After dinner she asked me to go for a walk with her. As we stepped into the cool night air, she reached for my hand, and as I wrapped my fingers around her palm, I was careful not to squeeze too hard.
As we walked, she told me she had never been with anyone but her husband. She said it like an apology, and I told her we could take it slow, or not at all. She didn’t owe me anything. And then she turned to face me, wrapped her hands around my neck, and went on tippy-toes to kiss me. I tried not to seem too eager as I kissed her back, putting a gentle hand on her waist but resisting the urge to pull her in to me. That would come later that night, after she came to my room wearing nothing but a T-shirt, which she left by the door as I pulled back my sheet and made room for her beside me.
She apologized for not knowing what to do next, so I showed her. She cried a little after, and apologized for that, too. I thought she might leave, but she didn’t. I didn’t hold her as she slept, but she was touching my arm when I woke up, and when I kissed her good morning, she kissed me back. Then she asked about New Hampshire and said she would like to see it sometime. I didn’t know if she wanted to go to learn more about me, or escape what she knew about herself—I imagine it was both. We flew across the country on Savannah’s Thanksgiving break and never left.
We don’t tell people the story of how we met. “Through friends” is our go-to response. She forgave me for subjugating her life to protect another, and I would spend the rest of my life working to forgive myself.
I know from the outside it may look like I saved her. And in some ways I did.
But she also saved me.
ANDY
I got my million dollars.
Two weeks after the fire, Jack Kimball exercised the option on my script, and by Thanksgiving the full amount had landed in my bank account.
A start date for filming was set for spring. Once people heard that I was in business with Jack Kimball, my phone started ringing and still hasn’t stopped. Hollywood is funny like that. I didn’t become a better writer after selling a script to Jack, yet suddenly all the producers who had passed on my scripts were lining up to buy one. Getting my name printed next to Jack’s in the trade papers transformed me from outsider to insider, and any door I wanted to walk through was opened for me with a hearty “come on in.”
I’m a little embarrassed to admit the scandal around Jack’s family turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my career. What is it they say about publicity? That it’s all good, even the bad stuff? After Jack’s son got arrested when “young love turned to fiery rage,” Jack’s name was everywhere, and mine along with it. You’d think being linked to arson and attempted murder would scare people away, but this is Hollywood. Being talked about is more marketable than being decent. And Jack Kimball was suddenly the most talked about man in town.
But that’s not why I never wrote the story. Because of course I knew the truth. The look on Jack’s face when my fingers found the tender engraving on his son’s belt confirmed everything I had come to suspect—that it was Logan all along, and Jack had done what any father would do to protect his son. A search of public court documents confirmed what I suspected about Evan—he was the attorney of record for Jack on more than a handful of cases. I never did buy that he and Holly were lovers, though I wasn’t surprised to learn that’s how they wound up. Tragedy has a way of bringing people together, especially when it’s born from a treacherous secret.
And I guess I carry that secret, too, now. But keeping secrets is not new to me. As an investigative journalist I’d kept lots of secrets—torrid affairs, identities of whistleblowers, evidence that would have put many a man in jail had my sources allowed me to disclose it. Perhaps that’s why I wanted out of that sordid business. I was good at keeping people’s secrets. I had to be. Having tight lips was a job requirement. And many of those secrets were orders of magnitude worse than the one I was holding now.
Of course there were reasons to tell, but there were more reasons not to. After many years of suffering, my wife was happy. Going public with the story would expose our family to all sorts of unwanted attention, and, like Jack, I had a duty to protect Libby and the girls. Plus I had compassion for Holly. Outing her would rip her life apart, and she did not deserve that. Logan had been incarcerated and was no longer a threat. I had nothing to gain by exposing them. But I did have something to lose.
I’ll never know why Jack put my movie into production—if it was worthy, or if he feared what I’d do if he didn’t. But I didn’t agonize over it. Because I was in the club now, and would have plenty of chances to prove I belonged there.