The Marriage Lie(67)

Suddenly, I can’t breathe. I know the science behind my reaction—that the olfactory bulb is connected to the areas in the brain that regulate emotions and memory—but I still feel assaulted by this surge of Will. I see him. I smell him. I hear his voice in my ear, feel his fingertips sliding down the skin of my back. The sensation is so overwhelming, I actually look for him in the mirror, but there’s nothing behind me but wall. Sadness sinks like lead in my belly, and I screw on the cap, carry the bottle to my side of the bathroom and sink onto the vanity stool.

The hundred-watt bulbs above my head are not kind. Greasy hair, sunken skin, a pimple brewing on my chin.

I push to a stand, flip on the shower, return to the bottom drawer where I keep my face masks. I yank it open, and my heart stops, then cranks like a freight train engine starting up, hard and gaining speed. There, on top of the boxes and tubes and tubs is another note, this time scribbled across a bright blue sticky.

Stop searching, Iris. Leave it alone. I can’t protect you if you don’t.

Chill bumps sprout over every inch of my skin despite the steady puffs of steam surging from the open shower door, and I whirl around, sensing Will as surely as if he’s still here, standing right behind me. Who put this here? How? When? I haven’t opened this drawer since...before the crash? Yes, I’m positive of it.

A slew of emotions screws tight around my chest. Elation. An I told you so excitement. A relief so intense it turns my bones to sludge, and my body spills onto the stool.

Will is alive. He has to be. This note in his handwriting proves it.

A high and hysterical sound comes up my throat—half laugh, half scream—and I tell myself to get a grip. If I were sitting on my own psychologist’s couch, I would explain to myself that in wishing Will alive, I’m idealizing my fantasies and not participating in the reality of his death. That I’m using my denial as a defense mechanism and deferring the work I should be doing—that of grieving my husband. And yet I can’t convince myself of any of this, because this time, there’s no denying the message.

Stop searching. Leave it alone.

And this time, the note came without an envelope. Which means Will had to have put it here himself.

I snatch my phone from the vanity counter and type the question that’s been rolling through my mind like a song on repeat, ever since the very first text. Will, is this you?

My heart clenches like a fist.

The reply comes thirty seconds later. Iris...

ME: Iris what? It’s a simple question, with a simple yes or no answer. Either you are or you aren’t.

UNKNOWN: Nothing about this situation is simple.

A flash of fury rises in me, swift and searing, and I’m suddenly done playing around. I want an answer. If Will is going to go to the trouble to sneak into our house and leave me handwritten notes, the least he can do is admit it’s him. My thumbs stab out a reply.

ME: Answer the damn question. Are you or are you not the man who looked me in the eye and promised until death do us part?

I hold my breath and wait for an answer that doesn’t come.

ME: Tell me! Are you?

I stare at the screen, willing the person on the other end to answer.

UNKNOWN: I’m so sorry. I never wanted any of my problems to touch you.

A choked sound erupts up my chest.

ME: I need to hear it. I need for you to tell me.

UNKNOWN: Yes. I’m so sorry, but it’s me. It’s Will.

His reply releases every emotion I’ve kept pent-up for these past twelve days. Anguish. Fury. Sorrow. Relief. Despair. They burst from me in ugly, gulping sobs, coming in waves so hard and so fast, I can’t catch my breath. My husband isn’t dead.

I hit Dial, and as the number rings, it hits me. Will is alive, and yet he concocted an elaborate plan to make everyone—including me, his wife, his very favorite person on the planet—think he’s not. He somehow got his name onto that passenger manifest, knowing it would break my heart. I end the call after the third ring.

It comes over me slowly at first, like a storm brewing in the distance. My breath grows shallow and short. My fingertips and toes start to tingle. I stare at the paper between my fingers, and something cold and hard forms in my belly. It snakes through my body and shimmies under my skin and ignites like kerosene in my blood, and suddenly I’m shaking. Will left me on purpose, and for money. Four and a half million dollars of it.

Never has anyone made me feel so worthless.

*

After my shower, I stomp downstairs in bare feet and wet hair. Sometime under the scalding water, when I was scrubbing my skin hard enough to make it bleed, my fury hardened into determination. Will wants me to stop searching? He wants me to leave it alone? Sorry, but no way I’m stopping now.

In the kitchen, I flip on the water kettle and pull a mug from the cabinet. As I’m scrounging around in the pantry for a tea bag, a trio of new texts ping my phone, rolling from one into the next.

UNKNOWN: I’m so sorry for everything. You have to know, you are the last person on the planet I’d ever want to hurt.

UNKNOWN: I don’t want to involve you in my troubles, and I don’t want you to have to lie. If the police come looking for me, if they confiscate your phone and find this number, it’s okay. There’s no way they’ll ever trace it. There’s no way they’ll be able to implicate you.

UNKNOWN: Iris, are you there? Please talk to me.