I know that I am not the love of your life, Skye Starling, but for what it’s worth, know that you are mine.
Love,
Burke
My heart hammers behind my ribs, shock pricking my skin. I feel as though I’m on the verge of waking up from a long, insane dream. I reread Burke’s words from the second paragraph:
The crazy truth is, I wasn’t supposed to marry you. That wasn’t part of the plan. I was supposed to leave you before the wedding, but I couldn’t. And so, selfishly, I didn’t.
Could that be true? An unsettling combination of dread and hope pools in my stomach as I open the Moleskine. The pages are tattered, and some lines have been covered in thick black Sharpie. Entire sections have been ripped right out of the spine.
My head spins as I devour the first two entries, which are from May and June 2018, consecutively. They nearly kill me—they’re full of Burke’s love for Heather, his devotion to his family. But then a shiver licks my spine when I reach the third entry, dated September 8. The day Burke and I met.
This can’t be real, I make sure to remind myself. None of these words are real. Burke is a sociopath.
Nevertheless, I continue reading.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Burke
OCTOBER 2019—TWO DAYS WITHOUT SKYE
I’m two entries into the Moleskine. I hate reliving the details that led me to this excruciating reality, but I can’t stop reading my own words.
September 8, 2018
Well, I tried as hard as I could. I can’t tell you the number of jobs I applied to this summer—I lost count. Aside from our trip to Yellowstone, that’s all I did, all summer long, while Heather upped her hours driving for Uber—our only source of cash flow.
But no one wants to hire an ex-felon who spent a year in prison for insider trading; the only companies who called me for an interview did so because their applications skipped the “felony” question. So then I had to bring it up during the interview—my old mentor Eric from Credit Suisse gave me that advice. Eric was a VP and the only person from the company who agreed to talk to me when I got out of prison, and he said being upfront with the truth would be the most helpful thing I could do for myself during future job interviews. He said any hiring manager would find out during a background check regardless, and that it was better not to look like I was trying to hide anything. Eric had helped me get my job at PKA. I took his advice then, and I took it this summer. But every interview ended the same; after I finished speaking my piece, explaining how I’ve learned from the mistake I made when I was twenty-four, the interviewer’s smile stiffened. The air in the room shifted. “We’ll be in touch,” they all said. They never were.
My forty-sixth birthday fell over Labor Day weekend, the last Friday in August. I’ve never been a big birthday guy, but it was something Heather always liked to celebrate. The kids came home for the night and she made burgers on the grill and the coleslaw that I like. Hope and Maggie baked a carrot cake that made the whole house smell warm and sweet like molasses. They covered it in cream-cheese icing and wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD in blue gel frosting. It was something they would’ve done when they were little, and it squeezed my heart in a way that made me happy and sad at the same time.
Heather gave me a gray sweater from Brooks Brothers that I didn’t need, but I knew she’d likely spent hours selecting it and waiting for a sale to buy it, so I told her I loved it. The kids all went in on a sterling-silver picture frame that undoubtedly cost more than they could afford; inside was a photo of the five of us taken in front of Yellowstone Lake earlier that month. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes when I opened the present, and Garrett, Hope, and Maggie’s faces flushed with sunny pride, and I felt grateful then, and happier than I had in longer than I could remember. A feeling of peace washed through me, simple and whole—the peace of knowing that nothing else mattered, that fighting to preserve moments like these was worth anything.
The next morning, the first of September, I didn’t wait for Heather to come to me. I didn’t want to give her that control. I woke early, staring at the contours of my wife’s face while she slept, the rise and fall of her small body as she breathed. Lately I love studying her like this, before she’s awake. All peaceful and still, I can almost pretend that it’s the old Heather I’m watching, the Heather who once was proud of me, whose dreams rested on me. She’s in there, somewhere.
But as soon as her grass-green eyes flip open, the old Heather has swirled down the drain, and the battle is on again. This strange, silent war that’s invaded the space between us. She opened her mouth to speak, but I beat her to the punch. I told her what she already knew—that I hadn’t gotten a job. And that I was ready to move forward another way.
I don’t know much about Libby Fontaine’s daughter, only that she’s a twenty-nine-year-old book editor in New York. And she’s rich. Very rich.
I haven’t had a drink in twenty-two years, but I’m telling you, I could use a Scotch right about now. I can acutely imagine the way I’d feel after just one drink, the way the liquor would streak through the current of my blood, bringing a pleasant weight to my limbs.
But I can’t do it, and I won’t. I made a pact with myself twenty-two years ago, and it’s not one that’s breakable. So it’s down to the pool sans alcohol. One step at a time, and Heather and I stand to make millions of dollars.
I don’t like to let myself think about the catch—the trade-off for all that money. The fact that if everything goes according to the Big Plan, we may have to disappear for a while. The very legitimate possibility that Garrett, Hope, and Maggie won’t come with us, wherever we go.
Today I have to keep my eyes on the prize. One step at a time. There’s no way to mess today up. All I have to do is be a guy flirting with a girl at a pool in Montauk.
In my mind, this is where it gets complicated. I am a forty-six-year-old man. I have noticeable grays in my hair that was once all black, and a “Dad bod” for sure （or so Maggie tells me）。 A washed-up father of three in the prime of middle age. Skye Starling is twenty-nine and, from what I’ve seen, a total knockout. Prettier than her mom, even, and though I only met Libby a few times, she always looked like a model.
But apparently Skye has severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, which means she’s vulnerable, and single. This is the perfect time for me to swoop in. Jesus Christ. I hate myself.
Time to go down to the pool now. Here goes nothing.
September 30, 2018
Something is going on, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s been two weeks since I started seeing Skye, and I’m worried I’m starting to fall for this girl. It’s a strange thing to say, since I’ve only ever “fallen” for one girl in my life, and I’m wishing I had a little bit more dating perspective right about now. Or at least someone to ask.
I have gotten some guidance from Todd. It was originally Heather’s idea for me to seek his input, seeing as he has firsthand experience cheating on his wife. I didn’t tell him about the Big Plan—of course not. I only confessed that I’d started seeing a girl on the side—a girl I’d met in Montauk—and Todd seemed to understand completely. He even offered to come into the city to meet Skye and me for dinner—an offer which I gladly accepted. It felt strange, certainly, but I was grateful for the opportunity to introduce Skye to one of my genuine friends. For a fleeting moment, it made the whole thing feel like less of a farce.