Another long pause. “Why are you calling me from Joe’s phone?”
“I’m sad to say Joe passed away two days ago.”
She didn’t respond like I’d expected. No audible gasp. No words of shock.
“What happened?” she simply asked.
“Joe was abducted while we were on a family trip to Mexico. He died in a car fire. Police think it was an accident in a ransom situation gone wrong.”
Again, no shock or dismay. Just silence. Who was this woman?
“How did you know Joe?” I asked her.
The phone line suddenly went dead. I stared at the screen and saw that the call had ended. What the hell? Did she just hang up on me? I called the number back. It went straight to an automated voice mail. I didn’t leave a message. Maybe hanging up was her way of absorbing the shock of it all. Still, if calling her was supposed to have helped alleviate any initial suspicious thoughts, it hadn’t worked. But the truth was—in the highly unlikely event that Joe might have been having an affair with someone—I didn’t want to know anything about it. Joe was gone. I had no desire to uncover dirt on him now. And I certainly didn’t want a suspicion like that ever getting back to Carol or Taylor.
After brushing my teeth, I climbed into bed. Taylor was awake. I found her under the covers with tears running down her face. I had wondered when she’d finally break.
“Do you want to talk?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “Just hold me.”
I wrapped my arms around her. She leaned fully into me, rested her head on my chest, and continued to cry. These were not deep sobs. Just a steady release of emotions I knew she’d kept buried inside the past two days in order to be strong for her mother and for our girls. Because she would step out of our bedroom each morning and try to be a superhero for our family, I needed to make sure I gave her a safe space to process her heartache. But I felt helpless. I wanted to fix this pain for Taylor so badly but couldn’t do a damn thing. This woman was my everything. And to think I almost stupidly let her walk away eleven years ago. If not for Joe.
The fight had started at her college apartment. It had been my fault. Taylor had caught me in a lie. I’d brushed off dinner with her family the previous night and had told her I’d had a mandatory football team study-hall session. The truth was, I simply wanted to go out drinking with some of the other guys on the team and didn’t want to get any pushback from her about it. One of her girlfriends busted me. It was the second time Taylor had caught me in the same kind of lie this past month. She was furious. I’d been able to wiggle my way out of the first situation, but she wasn’t having it the second time around. She went off on me, said she could no longer trust me. And because trust was everything in a relationship, that meant we were done.
Then she stormed off, got in her car, and sped away.
I didn’t go after her. After five years together, I wasn’t so sure about us anymore. Taylor was all I’d ever known. And because I was on the football team at a place like the University of Texas, I had pretty girls constantly showering me with undeserved attention. I also felt pressure from some of my teammates to live it up while I still had the chance. I had not yet given in to that temptation. But I was flirting dangerously close to it. I felt confused. I certainly didn’t want to hurt Taylor. But I also didn’t want to lie to her anymore. I was at a crossroads, uncertain of the right path forward.
When I needed to find clarity about something, I would often go to a driving range near campus and hit golf balls. That’s where Joe found me that night. I was all by myself at the very end of the range and had already made my way through half a bucket of balls. Only a couple of other golfers were out here with me tonight. I really wasn’t much of a golfer yet. But I liked the game and was trying to get better. Taylor’s dad had introduced me to the sport back in high school. Joe was an excellent golfer.
I spotted him walking toward me up the range wearing khaki shorts, a blue polo shirt, and brown loafers with no socks. I just kept on swinging my club and knocking balls as far as I could at various targets in the wide-open field of green. I knew why he was here. Taylor had probably gone straight to her parents’ house, told them what had happened—how I was a lying jackass and all—and now her father was here to rip me a new one for the way I’d treated his daughter. That was fine. I deserved whatever harsh words Joe had for me, but I wasn’t going to stop what I was doing and beg for it. He settled about fifteen feet from me, crossed his arms, and didn’t say anything for a moment. I took another swing with my driver and watched the ball sail off into the distance.