“Look, Bones.” He took my hand across the table. “We’re going to be a real family. And it makes the most sense for tax purposes and health insurance and stuff. I’ve looked into it. And we’re planning on getting married one day anyway. Why wait?”
I knew he was right. While I didn’t love the idea of such a visible shotgun wedding, I suspected the city hall clerks had seen it all.
We got married that Friday, with a friend of Burke’s from NYU as our witness. The whole thing took less than two minutes, and just like that we were husband and wife. Even though Burke and I had been together for nearly seven years—our brief high school hiatus not included—the knowledge that we were officially Mr. and Mrs. Burke Michaels made me giddy.
We didn’t have any money for rings back then, so we used a black Sharpie to draw them on each other’s finger. Our Sharpie rings lasted for a few weeks until they faded in the shower, but the bond between us was stronger than ever.
Our son was born on a warm, drizzly afternoon in May of 1994. He was tiny and purple with a full head of black hair, just like his dad’s. I was still drugged up from the epidural when I tried to name him Gus Jr., but thankfully Burke interjected that he didn’t think it was right to give our baby a name that would always make us a little bit sad. We agreed that his name should start with a G, though, in honor of his late uncle. A few hours later, after the drugs had worn off, Burke suggested the name Garrett.
Garrett’s arrival flooded my life with a joy so strong it was almost surreal. I was exhausted, yes, but it was a peripheral feeling, one surmounted by the indescribable love and obsession I had for my son. Burke urged me to finish my second-semester finals so I’d receive credit for junior year, but I was too focused on our baby to even think about school.
Burke started his internship at Credit Suisse two weeks after Garrett’s birth. His hours were brutal; he was out the door at six every morning and rarely came home before midnight. But I didn’t complain; I knew this was what Burke had to do to maximize his chances of getting into Credit Suisse’s highly coveted analyst program after he graduated, and besides, I loved being alone with Garrett. I loved the warm, downy scent of him, his miniature fingers and toes, the weight of his soft little body in my hands. For the first time since Gus died, the hole in my heart was beginning to fill.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Skye
OCTOBER 2019
I don’t tell Andie about the Post-it note Burke left on my nightstand. I don’t tell anyone, not even Dr. Salam. Instead I fold it into quarters and shove it in my top dresser drawer, underneath some socks. Still, his words play on repeat in my head.
I’m so sorry, Skye. I wish I could explain, but I can’t. I love you.
I’m not a total idiot; I do realize that this is undoubtedly bullshit. The rational part of me understands that Burke wrote this note as a final attempt to fuck with me, because that’s what sociopaths do. I’ve read about it—they get high on that kind of stuff.
I do feel as if I’m going slightly crazy, but Dr. Salam says that’s to be expected. I’ve undergone—or am undergoing—a major trauma, not unlike a death. The Burke I thought I knew is dead. I’m supposed to be kind to myself.
But it’s hard to be kind to yourself when you want to rip your hair out for being so stupid. Looking back on the past year, I now see nothing but red flags. How strange it was that Burke never told me more about his job, his work as an “independent financial adviser.” He was constantly in front of his laptop “finishing up some emails” or rushing out to his WeWork office on Twenty-ninth Street. The other day, when Andie prompted me to call that particular WeWork location, the receptionist found no record of a Burke Michaels ever using work space there.
How unusual it was that I never met any of his friends, except for a man named Todd, a supposed ex-colleague whom he then didn’t even invite to the wedding. I never met Burke’s family, either—the so-called relatives in Phoenix—though he sometimes mentioned speaking to them on the phone. “I talked to Aunt Lynn today,” he’d casually say. “She can’t wait to meet you at the wedding.”
When I did meet “Aunt Lynn” at the wedding, she was a sixty-five-year-old drug addict from Burke’s hometown in upstate New York—one of the numerous people he’d hired to act as his nearest and dearest.
The one time I pushed him on whether he wanted to add anyone else to our guest list, he gently reminded me that his friends were scattered, that he didn’t come from money, and that most of the people in his life couldn’t afford the travel to Nantucket or a four-hundred-dollar-per-night bed-and-breakfast on the island. I felt so guilty that I immediately dropped the topic entirely.
And then, Burke spent a year in prison. He admitted to this—the night he told me he loved me—and I cast his crime off as an innocent mistake. I gave him the benefit of the doubt at every turn, when I should have been running for the hills.
Recalling these red-flag moments makes me sick to my stomach. I’m not ready to tell my father. I’ll never be ready to tell my father. But it’s been almost two weeks since I found out about Burke’s betrayal, and Andie and Dr. Salam are right—I can’t wait any longer.
And so this morning I texted him that I’d be taking the train out to Westport after work. I said I needed to talk to him, and that I needed to do so in person.
From my window seat on Metro-North I gaze out at the bleak rush of trees. It’s been a cold fall, and only a few stubborn leaves cling to the branches. I normally detest going over the Park Avenue Bridge, but today I’m too anxious and preoccupied to notice as we cross into the Bronx. I don’t know exactly what I’ll say to my father, only that it’s time to say something. The same goes for my friends. Lexy was tagging me in so many Instagram posts from the wedding that I finally deleted the app so I wouldn’t be tempted to look at them. When she texted asking why I hadn’t liked any of her photos, I made something up about a social media cleanse.
My father is waiting for me in his old green Tahoe when my train rolls into the station. Even with all his money, he’s never wanted to drive anything but an old truck.
His face falls the moment I climb into the passenger seat, and I remember that he hasn’t seen me since the wedding. I must look like shit.
“Skye.” His voice is barely a whisper.
“Hi, Dad.”
“You’re … You’re so … thin.”
Looking down at my body, my once-snug jeans baggy over my thighs, I realize that I am, indeed, thin. The irony is too much. I spend six months leading up to the wedding working out like a maniac to lose ten pounds, and I barely shed five. I stuff myself to the brim with carbs and wine on my honeymoon in Italy. I’m unable to eat for a week and a half after finding out my husband is a con artist, and now I’m thin. Momentarily I wonder how much weight I’ve lost, but then I remember that it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.
“Are you okay?” My dad is still looking at me, his gray-blue eyes intense. He hasn’t put the car in drive.
“Let’s talk at home.” I glance ahead.
We ride in silence. I stare out at the familiar scenery as we wind through the roads whose curves I know by heart, a kind of muscle memory. This is still the place I call home, even though I don’t come back as often as I should. It’s been eighteen years, but when I’m here I can barely stand how much I miss her.