The Marriage Lie(9)

He has to come back. We still have dinner dates and hotel reservations and birthday parties to plan. We’re going to Seaside next month, a Memorial Day getaway with just us two, and to Hilton Head this summer with my family. It was only last night that he pressed a kiss to my belly and said he can’t wait until I’m so fat with his baby, his arms won’t reach all the way around. Will can’t be gone. The finality is too unreal, too indigestible. I need proof.

I dump my stuff on the floor and head down the hallway to the back of the house, an open kitchen overlooking a dining area and keeping room. I dig the remote out of the fruit basket, and with the punch of a few buttons, CNN lights up the screen. A dark-haired reporter stands in front of a cornfield, wind whipping her hair all around her face, interviewing a gray-haired man in a puffy coat. The text across the bottom of the screen identifies him as the owner of the cornfield now littered with plane parts and human remains.

Claire comes around the corner holding a box of tea bags, her eyes wide. “You really shouldn’t be watching that.”

“Shh.” I press and hold the volume button until their voices hurt my ears almost as much as their words. The reporter peppers the man with questions while I search the background for any sign of Will. A flash of brown hair, the sleeve of his navy fleece. I hold my breath and strain to see, but there’s nothing but smoke and cornstalks, swaying in the breeze.

The reporter asks the old man to tell the camera what he saw.

“I was working on the far west end of the fields when I heard it coming,” the old man says, gesturing to the endless rows of corn behind him. “The plane, I mean. I heard it before I saw it. It was obviously in trouble.”

The reporter pauses his story. “How did you know the plane was in trouble?”

“Well, the engines were squealing, but I didn’t see no fire or smoke. Not until that thing hit the field and blew. Biggest fireball I ever seen. I was probably a good mile or so away, but I felt the ground shake, and then a big blast of heat hot enough to singe my hair.”

How long does it take a plane to tumble from the sky? One minute? Five? I think of what that must have been like for Will, and I lean over the sink and gag.

Claire reaches for the remote and hits Mute. I grip the countertop and stare at the scratched bottom of the sink, waiting for my stomach to settle, and think, What now? What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Behind me, I hear her scrounging around my kitchen, opening cabinets and digging around inside, the vacuumed hiss of the refrigerator door opening and closing. She returns with a pack of saltines and a bottle of water. “Here. The water’s cold, so take tiny sips.”

Ignoring both, I move around the counter to the other side and collapse onto a bar stool. “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.” Claire gives me a questioning look. “The stages of grief according to Kübler-Ross. I’m clearly in the denial phase, because it makes no sense. How could a man headed to Orlando end up on a westward-bound plane? Was the conference moved to Seattle or something?”

She lifts both shoulders, but her expression doesn’t seem the least bit unsure. I may be in denial, but Claire’s clearly not. Though she might not say it out loud, she accepts Liberty Air’s claims that Will is one of the 179 bodies torn to pieces over a Missouri cornfield.

“It’s just not possible. Will would have told me, and he definitely wouldn’t have kept up the running dialogue about going to Orlando. Just this morning, he stood right where you’re standing and told me how much he hated that city. The heat, the traffic, those damn theme parks everywhere you look.” I shake my head, desperation raising my voice like a siren. “He’s been so stressed, maybe he didn’t know the conference had been moved. Maybe that’s where he’s been all this time, roaming around the scorching Orlando streets, trying to track down the new location. But then why not call me back?”

Claire presses her lips together, and she doesn’t respond.

I close my eyes for a few erratic heartbeats, the emotions exploding like bombs in my chest. What do I do? Who do I call? My first instinct is to call Will, like I do whenever I have a problem I can’t figure out myself. His methodical mind sees things differently than mine, can almost always plot a path to the solution.

“You should design an app,” I told him once, after he’d helped me chart out an entire semester’s worth of drug and alcohol awareness programs. “You’d make a fortune. You could call it What Will Will Say?”

He’d patted his lap, smiling my favorite smile. “Right now he says you’re adorable and to get over here and give me a kiss.”

Now I press my fingers to my lips and tell myself to calm down, to think. There must be someone I can call, someone who will tell me this is all just one huge misunderstanding.

“Jessica!” I pop off the stool and sprint to the phone, resting on a charger by the microwave. “Jessica will know where he is. She’ll know where the conference was moved.”

“Who’s Jessica?”

“Will’s assistant.” I punch in the number I know by heart, turning my back on Claire so I don’t see her creased brow, her averted gaze, the way she’s chewing her lip. She’s humoring me, just like Ted did.

“AppSec Consulting, Jessica speaking.”

“Jessica, it’s Iris Griffith. Have you—”