The Good Widow(24)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JACKS—AFTER
Nick pulls the Jeep we rented up to the front of the hotel, and I step out, the air warm against my skin. (Despite the gorgeous drive from the airport, and the second Prozac I’d slipped under my tongue, I’d still clenched the “oh-shit bar” the entire time.)
“Aloha!” A man, wearing a nametag that says Akoni and a tan shirt with white flowers and the Westin Ka‘anapali logo stitched on the front, welcomes us. He smiles and motions for us to bow our heads. Nick and I pause, glancing at each other awkwardly before we outstretch our necks to accept his offering—a strand of simple white seashells.
Akoni points us in the direction of two glass jugs filled with orange-and-lemon-infused water, and I walk toward it, fill my plastic cup, and take a sip, picturing Dylan pressing one to her own lips. As Nick and I are ushered toward reception, I imagine James and Dylan making these same steps. Had James taken her small hand in his and guided her inside, stopping to marvel at the waterfalls spilling down a wall of rocks into a koi pond occupied by a gaggle of salmon-pink flamingos? Did they try to get Bob, the brilliant blue-and-yellow macaw that lives in the bamboo cage, to mimic them?
The property, at first glance, is stunning: palm trees bending overhead as if trying to talk to each other, the sound of babbling streams and birds filling the air, tables and chairs set up by the ponds to watch the swans swim by, the koi fighting for the scraps of food a group of children are throwing haphazardly their way.
A ripple of jealous anger passes through me as I think of James taking the time to research and book this hotel—something that had always been left to me. I wonder again if our trip to Maui—our honeymoon—came to mind as he planned theirs. How did he do that—separate his life with me from the relationship he had with her? Did he talk about me? Confide all my biggest weaknesses and failures? Or did my name never pass his lips—as if he put me in a box in the back of his mind, like the clothes you once loved, but had outgrown and forgotten about? I couldn’t decide which option was worse.
“Hey, I checked us in. They put us both in the ocean tower, but we’re on different floors. And not that we care, but they upgraded us both to an ocean view!” Nick says as he hands me my driver’s license, credit card, and room key, then frowns. “You okay?”
“It’s just so strange—to be here.” I watch a flamingo dip his beak into the water, wondering how long he can stand on one foot. Hours? Days?
“Surreal,” Nick says as we both notice a little boy pointing to an enormous crab sunning himself on a rock.
I ask Nick the question on my mind as I look around. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of place you bring someone you’re just having a fling with, does it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had a fling.”
I trail my eyes to the floor and try not to blink, to not let the tears fall. I don’t want Nick to see me cry.
“Hey.” Nick lightly touches my upper arm. “We don’t know anything yet. Let’s save the tears for when or if we need them.”
“You’re right,” I say.
“For what it’s worth, I’m completely baffled why James would stray at all—casual or serious. It’s still cheating.”
I blink at him. “Well, you also don’t know me very well.”
“Maybe not, but from what I can tell so far, you’re an incredibly courageous woman.” He motions toward the swimming pool. “To come here and do this. It takes guts.”
“I think I may just be crazy,” I say as a tear finally works its way out of my eye, and I quickly wipe it away.
Nick shakes his head. “It would be so much easier to give up. To accept all the sympathy and build a shrine to him in your mind, always wondering who he really was but not bothering to find out. Blaming yourself instead.”
I do blame myself. But I don’t say this to Nick.
When I don’t respond, Nick adds, “You know the old saying—the truth will set you free.”
“Or will it make things more complicated?” I know these are Beth’s words, and hate that she’s gotten into my head again. I realize she’s only looking out for me, but she could never understand why I need to be here. How even though every single molecule in my body is warning me against it, it doesn’t matter. Because he was my husband, and he wasn’t the man I thought he was. I won’t be able to move forward until I can understand why he did this.
“It might, but at least we’ll know, right?”
I nod, thinking about the past few months. About the things I didn’t know. That my husband wasn’t where he said he was. That he was capable of having an affair. That he could sleep with someone else and then come home and make love to me. That I was being stupid to believe we had a marriage incapable of being broken by an outside party. “Do you have any guesses as to how long they were . . .” I trail off. I think about my sister seeing James and Dylan together a month before the accident, but I knew they’d met long before that.
“A couple?”
“Yes.” I move to the side so a woman pushing a stroller can maneuver around us, and I catch a glimpse of a chubby-cheeked baby sleeping soundly.
“I don’t know. The emails cut off after a month or so. But there’s a span of several months in between the final email and when they came here. So it could have been five, six months?” Nick takes in my face. “But, Jacks, we don’t know how often they saw each other during that time. Or if it ended and then started up again shortly before they came here.”