“Check Twitter,” Gucci Bex says. “And again, our apologies.”
“Whatever,” Dru-Ann says. She climbs into the taxi and slides the door shut. The taxi bounces up the street.
“Were those fans?” Brooke asks.
Dru-Ann rolls her eyes. “Influencers.”
“They’re so stylish!” Brooke says. “What are their accounts? I’m going to follow them.”
48. Accident Report II
Gigi says, “You know how Matthew was presenting a paper at the conference in Leipzig?”
The mention of Leipzig brings it all back: the December morning, snow falling outside, Matthew’s shaving lotion, his reindeer cuff links, the beautiful wedge of quiche that ended up in Henny’s dog bowl, the carols. The knock at the door. Hollis freezes as though Gigi is holding a gun.
“Yes?” she whispers.
“I was supposed to meet him on Friday evening in Paris for the weekend,” Gigi says. “It was going to be our Christmas.”
“Your Christmas? In Paris?” Hollis says. “That Saturday was our annual holiday party. Matthew was missing it. He told me he wanted to stay in Leipzig until the conference was over and then visit his professor in Berlin.” Explaining the ways she was deceived makes Hollis feel like she’s sitting in front of Gigi buck naked.
“Yes,” Gigi says. “He told me about the holiday party.”
He’d told Gigi about the party.
“Get out!” Hollis says, pointing at the stairs. “Get out of here right now and never contact me again. I’m going to block you from the website.” Hollis feels a stabbing pain just below her breastbone. She thinks of Matthew the night she first met him at Harvard Gardens. I just wanted to finish up reading on takotsubo cardiomyopathy, otherwise known as “broken-heart syndrome.”
Broken-heart syndrome.
“Please just let me finish,” Gigi says. “Matthew called me the morning he died. He called me from the car.”
What? Hollis thinks.
Gigi says, “We often talked while he was in the car—it was safest, no one would overhear. His call woke me up; my flight to Paris wasn’t until much later that night.”
“Please stop,” Hollis says. “I don’t want to hear any of this.”
“You do, though,” Gigi says.
Matthew tells Gigi that he’s on his way to Logan; he’s running late, and it’s snowing like crazy. “I had a conversation with Hollis before I left the house.” There’s a long pause. “I’m conflicted about things.”
“Conflicted?” Gigi says. She assumes Matthew is having a crisis of conscience—this happens from time to time. He must feel guilty about leaving Hollis at Christmastime and about missing their party.
“I’m not sure I can do Paris, Gigi,” Matthew says.
This, Gigi thinks, is what you get when you sleep with a married man. She says, “Do you want me to meet you in Leipzig?” Even an overnight would be better than nothing.
“Hollis is calling,” Matthew says.
“That’s fine,” Gigi says. “Do you want to call me back?”
“Gigi,” he says. She doesn’t like the tone of his voice. It sounds like he’s maybe going to tell her…
“I want to work on my marriage,” he says.
There’s a moment when neither of them speaks, though Gigi can hear the quiet pulsing of another call coming in on his phone.
“Are you… breaking up with me?” Gigi asks.
He sighs. “It’s not fair for you to be somebody’s number two when you deserve to be somebody’s number one.”
“No,” Gigi says. “You don’t get to make it sound like you’re ending our relationship out of concern for me.” She hears the rub of his windshield wipers—back and forth, back and forth.
“You’re right,” he says finally, and there’s a clicking noise. Turn signal? “I want to be at home for Hollis. I’m going to cancel Leipzig.”
“You’re kidding me.” Matthew is canceling a conference where he’s expected? Or is he just telling her that so she won’t ambush him at the hotel?
“I love her, Gigi.”
“She’s your wife,” Gigi says. “And I’m someone you met at an airport bar who can be broken up with over the phone ten days before Christmas.”
“I’m sorry, Gigi. For all of it. Be well.”
Gigi says, “He must have crashed not long after we hung up. I didn’t learn he was dead until I saw the announcement on your website.” Gigi stands up. “I’m sorry, Hollis. I know you won’t see it this way, but I lost someone too. And I sought out the one person who knew how I felt.”
