Chad said, “There’s nothing in there I need to see.”
One of their best friends said, “That couldn’t be good news.”
She told Mike the story. “Would you open the envelope?” she asked him.
“No way,” Mike said. “It was sealed for a reason. Would you?”
“In less than a second,” Anna said.
“Then it is a girl thing,” he pronounced.
She laughed. “How is Jenn?” she asked. They’d been dating about six months and she was certain Jenn was very fond of Mike. She thought maybe this was the one.
“She’s fine,” he said, filling his mouth again. After a couple of moments he said, “I don’t think things will go long-term with us.”
“Really?” she said, shocked. “I guess I thought it was getting serious.”
“Jenn is great. And I care about her, I do. But...I’m just not there yet. Something is missing. I don’t see myself and Jenn being anything like you and Dad were.”
Probably a good thing, she thought dismally.
“I’ll know I’m with the right woman when I can see us being as good a married couple, as good as parents, as you and Dad.”
She twisted spaghetti around her fork but didn’t bring it to her mouth. “I’m not sure we were that great at either,” she said. “You might be idealizing us a little. Maybe because of missing your dad so much.”
“I know you had your issues sometimes, but you were a great couple and great parents.”
Of course neither of them had ever mentioned the affair to the kids. Anna had told herself that if they had divorced and she had to explain one day when the kids were old enough to understand, she probably would have told them. But they put things back together and explaining was moot. If it didn’t do anything positive, there was no point. She wondered how Mike would react if she told him now about their latest struggles and the fact that she was planning to suggest they separate and were perhaps heading for divorce. Would it break his heart even more? Or would it help him understand that relationships are never easy?
“Do you suppose that has something to do with you not being curious about your father’s anonymous recipient?”
Mike shrugged. “I guess it could. I want to respect his wishes and his privacy. And also, what will it change? Will it make me happier? Sadder? Why open that envelope? The girls, though. They want to know. They think they have a right to know.”
Anna was a little surprised. “Even Bess?”
“She doesn’t stir things up much, but yeah—even Bess. Though you know Bess will do just about anything to avoid confrontation. But eventually Jessie is going to push you to try to find out.”
“I doubt that will do any good,” Anna said.
“Can’t you contest or something?” Mike asked.
“Sure, if I want to build a case that I deserve that ten percent, which I don’t. But even if I won the ten percent I might never learn the identity of the anonymous recipient.”
“But you do want to know?” he asked.
“Here’s where I am on that,” Anna said. “I thought your dad and I didn’t have secrets. Not important ones. I knew his passwords, his bank card code. I even made his doctor appointments. It galls me that he had such a big secret. Maybe a secret life of some kind. I’m equally pissed that he died.”
“Maybe he was sick,” Mike said. “Ever think of that?”
She shook her head. “Your father was a strong and brave man in many ways, but not with his health. He couldn’t endure a hangnail without complaining. Remember how we used to laugh at the ‘man cold’? That was the main reason I didn’t want him to go on that rafting trip. He sprained almost everything on his body on the last long-distance bike ride he took and swore to never do anything like that again. You know how we met. He fell off the pier and nearly drowned in the San Francisco Bay! But he wouldn’t be stopped on the rafting trip. It was mysteriously important to him.”
Mike sopped up some sauce with his bread, chewing thoughtfully. “I guess he was kind of a candy-ass.”
“Sometimes,” she agreed. “Emotionally and psychologically he was a brick. The things he had to hear in therapy sessions were sometimes stunningly terrible, things that would make a meeker man sleepless for a year. That was his true gift. Not to mention the number of people he helped.”
“Like I said, Jessie is eventually going to push you to try to find out the identity of the person getting the money,” he said.