“Where’d you put the suitcase?”
“In the basement. For now. Along with the rest of it.”
She didn’t say anything, but I knew she wanted to. Since we’d read the letter, she hadn’t said one word about it, and it must have taken all of her strength to keep it inside. I stood and began tidying the items on her dresser, waiting.
Pushing herself up against the pillows behind her, she said, “Lying in bed all day gives a person lots of time to think, and I do believe I have finally figured out something important.”
“And?” I braced myself.
It took a moment until she was ready to speak again. “As you know, my mama taught me a lot. But lying here watching so much television, I’ve finally figured out that everything I’ve ever needed to know in life I learned from my mama and my soaps.”
“Really?” I said, turning around to lean against the dresser.
She nodded, her nostrils flaring as she struggled to breathe. “I’m watching these people and it’s basically the same thing over and over—people never learning from their mistakes so that they make the same ones again and again.” She paused. “And then there’s people who make mistakes, acknowledge them, and then keep picking at that mistake like it’s an old scab, so that it never goes away and they can’t go forward. And then there’s those who stick their heads in the sand, pretending that everything is fine and that nobody can see them there with their heads stuck right there in plain view, and believing that they already know what people think and therefore there’s no point in laying their cards out on the table for discussion.”
She sounded like she’d just run a mile. I poured a fresh glass of water from the pitcher on her nightstand and helped her drink before I began my rebuttal. “If that last part is about me not telling Gibbes about the letter, I told you—that’s temporary. I’d rather just focus on you and Owen right now. I will eventually show him the letter and everything else, and give the suitcase to the police.”
I wanted to tell her that I was still wondering at the truth—the truth that involved the path that had brought Cal and me together, that had started long before we were born, the threads already woven together and knotted in places. At some point I would have to attempt to unravel them, to pick apart the knots and confront my seven-year marriage to a man who’d married me only because he’d been looking for somebody else. But I couldn’t lie to her, even with a grain of truth. She deserved my honesty, so I kept silent.
She looked at me with tired eyes, but eyes that still had so much light in them. “I get it—you want to cross the creek one stone at a time. But you don’t have to cross the creek alone, you know.” She smiled the smile that was part joy, part friendship, but wholly honest. “I’m running out of time here, and I just can’t wait until you’re ready to ask for my opinion, so I’m going to give it to you whether you want it or not.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she actually shushed me as if I were an errant child.
It took nearly a minute for her to gather strength, but not nearly long enough for me to prepare myself.
“I know you don’t like saying his name, so I will. Cal found out that his grandmother knew who and what had really brought down that plane, and that’s why he left—either because he couldn’t stand living with his grandmother anymore, or because he was looking for some warped kind of justice. He found you instead, and you feel like a dummy because you married him, having no idea what his story was—believing you were on an even playing field because you both came from pasts you didn’t want to talk about.”
She’d paused often during her speech but took a long rest now, breathing deeply, her chest rising and falling, but the look in her eye told me I shouldn’t interrupt.