How much I support your passion for your art.
You once told me you always find yourself in art. You said that whenever you get lost, you find yourself in your paintings.
My beautiful Natalie, I hope you’ll find me there, too.
Don’t ever stop painting or looking at the world with your unique artist’s eye. I hope our children will take after their brilliant mother. I hope our future will be as perfect as our lives together so far have been.
Most of all, I hope you know how much I love you. No man has ever loved a woman more.
With all my heart, for all eternity,
David
My vision blurred, I stare at the shaking piece of paper in my hand.
Then I burst into sobs and collapse facedown onto the table.
It’s a long time before I can pick myself up again.
On the way out of the bank, I ask the nice teller who helped me if I could have a current balance on our checking and savings accounts. Puzzled, she replied that we don’t have any accounts with them.
So David was only keeping the one secret, then. The one strange, unnecessary secret. A safety deposit box at a bank he didn’t patronize with a letter addressed to me that he could have simply handed to me and saved us all the trouble.
When I get home and call Sloane, she’s as confused as I am.
“I don’t get it. Why mail you the key?”
I’m lying on my back on the sofa. Mojo is draped over me like a blanket, his snout on my shins, wagging his plume of a tail in my face. I’m so emotionally exhausted, I feel like I could go to bed and sleep for ten years.
“Who knows?” I say dully, rubbing a fist in my eye. “More importantly, how do you think he convinced a bank employee to open the lease on the box without me being there? That seems sketchy.”
Her voice turns dry. “That man could convince anyone of anything. All people had to do was look into his eyes and they were toast.”
It’s true. He was an introvert, but he had a way about him. A way of charming you without you knowing it. A way of making you feel special, seen, as if he knew all your secrets but would never tell another soul.
“Are you gonna show the letter to the police?”
“Pfft. What for? Those investigators weren’t exactly the A-Team. And I still think that one scary lady cop thought I had something to do with his disappearance. Remember how she always side-eyed me and kept asking if I was sure there wasn’t anything I wasn’t telling them?”
“Yeah. She totally thought you buried him in the backyard.”
Depressed by the thought, I sigh. “There’s nothing in the letter that would help them, anyway. My real question is…why?”
“Why have a safety deposit box that contains nothing more than a letter?”
“Yeah.”
She thinks for a moment. “Well, I mean, after you and David were married, you probably would’ve had all kinds of important paperwork that could go in there. Marriage certificate, birth certificates, passports, whatever.”
“I guess so. I didn’t get my little safe until after.”
After he disappeared, that is. After my life ended. After my heart stopped beating for good.
A memory of Kage gazing intently at me from across the table at Michael’s reminds me that it wasn’t for good, after all. I didn’t think so, but there might be some life left in the old ticker yet.
Kage. Who are you?
“Yeah, that’s it,” says Sloane. “It was going to be a surprise.”
“David hated surprises. He didn’t even like it if he came around a corner in the house and found me standing there. He’d jump halfway out of his skin.”
“This surprise wasn’t for him, though. It was for you. And if anyone would think a safety deposit box would be a nice surprise gift for his new bride, it would’ve been David. He had the soul of an accountant.”
That makes me smile. “He really did.”
“Do you remember that time he got you a wallet for your birthday?”
“With the twenty-percent-off coupon for a foot massage inside? How could I forget?”
We laugh, then fall silent. After a moment, I say quietly, “Sloane?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Do you think I’m broken?”
Her answer is firm. “No. I think you’re a badass bitch who went through some bullshit no one should ever have to go through. But it’s in the rearview mirror now. You’re gonna be just fine.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Let’s hope she’s right. “Okay. If you say so, I believe you.”
“I’ve been telling you for years that you should listen to me, dummy. I’m way smarter than you.”
That makes me chuckle. “You’re not even a little bit smarter than me.”
“Am too.”
“Are not.”
Sounding smug, she shoots back, “Yes, I am, and I have proof.”
I mutter, “I can hardly wait to hear this.”
“Your Honor, I present to the court the following irrefutable evidence: the defendant’s vagina.”
I scoff. “How lovely. Do you have visual aids to accompany this exhibit?”
She breezes right past that. “Which the defendant has been pummeling nonstop with personal pleasure devices set to their high settings since she met one Kage…whatever his last name is. Tell me I’m wrong.”
I say crossly, “What’s your obsession with my vagina?”
Now she sounds even more smug. “That’s what I thought.”
“For your information, Counselor, I haven’t used any battery-operated devices since I met the man.”
“Hmm. Just your fingers, huh?”
“Be gone, evil witch.”
“Sorry, but you’re stuck with me.”
“Why does every phone call with you end with me wanting to find a tall building to jump off?”
She laughs. “That’s love, babe. If it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t real.”
It’s funny how an offhand remark can turn out in the future, like some horrible prophecy, to be such perfectly accurate truth.
11
Nat
A month goes by. Then another. Thanksgiving comes and goes. Teaching keeps me busy during the days, and Sloane, Mojo, and my art keep me busy at night.
I started painting again. Not the meticulous landscapes I used to do, but abstracts. Bold, violent slashes of color on the canvas, emotional and unrestrained. Landscapes are all about what I see, but these…these are all about what I feel.
I won’t show them to anyone. They’re more like spiritual vomit than art. I assume it’s a phase that will pass, but for now, I’m into it.
It’s way cheaper than therapy. Works better, too.
David’s letter had me unsettled for a while, but by the time December arrives, I’m in a place where I’m grateful for that one last piece of contact. That final missive from beyond the grave.
I’ve finally accepted that he’s never coming back.
Sloane was right: he had an accident. He went hiking that morning and lost his footing. The trails were rough. The terrain, steep. The canyons of the Sierras were carved by ancient glaciers cutting through granite, and some of them dive four thousand feet down from the peaks.