Matthew had decided to cancel his trip? He’d told Gigi he wanted to work on his marriage? Hollis wants very badly to believe this—but Gigi could be making it all up in order to soften the blow of the affair. Hollis can’t trust a word that comes out of Gigi’s mouth.
Gigi rises from the chair. “You should also know that I’ve had a wonderful time. You’re very lucky to have such an accomplished daughter…” Gigi’s voice cracks; she clears her throat. “And to have friends like Tatum, Dru-Ann, and Brooke. So as twisted as this sounds, I want to thank you for including me. I’m not sorry I came.” With that, Gigi heads up the stairs.
“Hold on,” Hollis says. Maybe it’s all the camera equipment around her, but she feels like an actress in a movie. But why is she stopping Gigi? Let her go! Hollis certainly can’t forgive her. “Can you please just wait? I want to check one thing. Would you sit down here for a minute? I’ll be right back.”
Slowly, Gigi comes back down the stairs—though why, she isn’t sure. She should leave before the others get home. There’s no way Hollis is going to let her stay tonight.
Is there?
Hollis heads upstairs to the library, opens her laptop, clicks on the folder labeled MM, and among all the documents—the death certificate, life insurance, transfer of deeds—she finds the accident report.
What is she looking for? She’s not sure.
Driver’s name: Madden, Matthew
Hollis scrolls down to FATALITY OR INJURED. The FATALITY box and the DRIVER box are both checked. Hollis tries to steady her breathing. She scrolls down a little farther.
There’s a diagram of the road, marked with lines. The legend tells her the solid line is before the crash, the broken line is after the crash, the two x’s indicate the deer—the mama and baby. Hollis traces the broken line: it swerves sharply before the vehicle veers off the road into the field and flips. Hollis’s hands are clammy; she feels nauseated. There’s a reason she’s never looked at this.
She reads the description of what she’s looking at: Vehicle heading southeast on Dover Road.
Southeast, Hollis thinks. To get to Logan, Matthew would have been traveling northwest on Dover. She looks at the diagram again, then double-checks it with the map on her phone.
Gigi must be telling the truth—Matthew had turned around.
He was on his way home.
Hollis bows her head, closes her eyes.
She grants herself one moment to rewrite the past.
It’s December 15 and Matthew has left for the airport. Hollis wraps foil around his uneaten breakfast and sets it in the fridge next to the pastry dough. She sits down at her laptop, but instead of stalking Jack Finigan on Facebook, she goes to the Hungry with Hollis website and posts her recipe for cheddar tartlets; her fans have been clamoring for it. Over the sound system, “Carol of the Bells” is playing.
She hears the door open, then footsteps, then the jingling of Henny’s collar. By the time Hollis reaches the kitchen, Matthew is there, his head and shoulders dusted with snow, his glasses fogged. Before she can ask, What happened, is something wrong? he has his trench coat and suit jacket off. He rapidly unfastens his reindeer cuff links and loosens his Santas-in-speedboats tie.
“Wait!” Hollis says. She’s close enough now that she can smell his shaving lotion. “Are you not going?”
“I’m not going,” Matthew says.
She’s about to ask if he’s hungry, if he wants her to warm up his breakfast… when he reaches for her hand and leads her upstairs.
Gigi is sitting, still as a statue, right where Hollis left her. Hollis is impressed. If it were her, she would have run while she had the chance.
“I just checked the accident report,” Hollis says, sitting down. “Matthew had turned around. He was on his way home.”
Gigi nods but doesn’t speak.
Hollis isn’t sure what to say or do now. Gigi has the countenance of a delinquent student waiting to be dismissed. Is that what Hollis should do? Tell Gigi she’s free to go?
Suddenly Hollis hears a commotion upstairs: A happy bark from Henny, Brooke calling out that she’s taking the first outdoor shower, Tatum asking if there’s any onion dip left because she’s starving, and Dru-Ann saying that she’s heading back to the guest cottage to change but when she comes back they’d all better be prepared to woman up because she has half a bottle of tequila to finish before the weekend’s over.
She hears Caroline say, “I actually think I have enough footage for a short film. What if I end up making you all famous?”