“Okay,” he says, drawing out the word. I can practically feel his wariness through the phone.
I don’t beat around the bush. I confess that I’m still struggling to figure out what happened the day of the accident, and I’m hoping he might be able to offer insight. Plus, I tell him, there are disturbing rumors flying around about Paul and me, rumors that Stephanie has found credible in part because of the conversation she overheard between Paul and him. I need his help in reassuring Stephanie.
There’s an agonizingly long silence after I finish. I sense Bloom deciding something. To hang up or keep talking?
“I’m very sorry for all you’ve been through, Ms. Harper,” he says at last. “But I’m afraid I can’t be of any help to you.”
“Do you feel uncomfortable discussing the situation with me?”
“No, it’s not that. I simply don’t have any information to offer. I hadn’t spoken to Paul for a couple of weeks before the accident. I didn’t even know he was headed to Boston that week.”
“What about the conversation you had with Paul at his house this winter?”
“I believe Stephanie did come into the den when we were talking. But . . . you weren’t the subject of our discussion.”
I hear it: the tiniest of pauses between the but and the you, a hesitation that feels like a dodge. He’s lying.
“Did Paul ever mention me at any other time?”
“No. No, he didn’t.”
I consider begging for the truth, but instinct tells me that won’t work. If he knows something, he has no intention of spilling.
“Stephanie really thinks you had an affair with Paul?” he says into the silence.
“Hopefully I convinced her otherwise. I think she still believes he may have been infatuated with me. When she was going through his home office, she found a photo of the two of us in an envelope. The words ‘This is all I have’ were written on the back. Can you talk to Stephanie and reassure her? I don’t mind if you tell her I called you.”
“Yes, I’ll speak to her. Now, I’m afraid I have to go.”
“Please, just one more question. When you saw Paul at his home, did he seem at all depressed to you?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“I’m thinking of the words on the envelope, trying to figure out their significance.”
“Are you wondering if Paul committed suicide?”
“It’s hard for me to get my arms around that idea, but yes, that is what I’m wondering. There’s never been an explanation for the crash.”
“Paul wouldn’t have done something like that, especially if it put another person’s life in jeopardy. And besides, he was in great spirits when I saw him.”
I thank him for his time and end the call.
He lied, I think again, when he said that my name hadn’t come up that day in the den.
With elbows on the table, I rest my head wearily in my hands. I haven’t the faintest clue what to do now. There’s a secret at the heart of this, a gnawing secret that won’t let me put the accident behind me, and there’s no one left to ask what it might be.
And there are secrets about my marriage, too, I think, secrets I have no idea how to uncover. I glance at my watch. My phone appointment with Dr. G is in ten minutes and I want to be sure to be on time. I fix an espresso and drink it while I pace the kitchen, waiting to make the call.
Because our time is limited, I’ve tried to mentally plot out the most important information to share, but in the first ten minutes I find myself blurting out what’s happened willy-nilly, ricocheting back and forth between the trouble in my marriage and what I’ve learned—and haven’t learned—about Paul.
“Bryn, I know how angry you must be with Guy, but it’s important to keep the dialogue going,” Dr. G says when I finally shut up. “Would you be open to reaching out and trying to have a conversation with him this weekend?”
“To talk about what specifically?”
“To just talk. And try to get a better read on the situation. It’s going to be hard to determine what’s really going on with him if you’re at a distance.”
“Yes, I can do that,” I say.
As pissed as I feel, I know Guy and I have to be in contact sooner or later.
“What if the situation is nothing more than what Guy has described?” she asks. “That the drink was him reading the situation poorly and the text was a momentary bout of stupid guy behavior. Could you forgive those?”
“I guess I would have to try.” I’m not sure I believe that, though. On paper, Guy’s actions don’t seem to qualify as divorce-worthy, but they won’t stop eating at me.
“What is your gut telling you about Guy right now?”
“That . . . that something more is going on. That he really might have been having an affair with Eve.”
It stings to say those words out loud for the first time. Voicing them seems to quell any chance that the truth might be otherwise.
“Because?”