Good as Dead(21)

And I was determined to find out what it was.





JACK


Three months ago

My wife was in a playful mood that night.

When I walked into the bedroom, she put music on—“Sailing” by Christopher Cross, an ’80s soft rock classic—grabbed my hand, and swirled into me like yarn to a spool. I was not in the mood to dance, but I couldn’t refuse her, never could.

I met Kate when I spilled coffee on her at an airport Starbucks. I was so charmed by her laugh—and that her reaction to being doused with hot coffee was to laugh—that I moved my seat twenty rows back to sit next to her. Twelve months later we were married. In his speech at our wedding, my new father-in-law referred to the incident as “the definition of a happy accident.” Everybody laughed.

Of course, most accidents aren’t happy. I’ve been lucky not to have too many of the unhappy kind. I fell and broke my hand skiing, I hit a golf ball through a window, I gave a kid who’s allergic to nuts a cookie that could have killed him. At the time, these accidents were devastating. Breaking my hand ruined my vacation, fixing that window cost a full two weeks’ pay, and there is nothing more horrifying than watching a child go into anaphylactic shock because you forgot to ask, Are you OK with nuts? But my hand healed, my bank account rebounded, and that kid lived to eat another cookie. Those were the worst accidents of my life. Until this one.

“Sailing . . . la-la-la-la . . . ,” Kate sang, her head tilted up toward the sky. She was a terrible singer, and any other day I would have laughed. But that day her unabashed joy broke my heart. Because I knew that if she found out what had happened, and what I’d done to cover it up, she would never feel this happy again.

I love it when baseball announcers say, I betcha Joe Batter wishes he could have that pitch back! Even if you never played baseball, you know what they mean. We’ve all had those if only moments. If only I’d swung at that pitch. If only I hadn’t. I could have been the hero. I could have saved the day.

As my wife pressed her face to my chest and rocked me slowly left and right, I had a thousand if onlys churning through my mind—if only the sun wasn’t so blinding, if only that truck had moved out of the way, if only that couple had exited the car sooner, or later, or not at all. I could have played that game for days.

The tragic thing about if onlys, if you’re wishing for them, it’s too late. Once a pitch is thrown, you can’t get it back.

I would have traded all my life’s if onlys to get that day back, but of course, just like that missed perfect pitch, it was too late.

So I danced with my wife, knowing full well it might be the last time, and because my heart didn’t have room for any more regrets.





CHAPTER 12


I literally lived in the house of my dreams. When I looked around, I could hardly believe it was really all mine.

I did not grow up wealthy—far from it—but I still dared to dream what my perfect house would be like. I dreamed of a long driveway that wound up a gentle hill. I dreamed of that driveway ending at a majestic gate hugged by flowering, vibrant-pink bougainvillea. I dreamed of that gate opening to a gently bubbling fountain that lured colorful birds and the occasional deer.

I dreamed of a front door so wide and welcoming that people would approach with as much excitement as Charlie at the chocolate factory. Once inside, I dreamed of a grand staircase right out of Gone with the Wind that flared into banistered overlooks on either side. I dreamed the house would have a room for every purpose—a chef’s kitchen for preparing gourmet meals, a lush lanai to entertain, a gym, a screening room, a master bedroom so luxurious it felt like a suite at the Ritz. All of this was at stake now. If we couldn’t keep the lid on this, I could lose it all.

Evan and I met in my private study that night. I had it decorated more like a hunting lodge than an office, with deep leather chairs and a plush bearskin rug. The walls were lined with my favorite books, which ranged from Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle to vintage Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy. No one went in there but me, and Evan on the rare occasion we discussed business at my house.

“Am I going to go to jail for this?” I asked my lawyer as I examined the signatures of Holly and Savannah Kendrick. It felt strange having a legal document for an illegal act, but I trusted Evan had reasons for wanting it.

He seemed prepared for my absurd question. “No one has anything to gain by exposing your connection to this,” he replied. It was true, of course, but that was no guarantee that they wouldn’t. Our devil’s bargain was rancid, but just because we all swallowed it, didn’t mean we could all keep it down. Guilty feelings can be boxed up, but life has a way of jostling them free. For some they leak out slowly, seeping into the deep crevices of your conscience, haunting your dreams until you die. For others, they build up like steam in a pressure cooker, threatening to blow you wide open. This was not going to go away. The only unknown was who was going to slow rot, and who was going to explode.

“Think of your family,” Evan said, as if I needed to be reminded. This was, of course, all about my family.

My greatest sadness was that I only had one child. I had wanted more children. But pregnancy was hard for my wife. She had what they call hyperemesis gravidarum, which is Latin for I can’t stop vomiting, please kill me now. It was horribly, violently, heartbreakingly awful. Even high doses of Zofran, the medicine they give to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, couldn’t quell her fits of nausea. For nearly nine months, Kate lived on the bathroom floor with her head by the toilet. There were days she literally wanted to die. Watching her suffer was like being handcuffed to a fire truck while your house burned down. It was the worst kind of torture. At one point she begged her doctor to put her in a medically induced coma and keep her there until the baby was born. When the doctor said no, they didn’t do that, I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.