Planning the lies to tell your husband. Not great, Olivia.
The safe opens on the first try. The stack of paperwork she found at the Jones build, along with his passport, have been returned to their home, released by the police. She searches through them, but nothing seems out of place. Granted, she has no idea what she’s looking for, but this isn’t it.
She’s been operating under the assumption that the paperwork was left to tell her about Park’s relationship with Winterborn. And to rub his relationship with Melanie Rich in her face.
Could there have been a deeper message?
She stares at the room, taking it in sections. Nothing new, nothing out of place.
She sits at the desk and carefully looks at the papers on the wood top itself, opens all the drawers, runs her hands along the undersides. She unlocks the filing cabinet. It is organized alphabetically, perfectly labeled, and contains notes, house contracts, and teaching materials. Hardly suspicious.
You’re tossing his office because he’s been too nice to you lately. You are definitely losing your mind.
She runs her hands along the bookshelves, catching bookmarks, but not much else.
Frustrated, she plops down in the battered leather chair—she absolutely must talk him into a new chair, this one looks like someone’s cat decided to make a nest in it. The edges of the cushion are literally torn open. She knows he loves the stupid thing, but can she at least have the cushion restitched? It’s so unsightly.
She stands, dragging the cushion off the chair. And there it is, something out of place. An envelope stashed in the crevasse between cracked leather and high-density foam.
She fishes it out. This could be nothing, the detritus of her husband opening the mail in his favorite chair and a piece slipping below the cushion. But the feminine handwriting, a perfect flowing cursive, makes her blood pressure spike. She unfolds the letter.
Dear Mr. Bender,
I am so grateful you are willing to talk to me about Brandon. When Winterborn told me you’d agreed to allow me to contact you, I was over the moon. Brandon is too. All he’s ever talked about is meeting his father, and now, thanks to your generosity, I get to make his dream come true.
Thank you also for the train set. I never thought Brandon would get over his dinosaur obsession, but the Pennsylvania Flyer is his pride and joy. I hope one day soon you will get a chance to play trains with your son. My number is 629-555-9089. Whenever you’re ready to meet Brandon, please give me a call. We are happy to drive to Nashville to meet you.
Yours truly,
Fiona Cross
Olivia sinks into the cushion-less chair, a hand over her mouth. A small school photograph tips out of the envelope into her lap. The boy is young, gap-toothed, grinning ear to ear, sporting a clip-on tie and a severe blond cowlick. “Brandon, 1st grade, 6 years old” is painstakingly printed on the back of the photo in blue ink.
She looks at the post date on the letter. It is three years old.
Three years old. Brandon Cross would be nine now.
Olivia feels the small break in her heart widen. Tears come again, tears of wrath. She crumples the letter in a fist, wadding it tightly, and throws it on the desk. She rips the photo of the child in half, then halves it again, and again, until there is nothing left but shreds of tooth and cowlick. She sweeps her arm along Park’s newly cleaned and organized desk, knocking laptop, notebooks, pencils and pens to the floor. She stamps on the mess, the pencils cracking underfoot, the screen of the laptop breaking with a satisfying crunch.
More than an omission. More than hiding the truth to spare her feelings. More than trying not to hurt her.
Park has known about his donor children all along.
27
THE WIFE
Furious, Olivia races to the Jeep. She wants to be away. No idea where, just gone.
The build, she thinks through the haze of red. Go to the Jones build. Work always fixes things.
A thought of Park at the police station, forlorn, watching her leave like he knew she might not come back. She’d had to steel her heart to walk away. Now she wants to murder him.
Before, when she was consumed with conflicting emotions—one minute wanting to hurt him, the next, kiss him—she blamed it on the hormones. Her body was warring with itself, why not her mind, too? That’s what happened when they were doing the shots for the first round of IVF. “Menopause in a bottle,” Brigit Blessing had warned with a saucy grin. “You’re going to get a dose of what it’s like, and trust me, it will be hard to keep your mouth shut. I’d advise you learn how to count to ten before you speak.”
Too right it was hell. Olivia had prided herself on not becoming a harpy, though the urge was overwhelming. A fine-grained rage simmered inside her at all times.
Now she is consumed with the flames of anger. She wants to take the brakes off her tongue and lash Park around the edges until he is ripped and bloody. She wants to scream. To hit. To unleash herself.
But she swallows it all down. It’s not right for her to lose control. The shots, that was different. She was being injected with medications that made her irrational. This is real. She doesn’t have the buffer of medication as an excuse.
Benedict’s voice pops up. “This fury is an emotion you’re allowed to feel. Anyone would feel the same if they were in your shoes.”
Olivia’s own inner monologue argues back.
Ah, but you’re not in my shoes. You have no idea what this is like. What he’s done, it’s betrayal on an epic scale. Isn’t it?
Is it? Who betrayed who first?
Olivia is hit by a memory, her prom dress discarded in the back of the limo, the shy, warm strength of Perry’s arms. The pain she’d felt in the moment of their first joining was sharp and welcome, because it was something taken away from Park. He would never get this honor, and she was glad.
The pain of the repercussion of their trysting was her own punishment. Taking a couple of pills would have been so much easier, but according to the sketchy clinic, she was too far along. Instead, she’d had to do it the old-fashioned way, surgically, a full-blown D&C, and she knew in her soul she would never, ever be the same again. It was as horrible as she feared it would be. After, as she lay among the sister brethren of the morning’s surgeries, packed full of gauze, dazed—regretful even—at what she’d just done, the nurse had given her a prescription for birth control pills like she was an idiot who didn’t know how to prevent a pregnancy. When Olivia declined, the woman pushed the script into her hand and said, “Take it. I don’t want to see you here again. You’re better than this.”
The nurse’s derision was a harsh, horrible moment to cap a terrifying ordeal.
You’re better than this.
What a message to give a mournful teenager. It certainly struck home. Olivia vowed never again. She wouldn’t be a victim. She wouldn’t exist for the whims of a man. She would stand tall, succeed, be strong.
And look where it’s gotten her. With a man who is hiding parts of himself from her. She is a fool. Love has room for secrets, yes, but not lies. And not telling her about the child he’s aware of, pretending to both her and the cops that he knew nothing about his donor children, is the worst lie of all.
She’s been driving in circles as she replayed these awful memories, and realizes she’s closer to Lindsey’s house than her own. Maybe Lindsey has talked to that crisis management chick, and they have a plan in place. Maybe they’ll do a quick bit of late afternoon drinking. It’s almost five o’clock, and God knows she needs a drink.