I exit the room quickly and make my way down the front stairs, through the dining room, and into the backyard, the only place left that carries a hint of the people I loved. I brush my hand along the trunk of the sycamore tree as I make my way toward the back corner, where Nana’s roses still sway and dance in the slight breeze—eighteen bushes planted nearly sixty years ago, when she was a young mother herself. Before her only son’s downward spiral into drugs and alcohol.
This is the only place left where I can still feel her—and the memories rush at me. Long afternoons spent turning the soil, searching the leaves for aphids with my spray bottle of soapy water. She taught me the names of each variety—Burst of Joy, Moonlight in Paris, Double Delight—and I whisper the names under my breath like a mantra.
It’s a small miracle they’re still here, that Ron hadn’t pulled them out and installed a fire pit or a hot tub. I reach down and pick up a few fallen petals and smell them—the sweet fragrance carrying me back in time.
“Meg, are you here?”
Rick’s voice from inside pulls me back to the present, and all the pain and resentment I’ve harbored over the last decade snaps back into place, fitting into the grooves and edges I’ve carved for them. I let the petals fall to the ground.
“Out here,” I call, making my way into the house, where they’re waiting in the foyer. Rick, a partner at a downtown law firm, and Gretchen, his homemaker wife. Not the anonymous industry power couple I’d led Kat to believe. Perception is everything. Nameless, faceless clients who value their privacy force a person to fit those details into a story. Because when you leave a trail of breadcrumbs, people expect them to lead somewhere.
“Shall we start in the kitchen?” I ask, my smile genuine.
***
“You can pick up the keys at the Apex office tomorrow. I’ll call you the minute it’s officially yours,” I say when we’re done.
I watch them drive away, and it isn’t until I’m unlocking my car that I see him. Scott, Kat’s fiancé, behind the wheel of an older model Toyota sedan, watching me.
I recognize him from Kat’s Facebook profile. Once I knew her real name, it was easy to find her online, and then him. Scott Griffin, fraud detective. I read about cases he worked. I scoured Facebook for photos—Scott at the beach, on a ski vacation, laughing in front of a giant cactus in the desert. There’s no question it’s him.
I let my gaze slide over him, keeping my motions measured and smooth. As I pull away from the curb, I let myself glance once in my rearview mirror, the pinch of betrayal sharp. They’re working together.
Kat
September
I try not to notice the empty spaces Scott left, the absence of him obvious in every room of the apartment. I stand at the counter, my bathrobe pulled tight around my waist, and think through next steps. I fight the urge to call Meg. To tell her she was right and to ask her what I should do next. I understand better the powerless rage she’s felt for years, so much sharper than the blame I assigned to her so long ago. That rage vibrates through me now, a low-frequency anger that pulses with every heartbeat. What lengths would I go to make Scott pay?
I lose hours wondering what Meg would do if she were me.
***
When Scott had gotten out of the shower, he found me sitting on the couch, my hair drying into awkward clumps, my face still bare of makeup. “You’re not ready,” he said.
Then he saw the cell phone sitting on the coffee table in front of me.
Several emotions flashed across his face—first fear, then anger, and finally a stoic resolution, as if a curtain were closing behind his eyes. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Don’t.” I was numb, miles away from the initial stab of shock and pain. Instead, I felt an icy calm envelop me, and I welcomed it. I wanted to live inside that pain-free bubble for as long as possible, because I knew the alternative was to relive every betrayal, over and over again, long after this moment had passed.