Wish You Were Gone(22)
Emma closed her eyes, shaking now, not wanting to remember the rest. It had been over so quickly. Hunter had caught up to James, and James had shoved Hunter—shoved their little boy—to the ground. It was the look on Hunter’s face that had broken her heart. So shocked and hurt and betrayed. James must have seen it, too, because he’d gone back inside and locked himself in the basement for the rest of the night. Emma had retrieved her shaking daughter from the front yard and coaxed her into a shower and into her bed. Hunter had gotten in his Jeep and peeled out.
Hunter’s face, though. The scratches on his arms. Her imagination spooling out for her what would have happened if James had caught up with Kelsey. That was what had done it. That was when she’d known she couldn’t wait another day. He’d asked her to meet him for a quick bite in the city before the party, and she’d said yes and tucked the papers into her bag. It had all been perfect timing, after all. She’d closed on the cottage that very morning, and that night, she was going to close out her marriage.
But James had never shown. She’d sat at that restaurant, full of righteous adrenaline and sick with anticipation, for over an hour, checking her phone, texting him, calling him, and nothing. He’d stood her up. Probably forgotten he’d even asked her to meet him and gone to the party with his work buddies. The humiliation was all-encompassing. Part of her wanted to go to his celebrity-filled work party and throw the papers in his face. But Emma had never been one for a scene.
She had driven out of the city, cursing him the whole way, breaking the speed limit so wantonly it was a miracle she hadn’t been pulled over. When she’d gotten home she’d popped an Ambien and gone to bed, only to find him dead in the garage a few hours later.
And now, this. He was going to divorce her? Why? He had seemed so content—perfectly happy to live his life as it was, making everyone in the household miserable while pretending to the world that they were this enviable, pristine, healthy family. The man had everything he’d ever wanted. She was the one who had been shit upon for the past ten, twelve, twenty years. She was the one who had hung on for far, far too long. So what had pushed him to this? Did Darnell know? Did Gray know?
The depth of her hurt floored her. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d always been the perfect wife to him. She had taken So. Much. Shit. It was too unfair.
“Mom? Where are you?”
Emma stood up straight and clutched her towel.
“In the bathroom!” she shouted back. “I’ll be out in a second!”
She threw on her robe and ran a comb through her hair, glad she’d stashed the briefcase and its contents inside James’s closet before getting in the shower so that her kids wouldn’t stumble upon it. She took three deep breaths, looking herself in the eyes and exerting as much control as she could over her emotions. Hunter and Kelsey could not be allowed to see her rage—her heartbreak.
Finally, her pulse returned to normal, Emma walked out to find all her bedroom lights ablaze and both her kids standing near the door, looking confused.
“You showered,” Kelsey said.
Emma lifted her chin. “Go put your stuff away and go back downstairs,” she told them. “We’re going out to dinner.”
EMMA
11:15 a.m.
14 hours before the accident
Emma felt as if her head was screwed on wrong. She rushed around the house looking for things—her reading glasses, her lipstick, her camera—then finding them in places she’d already looked. Gray was going to be here soon to pick her up and take her to the walk-through at the cottage. If everything went well, she’d be signing the papers right then and there. Closing on the house. Closing on her new beginning. She was so nervous, she felt like she was about to stand up in front of five hundred people to give a talk on a topic about which she knew nothing.
On her fifth run through the living room trying to straighten up and get everything in order, she banged the toe of her shoe on a baseball bat. It was half sticking out from under the couch and she crouched to wrest it free.
“Hunter,” she admonished under her breath. He was forever leaving random sports equipment around the house. He must have come home from one of his batting cage workouts with his coach and gone straight to the TV instead of the garage. Someone could have tripped and really gotten hurt. She twirled the bat once, muscle memory kicking in from her brief baton-twirling phase, then held it like a baseball player and stepped into a batting stance. Feeling slightly silly, she swung the bat as hard as she could, and was surprised by the whipping sound the air made around it. She felt powerful, like she could do anything. A giggle burbled up in her throat. She really was giddy. She took the bat downstairs and leaned it by the doorway to the garage so that she—or preferably Hunter—would remember to put it away later.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Gray.
ON MY WAY! And a smiley emoji. Gray never used emojis. This really was a big day.
Emma ran upstairs to grab her bag. The paperwork for her meet-up with James later stuck out the top, and the very sight of it flooded her stomach with acid. This was going to be a big day in more ways than one. She tucked the papers deeper into her bag and went downstairs to wait for her friend.
LIZZIE
Lizzie stood at the kitchen sink, pulling kale leaves from their stems. The sound system she’d had installed a few years back played her favorite chill playlist, which started with Sara Bareilles, moved on to Norah Jones, and ended with James Taylor. The speakers, wired throughout the first floor, had cost her five thousand dollars. What she wouldn’t give to have that money back now.