Halfway to You(62)

I changed the subject: “Why don’t you want to see Keith’s family for Christmas?”

“It’s so far into the future,” he said, rolling away from me. His feet hit the floor, and he padded toward the bathroom. “Do we have to discuss it now?”

I propped myself up on my elbows, staring at the open doorway. “I just want to know what the hesitation is.”

After a minute, Todd reappeared, illuminated by the harsh bathroom light. He flipped the switch and returned to bed in darkness. “Keith and I have been best friends since high school.” He settled the sheets over us again. “There’s a lot of history there.”

The tragedy. Keith’s family had shepherded Todd through the worst event of his life.

I thought he would go on, but he didn’t. My gaze traced the dim outline of his straight nose in the dark. I wanted to know what she’d looked like, learn her name, but whenever the topic came up, I sensed the monumental anguish in Todd’s heart, and it didn’t feel right to prod him with questions. Though he hadn’t explained much about his wife over the years, I knew Todd had loved her deeply.

Did he love me that way?

I sometimes worried I was second best to the woman who had carried his child. A memory of a person is always superior to what stands before you—my mother had taught me that. And he’d built a whole life with her—a history, a home, a child. I was a nomad by comparison, a passerby in the life of Todd Langley.

“I was so worried today, Ann.” His voice was raw in a way that told me he, too, had been thinking of her. “I was afraid you—” A soft suck of breath strangled his words, but they still hit me with a force. “I don’t want to sound controlling, but I worry. I hate being so far apart.”

Long distance was hard for me, but was it torture for Todd? I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Instead, I wondered, “When was the last time you saw Keith’s family?”

Todd exhaled in a long, measured way. “Moving forward was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “It was our hometown, and the fire occurred in our small local hospital. The news spread fast, and I couldn’t escape it. Everywhere I went, I received pity from strangers, when all I wanted was to heal in solitude. Keith and his family were the only people I could rely on during that time. It’s hard to be around them since then. There’s so much pain in our shared memories.”

“What if it’s time to reconnect? It could be . . . therapeutic?”

“Maybe you’re right.” He hugged me to his chest and kissed me. “Distance doesn’t help anything, does it?”

I thought of Rome even as I conceded. “No,” I whispered, “it doesn’t.”





MAGGIE


San Juan Island, Washington State, USA Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Todd’s daughter, that child he lost, was Maggie’s half sister. It hadn’t occurred to Maggie until now, and it doesn’t counteract her anger toward him, but . . . her heart clenches. She’s uncertain how she should feel about Todd. Every instinct is a contradiction: rage and pity, blame and sympathy.

She blinks, trying to quell the tears forming in her eyes. Ann is still talking, but when Maggie wipes her cheek, Ann stops.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

What Todd did to Maggie is inexcusable. He’d abandoned her. And yet she recalls the shock and sorrow she experienced when she first read the details of the tragedy online—her fury that no one had told her its impact, on not Todd but the Whitakers. In Ann’s version, a connective detail has been left out.

Does Ann know the other half of the story?

Ann’s eyes—penetrating, firm, but compassionate—don’t offer any answers.

“We can take a break?” Ann asks.

Maggie wipes her cheeks again and shakes her head. “I’m fine. Go on.”





ANN


Manhattan, New York, USA

April 1993

On my last day in New York, I met Keith for breakfast at a nearby diner for some overdue shop talk. I arrived first and was seated by the window, which meant I could see the strife on Keith’s face as he approached from half a block away. His strides were quick and purposeful; his cheeks were flushed with agitation. He yanked the door open, glances like missiles hitting table after table until he spotted me.

I steadied my coffee as he jostled into the chair across from mine and slapped a tabloid down.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking up the newspaper.

“Page Six.”

A waitress brought Keith a coffee while I flipped to the source of his vexation. The spread was cluttered with photos and headlines, a visual cacophony. “You’re going to have to narrow it down,” I said.

He tapped his finger on a grainy horizontal photo of a woman lying on the sidewalk. Because her knees were bent up, her skirt was hiked, revealing a scandalous amount of thigh. The headline read: Famous author hit by cab!

That was my thigh. I bent forward, reading, unbelieving. It seemed so unlikely that I would end up in a tabloid. I was a writer, not an actress. The write-up mentioned a “hit-and-run” and— I met Keith’s eyes. “What the fuck.”

Someone had spotted me, Keith, and Todd exiting the steak house. Could this mystery man be a real-life Frank? Seeing my photo in a tabloid was a shock, but it was the fixation on Todd and the reference to my book—in which Frank betrayed Jane—that made my mouth go dry. A recent interview had completely rearranged my sentiments about my “new relationship” and the delay of my next book, putting the blame unfairly on Todd—now, this.