He followed me to the porch, and we finished our coffee. When I got up to leave, he asked how the new book was coming. Great, wonderful, flowing like a river.
At least it had been until the note.
The new story involved a man who suffered from a rare psychological disorder called Capgras syndrome. He was under the delusion his family members and friends had been replaced by identical impostors who wished him harm. And the rub was he might be right.
It was an idea from years ago I’d never done anything with, hadn’t been able to find my way into the narrative at the time. After Rachel and I got together, the story started clicking, partially because I had someone to talk about it with. She listened, was curious and asked questions, seemed genuinely interested in my work in a way Sharon never had been. I was cautious, wanting the story to be as clean as I could get it since this might be my last chance at a good advance, which meant money to keep watching over Dad, but it was really humming along. I’d been at the 80 percent mark when I’d gotten the note.
Cue the screeching brakes sound, the record scratch. Since then, no words. No matter how long I sat in front of the computer, nothing came.
Well, not entirely nothing. I’d made a list. Of suspects, I suppose you could say. The note leaver. The bearer of bad news. The one who crept in the night. I had all kinds of names for the person who had stepped between us, many of which were highly offensive. My less derogatory list went like this:
Mrs. Tross （a.k.a. the bird lady）
Mr. Allen Crane down the street （a.k.a. Mr. Mystery）
Mrs. Pell, who lived across from the Barrens （a.k.a. disapproving look giver who also sat on the church board with Rachel’s husband, David）
David himself （a.k.a. pissed-off husband）
But I still felt the last one didn’t really fit. Although part of me wondered if David’s angry bluster was just that—a front set up to protect a fragile ego. Had he learned of our affair somehow and it had crushed him internally to the point of writing an anonymous warning?
I couldn’t discount it.
I couldn’t write.
Couldn’t sleep.
I knew what was wrong. I needed to speak to Rachel. At least to see where she stood. In the days since Mary’s funeral, I’d seen her a few times from a distance, always with her boys or riding with David in his oversize SUV.
But this morning was different, and I had a plan.
The weekly farmers market convened in the church’s parking lot. Shortly after the snow retreated, vendors began showing up with different wares, mostly early veggies and fruit with some homemade crafts thrown in. It was the weekly event for the Loop, and Rachel never missed it.
At least seventy people were milling around flatbed trucks and trailers arranged in the parking lot when I wandered up the hill, but I spotted Rachel at once.
She was wearing shorts and a light blouse, her hair pulled up in a bun, sunglasses on. I lost my breath for a moment and had to stop and pretend to examine a bin of freshly picked mint leaves.
I knew the difference between lust and love. I knew.
That was the problem. I cursed myself. I’d had no road map when this started, no guide to participating in adultery. I had my heart and longing and that was it. Yes, there was lust, but what attracted me to her was something so much more elemental. She listened, she was insightful, she was so funny when she let herself be. She was fragile, and much stronger than she knew.
Goddamn it. I was in love.
First mistake.
Deep breath. In. Out.
Mint.
I moved on.
Rachel was talking with Sadie Gardner, a woman in her early fifties, stout and muscular, gray hair tied in a no-nonsense pony. Sadie lived in the foothills, completely off the grid, if you could believe what people said. She’d been abused by her husband for almost ten years before she took away the fireplace shovel he was hitting her with one night and broke four of his ribs, two vertebrae, his nose, and one arm. Her husband got an extended hospital stay, and Sadie got a restraining order and a divorce. She mostly sold hydroponic lettuce.
As I approached casually from the side, I could see the two women were in deep conversation. Sadie said something, and Rachel nodded once before glancing around, eyes landing on me.
I wanted to hold her. I wanted to sink into the cracks of the pavement.
Rachel moved away from Sadie’s table on to the next display of morel mushrooms. I sidled up a few feet to her right and began inspecting a container of fungi.
“I’m sorry,” I said without looking at her. The entire parking lot was behind us. To anyone watching, it would look like we were just shopping in the general vicinity of one another. The table’s vendor was chatting with Sadie. “Are you okay?”