For a few moments I study the image. My heart’s beating a little faster, though there’s nothing obviously alarming about the photo. It’s a posed shot of Paul, me, and one other person, Jason Klein, the well-regarded president of the publishing house. Jason’s attention has been momentarily diverted, and he’s looking off to the left, but Paul and I are staring straight into the camera, smiling, and Paul has placed an arm around my shoulder in that convivial way people do for group shots. At first I think it must be a photograph from the launch party for Twenty Choices, but then I notice my long-sleeved dress and knee-high boots and realize it’s actually been taken at a smaller party last November, one the publisher organized spontaneously to celebrate my book sales blowing through the roof. My editor is at the very edge of the frame of the picture, chatting with Guy, who’d driven down that night from Saratoga for the party.
“But, Stephanie,” I say, “we were just posing for a picture at a party for my book.”
“I found it hidden under the blotter in his home office. As if he didn’t want me to see it.”
“You have to believe me. Nothing was going on between us.”
One of the boys has popped his head into the kitchen from the hallway.
“Can Aiden stay for lunch?” he asks.
“Yes, but he needs to let his mother know.”
“Can we have grilled cheese?”
“Maybe. But right now I’m busy. Please go back and play.”
He shrugs and retreats. Stephanie returns her attention to me.
“Look at the other side of the envelope,” she says.
Slowly I turn it over. On the front there’s something scribbled in pencil. It looks like a man’s handwriting, so I assume it must be Paul’s. Just five words.
“This is all I have.”
Chapter 17
I have no way of knowing what the words actually refer to, but they unsettle me. They suggest forlornness, perhaps a man feeling desperately alone in the world. Regardless, though, it seems improbable that these words could have anything to do with me.
“Stephanie, it makes no sense,” I say, looking up. “Is this definitely Paul’s handwriting?”
“Yes.”
“Was Paul— Was he depressed recently?” I’ve considered more than once that Paul drove the car off the road intentionally, and I was collateral damage from his suicide.
This time Stephanie’s eyes swell with tears.
“Not that I could tell. But he suffered from depression in the past—when his father died right before we were married. He was on medication for a while.”
“Maybe he stuck the photo in an envelope with these words already written on them, and they have nothing to do with the picture whatsoever.”
She rolls her eyes dismissively. “So you’re giving him an A-plus for recycling then?”
“I’m simply trying to figure out a possible explanation. Because it’s hard to believe that the words relate to me. We’d met only a handful of times.”
Stephanie shakes her head, not so much as a no, but in frustration that she probably will never know the real story behind the photo and the mysterious phrase jotted on the envelope. Over my shoulder, her son calls out again.
“Mom, we’re starving, please.”
“I should go,” I say. I rise from the couch.
“In a minute,” she tells her son. “Have Aiden call his mother and let her know he’s staying.”
“Maybe,” I say, as her son ducks from the room again, “it’s the only photo Paul had of the event that night, and he was making note of it.” But even as I offer that explanation, I realize it’s stupid. Paul would have access through the company to all the photos taken that night, and besides, why would they have mattered to him? He would be focused on consumer rather than trade marketing, and he would have had little use for the party photos.
Stephanie rises, too, and sighs heavily.
“There’s one more thing,” she tells me. She twists her head, making sure, I assume, that her son isn’t hovering. “A few weeks before the Boston trip, I walked in on Paul when he was speaking to a friend of his in the den, and I overheard him mention your name. He quieted down the minute I came in the room. I tried to tell myself I was imagining it, but after the accident, I realized I hadn’t been. It meant something.”
“Was this a friend from work? Maybe they were talking shop. Talking about my book.”
“No, it was one of his best friends from college, Gavin Bloom. He lives in Texas and doesn’t have anything to do with publishing. It seemed like he was confiding in Gavin about you.”
I pause for a moment, organizing my thoughts. My hope today had been to ease Stephanie’s mind, but it doesn’t seem like I’ve made a dent with that. I give it one last shot.
“Stephanie, I have no idea what the conversation was about, or why Paul saved that photo. All I can tell you is that nothing inappropriate ever happened between him and me. Not even a flirty exchange. These things must be weird coincidences.”
“Perhaps he was infatuated without you knowing it,” she says, her voice betraying her anguish.
“No, I would have sensed that and I didn’t.”
Finally her expression softens. The anger seems to have dissipated, and there’s just sadness in her eyes now. She reaches out a hand and touches my arm.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for coming.”
I’m momentarily tempted to raise the subject of my nightmares—after all, one of my goals today was to see if she might be of help in deciphering them—but it doesn’t seem fair to prolong the painful conversation.