The Marriage Lie(72)

A normal widow would call in sick today. She’d spend the day in bed, wrapped in her dead husband’s bathrobe and bingeing on Oreos dipped in peanut butter and hiding from the world. And a normal boss would understand. Ted would reply with a whole slew of platitudes he’d actually mean, telling me to take my time, to not rush things, that my office will be waiting for me whenever I’m ready.

Only, I’m not a normal widow, am I? My husband—the same husband who thirteen days ago dived to his death in a westward-bound 737—is not really dead, which means I’m also not really a widow.

As the coffee is brewing, I sneak a peek into the cutlery drawer. The phone screen is black. I tap the button with a finger and nothing happens. The battery is dead.

“Ha!” I bark into my empty kitchen, slamming the drawer shut. It feels like a small kind of victory.

What could Will possibly say to make this better? What excuse could he possibly have? And if he went to all this trouble to fake his death, why bother texting me at all? How does he know I won’t march into the police station with my phone, fork it over for their detectives to use as Exhibit A?

That last one stops me on the kitchen tiles. Could I really turn in my own husband? Should I? I’ve always believed that stealing is a crime worthy of punishment, but the thought of my husband, my Will, wasting away behind bars somewhere, squeezes a spiky ball of nausea in my stomach.

And then I think of his mother and those two poor children sleeping in their beds when a fire tore through their building. What if Will was the one who set it? What if he’d gone to prison and we’d never met? How different my life would have been. How empty.

I have so many questions. Maybe I should give him a listen, see what he has to say before making any decisions.

The coffee sputters to a stop, and I pour it into a big gulp-sized travel mug. I grab a granola bar from the pantry, my keys and bag from the counter, and my dead phone from the drawer.

Later. I’ll give him a listen later.

*

High-schoolers swarm the parking lot when I swing into Lake Forrest at fifteen minutes before first bell. They watch me pass from behind designer sunglasses, not even trying to hide their stares and double takes. I’m like a subject for one of their psych experiments, an alien who’s just arrived from Planet Widow. They’re studying me for signs the aliens have sucked out my brain and replaced it with one of theirs.

Josh Woodruff, a senior, climbs out of the car next to mine, squinting at me over the roof of his hardtop convertible. “Hey, Mrs. Griffith. Are you okay?”

I wince and punch the lock button on my key fob, pulling up my sunniest smile. “Good morning, Josh. Any news?”

His frown clears to a mask of mock modesty, and he begins listing off the college letters he’s received—all acceptances and all top-tier schools, but not the one his parents are pushing for. “Still nothing from Harvard, though.”

“No matter what they come back with, you should be proud. You’ve already got an impressive list of schools who want you to wear their jerseys.”

He gives me an I guess shrug. “Dad’s still working his contacts, so hopefully I’ll hear back soon.”

“Fingers crossed!” I push all sorts of brightness into my answer, though for these kids, luck has nothing to do with it. For them, success is built on two things and two things only—hard work and network. Money is a given, and failure is not an option.

Josh smiles at me in an absentminded sort of way, then stands there until I turn away, toward the high-school building.

The morning air is cool, but the parking lot feels like a giant hill I have to climb in hundred-degree heat. I clack across the asphalt, trying not to work up a sweat in the early-morning sun, but my silk blouse is already sticking to my skin.

“Hi, Bridget. Good morning, Isabella. You ladies are looking extra perky this morning.”

They don’t look extra perky. They look like two half-asleep teenagers who stumbled into an AP calculus class by accident.

“Mrs. Griffith, are you okay?” one of them asks.

I swallow down a sigh. “Perfectly fine, thank you.”

Bridget waves a hand at my torso. “Like, you do realize your shirt is on inside out, right?”

I look down and she’s right, dammit. The laundry tag flutters at my waist, and the seams are raw and raggedy. I fold my arms across my chest and try to hold her gaze. “I’ll fix it as soon as I’m inside.”

“And you’re only wearing one earring,” Isabella says.

My fingers fly to my ears, my thumb closing in on a bare left earlobe, and a hot flush climbs my face. Jesus. No wonder the kids are stopping to watch me lumber across the parking lot, gawking at the poor widow who came to school looking like an unmade bed. I pluck out the other hoop and drop it into my bag, at the same time checking my skirt and sneaking a peek at my pumps. They match, thank God.

“I was in a hurry this morning. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” they say in unison.

Without another word, I turn and head for the building.

Planning a sensitivity training workshop moves to the top of my to-do list.

*

Ava is in my office when I walk through the door. I’m not all that surprised to see her here—no one takes advantage of my open-door policy more than Ava—though she’s usually slumped in the corner stool, a spot she sits in so often, her name should be stitched across the back like a director’s chair. Today, though, she stands stiff and twitchy in the center of the room, her backpack hung over a shoulder, her fingers white where they grip the strap.