Maybe she’s reading too much into his motives. Plenty of -people look up old friends and neighbors online. It doesn’t have to mean anything ominous.
But it might, and she’s anxious to be alone with her thoughts in the car, on her way home.
“I’m glad we finally got to see each other again after all these years,” he says as she fishes in her bag for her umbrella and keys and parking stub. “Even if it wasn’t just to catch up and talk about old times. When you figure out who sent that package, let me know.”
“I will.”
“Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with . . . you know. That snow day.”
She just looks at him.
“You’re right,” he says quickly. “It must have something to do with it. But I didn’t send it, and I swear I never told a soul, and if the only person who knows is your sister, then maybe she was just playing a joke.”
“Noreen would never joke about that.” She shakes her head, remembering her sister’s reaction years ago to her secret.
Noreen came down hard on her, claiming that an extramarital emotional affair is as damaging as a physical one. Maybe she was right, but Rowan resented her just the way she used to when they were kids, resented that her sister made perfection look so easy.
“I have to go,” she tells Rick, jangling her car keys. She has to detour to Woodbury Common Outlet Mall before she can go home.
Jake will be expecting her to walk in the door with shopping bags. If she doesn’t, he’ll question her, and she’ll have to lie again. This way, her initial lie will become a half truth.
“Does Jake know you met me here today?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
She’s tempted to pretend that she is, but hears herself say, “No. I’m not.”
“Where does he think you are right now?”
“He was sleeping. I didn’t talk to him.”
“You just took off?”
“No, of course not. I left him a note. It was no big deal.” She shrugs, unwilling to tell him the details of her lie to her husband; hating that she lied to Jake, who means everything to her, but can’t lie to Rick, who means nothing.
“Easy way out,” he says.
“What?”
“I once left a note, too. It’s the easy way out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I left Vanessa the first time, that’s how I did it. Left her a note while she was sleeping, saying I couldn’t do this anymore, and walked out.”
“The first time?”
“It took a few tries before I managed to make it stick.”
Poor Vanessa, she thinks.
Wow. The emotional affair is over, if she had the slightest doubt.
I didn’t, she assures herself. Not for a second.
If only she hadn’t been forced to open this door to the past in the first place.
If only she could be sure it would remain closed from here on in.
Why is it, Mick wonders, that whenever he wouldn’t mind having the house to himself—-which is pretty much all day, every day—-his parents are around, yet the one day it would have been useful to have at least one of them home, they’re both gone?
He’d woken up early planning to go on his morning run, but rolled over and went back to sleep when he saw the crummy weather. Hours later, he re--awakened to his dad calling through the bedroom door that he was heading out to run some errands.
“Where’s Mom?” he asked groggily.
“At the mall.”
“When will she be back?”
“Not till tonight.”
“How about you?”
“Later” was the vague reply.
Mick fell back to sleep for another hour. When he finally got out of bed, he realized he’d have to ride his bike into town. Not fun even on a nice autumn day when you’re sixteen years old and have a driver’s permit, but positively torturous in this icy December rain.