I could make a good case for moving on.
I thought of Alison Muller’s taunts about the closeness of her relationship with Joe, and although she was a five-star liar, he had an equal number of stars on his chest, maybe more, and they made a pretty good pair.
Mrs. Rose liked to say, “When feeling pathetic, make tea.”
I boiled water and took a look at the big pile of mail that had been accumulating for weeks on the kitchen counter. Joe had been paying the bills for a while, but I still knew how to balance a checkbook.
I blew on my tea, switched the radio to Radio Alice, 97.3, for their adult contemporary sound, and put the mail and my computer on the coffee table. I tossed the flyers and catalogs to the floor, separating out the utilities and condo maintenance and the bank statement.
I was going through the statement when I saw a charge for a safe-deposit box that I didn’t know we had. I’m not saying it was a secret. Only that I hadn’t noticed it before.
The time was now 2:35. Our bank was at Ninth Avenue and Clement, five blocks away. If the baby would cooperate, I could get there before closing time.
I went to the drawer in Joe’s office and removed the key I’d found days ago at the bottom of a stationery box. I put on my shoes, strapped Julie into the baby sling, and arrived at the bank five minutes before closing. I told the woman in charge of the vault that I wouldn’t take long. I just had to get into the box before the weekend. It was urgent.
Was it urgent? I asked myself, even as she opened the doors. Was I setting myself up for one more hideous disappointment?
“Please, Mrs. Molinari,” said the vault keeper. “I have an appointment with the coach at my son’s school. I promised.”
Joe’s key had the number 26 engraved on the shaft. The vault lady put her key into one of the locks and I put my key into the corresponding lock. After the tumblers clicked into place, I slid the long metal box out of the cabinet and took it into the tiny viewing room next to the vault.
I fumbled with the hasp and finally got the box open. I stared in at the contents. There were several unsealed envelopes inside. One of them held our condo lease. I found our marriage license, Julie’s birth certificate, and Joe’s father’s death certificate. Under those envelopes was a long flat candy box with gold edging and a stylized drawing of a bow on top.
As I bridged the lid of the candy box with my fingers, preparing to open it, I reflected on the fact that I was snooping—again, but screw it. I was entitled to whatever truth I could find in this haystack of lies a.k.a. my marriage to Joe.
If there were mementos of Joe’s secret life with Alison Muller, I absolutely needed to know.
I removed the lid. Up came the smell of chocolate and cherries, but Alison Muller wasn’t inside the candy box.
Julie was there. And so was I.
On top, a sprig of Julie’s fine, dark baby hair tied with a slender pink ribbon. There was a photograph a stranger had taken of Joe and me on the ferry to Catalina, both of us grinning, the wake foaming behind us as we stood embracing at the rail. That was the first time we’d told each other, “I love you.”
Under that photo was a copy of the marriage vows we’d exchanged in a gazebo lapped by the ocean in Half Moon Bay, and there was a candid snapshot of Joe and me and Cat and the little girls, all of us laughing and walking barefoot down the beach in our wedding clothes. And there was a printout of an e-mail from me to Joe telling him that I missed him so much, asking, “When are you coming home?”
I was struck by the congruence of having similar thoughts now at this very different place and time in our lives.
My musings were interrupted by the vault lady tapping on the glass, pointing to her watch.
“I’m coming,” I said.
I put everything back in the box and returned it to its sleeve in the cabinet behind the locked doors, and Julie and I left the bank.
“What now?” I said to my precious little girl as we crossed Lake Street toward the Molinari family home.
“What’s going to happen now?”
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER 100
ALISON MULLER KNEW every inch of the cell where she’d been held for a month or more—she wasn’t sure how long. It was impossible to grasp even the difference between day and night in the artificial gray light of this underground box, which had been designed by a crazy person.
The walls leaned in and the ceiling sloped and even the stones in the wall were different shapes, laid without pattern or sense.
She was grateful for the crazy stones because each had a personality. Like the one shaped like a kidney next to her bed. And the one next to it, shaped like Ohio. Looking at the stones gave her a place to put her mind.
There were no fellow prisoners, no exercise yard. She had a narrow bunk, a flush toilet, and a recessed shower head over the toilet that dispensed only cold water.