Now that she’s been granted access to his private profile page, she can see that he’s not prone to frequent updates and when he does post something, it’s nothing particularly relevant: photos of meals and sunsets and a few shared cartoons and articles about golf courses—-did Rick even golf? Is this the wrong man?
Even as she wonders whether she’s befriended some random stranger, she clicks on his private photo album and suddenly there he is: the man she used to know. He’s wearing a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a tie, standing between a pair of middle--aged women, neither of them Vanessa. He has more wrinkles and less hair, but the grin is familiar.
She’s so taken aback at the sight of him that she doesn’t immediately realize that she also has a new private message—-from him.
Rowan, wow, what a surprise. Thanks for finding me here. I actually found your profile last year when I first got on Facebook but I didn’t know if I should send you a friend request. I’m glad you made the first move. You look great in your pictures and I’m happy to see that you and Jake are still together and the kids seem to be doing well. I’m working in Manhattan and living in New Jersey, single and dating, with an empty nest. I’d love to connect in person sometime so let me know if you’re ever in New York.
Shaken by the casual words, and by his admission that he’s single and dating, she reads the message several times, searching for hidden meaning.
Wow, what a surprise . . .
I’m glad you made the first move . . .
I’m happy to see that you and Jake are still together . . .
One moment those phrases seem to resonate irony; the next sincerity.
Either he sent the package and he’s baiting her, or he’s utterly oblivious—-in which case, he needs to be told. But not, she decides, in writing.
I’m going to be in New York this weekend, she types back quickly. Can we get together for coffee?
Thinking better of it, she stands with her thumb poised over the Send button, thoughts flying through the scenario.
Jake doesn’t have to know she’s going to New York. She’ll tell him she’s going to have lunch with her sister.
Then again—-what if Noreen happens to call?
Asking her sister to cover for her is out of the question.
She’ll just have to tell Jake she’s going to spend the day Christmas shopping.
But—-the same excuse? Is it getting tired?
No—-she knows he won’t question her. She and Katie have spent plenty of Saturdays from dawn to dusk at the Woodbury Common Outlet Mall down in Central Valley, well over an hour away. She hasn’t had the heart to go back there since her daughter left for college, but with the holidays looming, she’d probably have gone alone sooner or later.
But lying to her husband . . . is that a good idea?
Of course not. It’s a terrible idea.
But what choice do you have?
The truth: that’s her choice. Maybe she should just tell Jake that she’s going to the city for the day tomorrow. Leaving out the part about meeting Rick would make her guilty of omission, but not a lie.
That’s the kind of reasoning Rowan might have used in her troubled youth when her undiagnosed disability left her frequently suffering the consequences of her impulsive tendencies. Time and again, she disappointed the parents who loved and trusted her.
“Don’t you let her down,” her ravaged father told her the day she made her deathbed promise to her mother.
“I won’t, Daddy. I promise. I’ll make her proud, and you, too.”
She could see the doubt in his green eyes and spent years trying to erase it. She isn’t convinced she ever fully did.
But Jake . . .
Jake never once looked at her that way. Unlike Mom and Dad, he never knew her as a truth--bending opportunist.