that so wrong?”
Natalie appeared to mull over his rationale, though he got the sense she wasn’t exactly buying his justifications.