A Good Marriage(72)

Besides, when you were married to an alcoholic, you got tired of excavating details. Don’t ask, don’t tell. It was easier that way to pretend you had absolutely zero role in anything that happened to you. Or not you. Me. That was what I had always done—wipe away the inconvenient facts to keep my eyes on the prize: forward momentum.

“We went to Freddy’s for a drink.”

“Freddy’s?” I shot back. Sam had said “the old dads” went to the dive bar Freddy’s every week after basketball, but that he never joined them. A bonus, ongoing lie tacked onto a single betrayal. Perfect. “I suppose you’ve been going every week?”

“I figured you knew,” he said.

“You figured I knew you were lying to me?” I shouted. “Why the hell wouldn’t I say something?”

“It does sound stupid now,” he said. “But that is what I thought. That we were just agreeing to disagree.”

“For the record, I have never thought you were being anything other than completely honest with me.” I swallowed hard. What a lie that was. “I guess I’m the asshole then.”

“You’re not an asshole, Lizzie. I am, obviously,” Sam said quietly. “But I don’t know whose earring it is. That’s the honest truth.”

“Did you ask the other guys you were with about that night?”

“I only have an email for the guy from the Journal who got me into the league, and he’s away for work. He hasn’t gotten back to me. And that was the last game for the summer,” he said. “I know I was at the bar when my friend left. I remember wishing him luck on his story. After that, I was with one of the other guys. But he’s got a wife and kids and a big career so I don’t know how late he would have been out. Then again, he was also always trying to get us to go to a strip club, so who knows.”

“A strip club?” My voice was shaking. “I thought these were old dads.”

“Who do you think goes to strip clubs? Anyway, I wouldn’t have gone. I hate those places. You know that.”

“Awesome. What a relief.”

“I don’t think I did anything with anyone, Lizzie. I honestly don’t. I wouldn’t do that. I love you.”

“Oh please, Sam!” I snapped back. “In a blackout you’re a completely different person. You’ve said that to me so many times. You can’t turn around now and claim you weren’t with someone while blacked out because you’re not that person. I’ve been here the whole time, remember! I know how this works. You don’t know what happened. So anything could have.”

Sam took a deep breath. “I don’t think there was any other woman. I don’t want that to be true,” he said evenly. “But you’re right. If I’m one hundred percent honest, I can’t be sure.”

And there it was: Sam had admitted there was a possibility he’d been with another woman. And to think I’d almost let the whole thing go. I pushed myself off the wall and turned for the door.

“Lizzie, where are you going?” Sam called after me, his voice desperate.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I have no fucking idea.”

In daylight first thing the next morning, Rikers looked even more like a refugee encampment, my view of it probably not improved by the three fitful hours of sleep I’d gotten on our lumpy couch. There were more visiting families this time, including children, lined up along the wall as I stood in the attorney security line to request that Zach be brought up. A guard in uniform walked a drug-or bomb-sniffing dog back and forth in front of them as though they were nothing more than terrified suitcases. One little girl started to cry. What kind of justice was this, and for whom? Zach was rich and white and had the resources of a huge Manhattan law firm at his disposal, and even his best-case scenario at the moment was to live long enough to make it to trial.

When Zach finally appeared in the attorney room, his eye looked a bit better, but there was a new long purple bruise across his left cheekbone and a fresh cut at the corner of his mouth.

He moved slowly as he lowered into the chair across from me. “It looks worse than it is.”

But this time he sounded less sure.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“We might be able to get you moved,” I offered, though I wasn’t even sure that was true.

“Moved where? To protective custody?” Zach’s leg started to bounce, but weakly. “The box?”

“I guess, maybe.”

“That’s solitary. Literally there is no difference. They protect you by giving you the same thing they punish other people with. Ironic, huh?” He sounded so wizened, like he’d been in Rikers years and not days. He wouldn’t look at me. “The box might kill me faster than the guys in here. I need out, that’s all.”

Time was up. Zach deserved the truth.

“We lost the bail appeal.” There was no way to sugarcoat it. “And they’ve brought the murder indictment. As we expected.”

Zach was silent for a long time. Finally he shook his head as his leg began to bounce with more vigor. “There was a part of me that was really hoping for a miracle: that the actual truth would matter.”

“The truth will matter,” I said. “Facts will matter. But at trial. Not so much at bail hearings.” I pulled out a pad. “Which means I am going to have to ask some tough questions, and you’re going to need to be completely honest with me, okay?”