The Marriage Lie(29)

Why would Will tell me he went to Central if he graduated from Hancock?

“Haven’t you ever Googled your husband’s name?” Dave says.

“Of course not. Have you?”

“Yes,” Dave and James say in unison.

“Maybe this has something to do with his mother dying,” I say, still trying to give Will the benefit of the doubt. “I know he had to move. Maybe he had to change school districts, too.”

“Uh, guys?” James grew up in Connecticut, and though he’s lived in Savannah for almost a decade, he hasn’t quite mastered the use of the word y’all. “You said Will was from Memphis?”

I nod, but Dave is more concerned about the card pinched between my fingers. “Does that thing come with a person’s name? Or the name of the florist?”

I check it again, shake my head. “FTD.com. I think this is some kind of reference number, though. We can try looking up the order online.”

James tries again, this time more insistently. “Guys. I—”

“Or we could just call them,” Dave says. “What if we tell them we need a contact for our thank-you cards? I don’t know if they’ll give it to us, but it’s worth a shot.”

“We can also try the school. They can put us in touch with someone from the Class of ’99.”

“Iris.” My name comes out like a shot, and if his insistent tone didn’t get my attention, his phone’s screen in front of my face does. “Look.”

I stare at the Google page, search results for Hancock High School. At the very top, on the very first line of the first listing, is a street address. A chill starts in my chest and creeps down my arms and legs like the start of the flu. 600 Twenty-Third Avenue, Seattle, Washington.

I pass the phone to my brother and reach for my laptop. “If your offer still stands, I’m booking us on a flight for first thing tomorrow morning.”





12

Miraculously, I sleep the entire five-hour flight. From the moment we catch air in Atlanta until the captain dips the nose and aims us at Seattle. My body finally overriding my brain, I suppose, and giving in to my exhaustion. We hit a violent pocket of air on the descent, and my eyes snap wide-open—not frightened but aware. Is that what Will first felt, too? All around us, passengers white-knuckle their armrests, Dave included. I know they’re thinking of Flight 23, calculating the odds of two Seattle-bound flights going down in the same week, and I wonder at my own sense of calm. Why am I not frightened like the others? Are my senses that dulled by grief? The plane jostles and squeaks, then evens out, and the passengers melt back into their seats.

Dave reaches across me to shove up the window shade, and the bright light burns my eyes. “Welcome back. I was worried I might have to carry you off.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I say, thinking of the time sophomore year in which Joey Mackintosh showed me how to funnel beer until I passed out in the front yard. Dave threw me over his shoulder and carted me upstairs to bed before our parents returned home from the movies. I press a kiss to his shoulder. “Thank you for being here. I can’t imagine doing this all by myself.”

“Please. As if I would let you.” He gives my arm a quick squeeze, then roots around in his seat pocket, tossing me the bag of Chex Mix he bought in the Atlanta terminal. “Here. Mom told me if I bring you back any skinnier, I’m grounded.”

I smile, even though I’m pretty sure he’s serious. Mom would tell him that, and I have lost some weight. After six days of almost no food, my denims hang loose on my hips, my stomach is taut and flat, and my ass—which has never been fat but has certainly never been skinny, either—looks like a shrinky-dink version of its former curvy self. Becoming a widow is good for seven pounds and counting.

I rip open the bag and nibble on one, and when my stomach doesn’t revolt at the salty crunch, another, as I get my first glimpse of Seattle out the window. They don’t call it the Emerald City for nothing. Miles and miles of rolling grass, leafy forests and avocado-tinted lakes reaching like long fingers into mossy valleys, made even greener by the infamous rain. Above us, clouds hang low and leaden into the distance.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re filing into the Seattle airport with our carry-ons and making our way via shuttle bus to the Hertz counter. Since we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for or how long we’ll need to find it, Dave and I have decided to wing this trip. No car or hotel reservations, no plan, not even a return ticket. Will’s head would have exploded at the idea, but the travel websites assured us April’s propensity for constant drizzle and arctic winds meant tourists would stay away, and hotel rooms would be plentiful.

We climb into the rental, and Dave starts the engine, gunning the gas until the vents spew warm air at our heads. Atlantans are not built for this kind of cold. The kind that whips across your skin and bites through to your bones, making you feel wet even though you’re not. I shiver in the passenger’s seat while Dave fiddles with the radio. He settles on a country station, the kind with Willie Nelson and lots of twang, and I pull up the driving directions on my iPhone.

“We need to get over to I-5 and then head north.” When Dave doesn’t hit the gas, I look over to see him watching me. “What?”

“It’s just...” He sighs, looking me square in the eye. “Are you absolutely positive you want to do this?”