I follow her in, with the dog trooping behind us. As I’m led down the hall, I spot a gaggle of young boys in the living room. Improbably, they are neither watching TV nor playing video games and instead are using a huge packing box as a fort or castle, scrambling inside and out of it. I assume I’ve come on a day that falls between the end of the school year and the start of any kind of summer camp.
The kitchen is large and painted a welcoming shade of yellow, with a sofa and chairs at the far end. It couldn’t be more cluttered, though, with counters and tabletops strewn with an endless array of random items—six-packs of soft drinks, bags of peanuts still in the shell, shoe boxes, books, a faux gold trophy, Kadima paddles, a toolbox, jumbo bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and a multicolored papier-maché pi?ata, perhaps reserved for an upcoming birthday party. The disorder seems to be a testament to how overwhelmed Stephanie must be by grief and single parenthood—and, of course, the awful doubts she has about Paul.
“Do you want to sit down?” she asks, nodding toward the denim-covered sofa. I suspect she would prefer the answer to be no, but my gut tells me this will go better if we sit rather than try to talk while standing in the middle of the chaotic kitchen.
“Sure,” I say, and take a spot on the couch. The dog walks over and lies not by my feet but directly on them. After a moment’s hesitation, Stephanie lowers herself into an armchair across from me.
She’s not a classically pretty woman—her eyes are plain, and her mouth is unusually small, like the bud of a flower—and yet she’s attractive in her own way. There’s that great raven-colored hair, practically gleaming, and she’s got a nice figure. But what’s most startling about her are the deep gray-blue circles under her eyes, almost like bruises. I can only imagine how much pain Paul’s death has caused her.
“Butch,” she says to the dog. “Go play with the boys.”
“No, really, he’s fine . . . I want to get right to the point. My agent told me on the phone this week that there’s been talk at the publishing house that Paul and I were involved—and that you’ve heard this gossip, too. I want you to know that there was absolutely nothing going on between the two of us. I feel terrible that you’ve been subjected to this.”
She presses her lips together tightly, and I can practically see her tossing my words around in her head.
“The two of you just happened to be in Boston on the same night and then decided to drive back in the car together?”
“Yes, that’s exactly the way it happened.”
Her eyes register nothing but skepticism.
“I’m not sure what business Paul had in town, but he dropped by the event totally on the spur of the moment,” I add. “He said it might give him a few ideas for marketing the paperback of Twenty Choices. When I was in the hospital, I explained everything to my editor, and also the state police, and I assumed it was shared with you.”
She lowers her head and wipes what I guess to be a tear from her eye.
“They told me what you said, but it doesn’t add up. Why wouldn’t Paul mention to me that he was planning to drive you back to the city?”
I realize in this moment that I’m in the exact same boat as she is. Forced to examine and reexamine little clues that hint maddeningly at infidelity but don’t provide any real answers.
“That was a spur-of-the-moment thing, too. He asked if I needed a lift home, and I decided it would be less of a hassle than taking the train. The bottom line is that Paul and I were just colleagues. There was never anything inappropriate about his behavior.”
She stares at me, clearly still skeptical. I worry that I’ve begun to sound like I’m protesting too much. But I don’t know where to go from here. I have no proof I can present her.
“There’s something else,” she says finally.
She rises from the chair, crosses the room, and disappears down the hallway. I can’t imagine what’s coming next. A few minutes later, she reenters the room with a piece of paper in her hand. She approaches the couch again and thrusts what she’s carrying toward me.
It’s an envelope.
“Go ahead,” Stephanie says. “Open it.”
I raise the flap with my thumb. Is there a note inside? I wonder. Words Paul wrote about me? I don’t find a note however. Instead, there’s a photograph.