Lies She Told(70)

*

I emerge from the underground into a painfully bright summer day. The afternoon sky is a neon blue, even though it’s nearly 5:00 PM. I shield my eyes with my palm and keep my gaze trained on the sidewalk until I hit my block. My apartment building is unmistakable, even at a glance. A New York riff on Italian architecture, the midrise is unique with its white stone and microbalconies cupped by ornate lattice work. When David and I had bought the condo, I’d imagined throwing the French doors wide and leaning over the railing to see the sun rise over the East River. The apartment had seemed so romantic. I hadn’t considered the reality of the busy street beneath my feet, the obnoxious honking that would drown out my own thoughts, let alone conversation.

I wave to my doorman as I enter and then take the elevators to the eighth floor. Bail posted an hour ago. David may be inside by now. One last chance to figure out how to confront my husband about the charges that he murdered his best friend.

David, I know you were seeing Nick. Trevor told me yesterday that he saw you two kiss on the street. Did you kill him?

Do I really want to know?

The pounding in my head picks up as I ride to my floor. I close my eyes against the glaring elevator lights and wait for the car to stop. When it does, I exit into the hallway and head to my apartment. Rather than use my key, I knock. David should be prepared for me. You shouldn’t surprise a murderer.

He opens the door looking like a well-dressed homeless man. Lines that I have never noticed wave across his forehead, reminding me of a beach after the tide has receded, leaving behind its sunken garbage.

He steps back from the doorway. I brace myself for our confrontation, to tell him that he needs to, finally, be honest with me and with himself. Suddenly, his arms surround me. His head falls into the crook of my neck. Tears wet my dress strap and soak my shoulder. Sounds sputter from his throat that I’ve never heard before. Wailing, moaning.

I lead him to the couch. Getting him to sit takes all the skill of a wild horse trainer. I hold his hands and guide him to the cushion, whispering things I don’t believe about everything turning out okay. When he’s finally on the couch, I grasp his hand and ask about Nick in the least pointed way possible. “David. Please tell me what is going on.”

He runs his palm under his nose and over his eyes. The skin glitters in the light pouring from the window. Not a single square inch of his face is dry. “The police found a note that Nick had sent me in the pocket of one of my jackets.” He gasps. “There was blood on it.”

“They arrested you over a note?”

“Yes.” He sounds as though he’s gargling. “A note. They think . . . Oh, God. It was his blood. They think I . . .” He bolts from the couch and stands, shivering, in front of me. “I don’t know how his blood got on it. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What did the note say?”

I ask, though I can guess. This is the document that David had been tearing apart the house to find, the piece of evidence tying him to Nick’s murder. I imagine a Dear John letter written with Nick’s scathing wit and a threat to out David if he didn’t walk away from the firm. The man was trying to take away my husband while I was undergoing extensive fertility treatments to have our child. He was ruthless when it came to getting his way.

David’s mouth opens as though he can no longer breathe through his nose. He stares at me, panting. I imagine his thoughts are racing. How to tell your wife of more than a decade that you had an affair with the best man at your wedding?

“Why do you ask?” His face, pinked from crying, darkens to a plum shade.

“It seems pertinent. A spot of Nick’s blood on a piece of paper shouldn’t be enough to call out the cavalry.”

“Who said it was a spot?”

“You did. Didn’t you?”

His eyes narrow. “What do you think it said?”

His questions are squeezing my brain. I stand up, finally angry. “How the hell would I know, David? You’re ranting about a note that has made the police think you murdered your best friend. Naturally, I want to know what the note said.”

The fight that had flashed across David’s face vanishes. He moves back to the couch and slumps onto the cushion. He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hands, pressing them into his eye sockets to a point that seems painful. “Nick wrote that he was in love with me. He said he’d been in love with me for years.”

David confesses like a lawyer. He’s not admitting any guilt. Nick wanted him. He’s not volunteering whether or not he reciprocated those feelings. But I know already. David at least explored a romantic relationship. He’d kissed Nick. And my heart says that if David kissed another man, the experimentation didn’t stop there.

“Did you love him too?”

David has to say it. Otherwise, I might stay. I’ll invent a melodramatic fiction in which a lovesick Nick kissed David and then, rejected, shot himself before diving into the East River with his last breath. I’ll keep pretending that the man whom I fell for so many years ago wants a life with me.

Lying to myself is in my nature. When my father left, I convinced myself that he was coming back even though everyone kept telling me that he was gone for good. Chris. My mother. My grandparents. When he didn’t return after a year, I became depressed. I don’t remember all the details. I do remember talking to doctors.