The New Husband(21)
CHAPTER 12
At therapy, Nina decided not to discuss Maggie’s struggles. The night before, she had spoken to her daughter about the bullying at school, revealing what Stephanie Abel had said at the Heritage Commission meeting. When Nina learned of Maggie’s new lunch companion, Ben Odell, the welcome news of their unlikely friendship offered a ray of hope that she might come out of her funk, feel less angry toward Simon, and maybe ease the transition for everyone. Talk of her job offer Nina thought could wait, too. Instead, she picked up right where she left off—with two pictures a stranger had sent of her husband kissing another woman.
With those photos, Glen became a stranger to her, and Nina was like a stranger to herself. Her completely ordered world had been shredded and taped back together in a poor imitation of what had been. Her vision of her life was nothing but an illusion—a cruel trick played on an unwitting patsy. There was, however, one truth Nina took from the terrible ordeal, an abstract notion that with time and rumination calcified into a harsh new understanding: just because you love someone doesn’t mean you know them.
Nina told Dr. Wilcox about the morning after she received the pictures of Teresa and Glen together. She woke up as though she’d not slept a wink, and fed the children their breakfast in a daze. Time passed in a blur, with the secret weighing heavily on her heart.
The next day, the police gave permission for community volunteers to help with the search effort. Nina headed to the boat launch, her mental state echoing the fog that hovered ghostlike above the choppy water of Lake Winnipesaukee. Professional search-and-rescue teams continued their hunt for a body that seemed determined to stay hidden, and the U.S. Coast Guard also joined the quest, just as Detective Wheeler said they might. They brought along two specially equipped Boston Whalers, giving the New Hampshire Marine Patrol and State Police some welcome assistance. Nina didn’t know if the police were rushing to Carson to track down the waitress, but she assumed the focus was still on the search for Glen.
She recalled standing at the lake shoreline, watching the search teams motor about in an organized fashion, craning her neck to follow the helicopter’s purposeful circles. Her black boots sank into the mud as a steady rain pelted rhythmically against her green umbrella.
“Maggie said she thought the rain was her dad crying. That he was letting us know he would miss us.”
Dr. Wilcox smiled wanly at the bittersweet sentiment, her right hand jotting something down. “She thought he had drowned?”
“We all did,” Nina said, pausing before adding, “Some of us still do.”
“Connor?” Dr. Wilcox remembered.
“Yes, Connor for sure,” said Nina. “He thinks his father is dead.”
“And you?”
“Jury is out. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he just wanted to start over. Fake his death and begin anew without the burden of child support and alimony. People snap, you know.”
Dr. Wilcox’s eyes glimmered ever so briefly. “What happened during the search?”
“I tried to redirect my energy to my kids and the volunteers,” Nina said. “But I kept seeing those pictures in my head, Glen kissing that woman, his eyes glowing with lust—with love, maybe?
“At first I was paralyzed. I had no idea what to do,” Nina went on. “I didn’t tell anybody but the police about the pictures.”
“So the search went on and nobody, not even your close friends, knew about the affair?”
“That’s right. I think there were at least a hundred people out looking for him. I manned the volunteer tent, feeling like I was deceiving every last one of them.”
“Why’s that?”
“They weren’t looking for Glen, the loving husband and devoted family man. They were searching for an adulterer, a man with secrets as hidden as he was.”
Nina recounted how groups of volunteers, arms linked, headed out into the woods by the boat launch and returned cold and soaking wet, without any leads. Coffee couldn’t warm them, and she sensed the mood shift late that day. By then, the enthusiasm for the search, so infectious in the morning, had fatigued, along with the searchers themselves.
It had been painful to think of spending another day thanking people for their kindness and sacrifice, hugging them, presenting a face of grief while she ignored the other feelings invading her bones. But that’s exactly what she did the next day, too: she lied to herself and to others.
“I didn’t know what else to do. I knew eventually the truth would come out one way or another. But that wasn’t the only thing upsetting me.”
Nina took a moment to collect her thoughts and let the painful memories resurface.
“During the search I noticed that nobody from Glen’s work was there,” she began.
“He worked for—?” Dr. Wilcox let the question hang, prompting Nina to fill in the blanks.
“Center Street Bank. He was a senior financial advisor in the consumer banking division.”
“I see. Is that what brought him to Carson?”
“I thought maybe, yes,” said Nina. “Maybe he went there to scout a location for a branch, and got it on with a waitress while blowing off steam. But Glen didn’t work in the retail side, so he’d have no reason to help open new bank branches.”
“Got it.” Dr. Wilcox took another note.