If You Must Know (Potomac Point #1)(118)

“Fine, Anne.” He rolls his eyes and checks his watch. “Jesus, I’m trying to be a decent guy.”

Too little, too late.

A laundry list of insults cycles through my mind like ticker tape, but I literally bite my tongue when another image of Katy’s splotchy face from this morning flickers through my mind. All the time spent filling her life with love and opportunity means very little in light of one inescapable reality: by letting our family fall apart, Richard and I have fundamentally failed our daughter.

Condemning my husband is pointless. However we got here, the result is the same.

The brokers return, confirm the payments, congratulate us all, and quickly show us out. Even though I never loved that house, the finality of what’s happening hits me like a board to the face. My married life and home are truly lost to me. There will be no going back. No fixing what broke. I’m starting over at thirty-seven. That prospect festers like an ulcer. All I know is how to be a wife and mother.

My hands tremble for a split second as I grapple with my purse strap. Please, God, don’t let Richard see my strength falter. His affair humiliated me. He can never know how badly he’s hurt me, too.

The buyers walk ahead of us, holding hands. The woman is decked out in a Trina Turk “Vanah” dress, diamonds and sapphires in her ears and around her neck and wrists, and cute platform espadrilles. Her husband is attractive in a Tom Hardy way and carries his success like Richard does—chin up, shoulders proud.

I can picture him—much like my soon-to-be ex—proudly moving into that home that has three times more space than any family needs. What he doesn’t yet know is that four stories and a dozen rooms make it too easy to slink away from each other for entire evenings. Bit by bit that disconnect—the physical space between each person—becomes the sort of emotional distance that loosens family bonds. Not that you see it happening in the moment.

I’ve often wondered whether Richard and I might’ve stayed together if we’d remained in the two-thousand-square-foot home we’d previously owned. Questions like that keep me up nights.

A decade ago, we were excited. Happy. A young family on our way up. The problem with rising so high so fast? When you fall—and that fall will come, usually when you least expect it—you smack the ground so hard a part of you dies.

Once reanimated, you feel more like a roamer on The Walking Dead than a person.

Richard leans in as if he might kiss my cheek, but stops short when I flinch. “Good luck, Anne. Hope you don’t die of boredom in that small town.”

His condescension pricks the ugly bitterness that has blistered beneath my skin since his May confessional.

“Well, I survived life with you, so how bad can Potomac Point be?” I pat his shoulder twice. “Don’t worry about me. Save your energy for staying sane while Lauren has you stuck at home raising her young kids. I’ll be sure to send postcards from Paris and Prague to give you goals to look forward to in another twelve or fourteen years.”

I turn away and walk to my car without looking back so he can’t see my brave face slip. The truth is I’d wanted more kids but, after the agony of a late-term miscarriage, chose to focus all my love on Katy and her anxieties. Once she’d turned six, Richard no longer wanted to bring an infant into our lives. Another decision to regret, I suppose, because both Katy and I might be better off if we had another person in our shrinking family.

By the time my car door closes, fresh tears blur my vision. Contrary to my goal, I did not escape that closing with my dignity intact—behaving no better than my teen daughter.

It takes a bunch of tugging and a good lick to wrench my wedding rings from my finger. In the sunlight their dazzling sparkle is full of false promise, so I drop them into my purse. I stretch the fingers of my bare left hand, which now looks as unfamiliar as everything else about my undone life.

Richard wasn’t the husband I’d hoped he’d be, and ours hadn’t been the perfect marriage. But I’ve given so much of myself to that life that I can’t stand the way it’s ending. He’s skipping forward as if our years together meant nothing, leaving me behind on an uncertain path. Seeing him quickly—and happily—replace our family stings like an ice-cold shower.

I’ve been telling myself I’m not running. Telling myself that this move will be for the best.

Please, God, let me be right.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, I have many people to thank for helping me bring this book to all of you—not the least of whom are my family and friends for their continued love, encouragement, and support.

Thanks, also, to my agent, Jill Marsal, as well as to my patient editors, Chris Werner and Tiffany Yates Martin, whose keen eyes made this book so much stronger. And none of you would know about my work without the entire Montlake family working so hard on my behalf.

A number of people helped me with different elements of this book. It started with my friend’s husband, Brian Ong, a forensic accountant, and some of his coworkers (Lindi Jarvis, Toni Mele, and Lisa Dane), who helped me understand how husbands like Lyle plot and try to get away with these crimes, and how wives like Amanda often seek ways to recover money without involving the police. They provided a lot of details I ended up not including in my story, but I appreciated their time and advice. When I came up with the idea for the yacht (instead of a plane, as apparently is more common), my mother’s BFF and her husband, Ria and Bobby Baiz (who recently sold their house to sail into retirement), helped me better understand how Lyle might go about planning his escape, and how he might get caught. My daughter’s friend Meghan Kloud, an EMT, stellar student, and athlete, told me how Madeline’s fainting spell might be handled on-site. Jo Schaller, a Connecticut detective, and two former federal agents, who asked to remain anonymous, helped me flesh out what Amanda could and couldn’t do in her quest to track Lyle down. Despite all the research, I may have made some mistakes (or taken some liberties for the sake of fiction), so I own those and beg your forgiveness! The wet-bathing-suit memory comes from a friend with two sisters, Linda Kolodny Jens, so thanks for that one! I also need to thank my mother-in-law, Carol Day, a medium, who helped me create Nancy Thompson’s character and the scenes in which she’s delivering messages from beyond. I’m also so proud of my beloved daughter, Kayla, a budding songwriter, who wrote Eli’s song for me to use in this book.