The Husband Hour(42)

She felt like she’d been slapped. “Wow. How convenient. I bet you’ll find time for a short-distance relationship, though, won’t you.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. “Don’t touch me.” She stood up, the sunlight blindingly bright against the metal as she climbed down the bleachers. She broke into a run as she headed back to her car, and it wasn’t lost on her that their relationship had begun with her running through that very park.

At the time, Lauren had thought that it was the worst pain she would ever feel. Her young self could never have imagined that one day she would be standing alone at the beach, alone in the world, looking back on that argument with nostalgia.

Her mother assumed that the key to her happiness would be finding love again.

Lauren never wanted to feel that way again. Alone, she was safe. Alone, she was in control.

She wouldn’t let anything get in the way of that.





Chapter Twenty-Three



Matt plugged in his headphones. Outside, the sun began to set on another perfect June beach day. For all Matt cared, it might as well have been snowing.

Downstairs, Henny hosted her friends for dinner and a book club. She’d warned him earlier in the day. “Hope we don’t disturb you! Come down and say hi. I’m sure the ladies would love to meet you.”

He unpaused the section of the video he’d been watching.

“We really started talking about CTE vis-à-vis sports in 2002,” said Dr. William Massey. He’d let Matt film him in his office at Mount Sinai Hospital.

“And can you tell me again what exactly CTE is?”

“Chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In 2002, we saw it in the brain of football player Mike Webster. Since then, dozens and dozens of cases have been identified.”

“All in older players?”

“Not at all. Some of the guys are as young as seventeen.”

“And can you explain exactly what CTE does to the brain?”

“In CTE, a protein called tau builds up around the blood vessels of the brain, interrupting normal function and eventually killing nerve cells. The disease evolves in stages. In stage one, tau is present near the frontal lobe but there are no symptoms. In stage two, as the protein becomes more widespread, you start to see the patient exhibit rage, impulsivity. He most likely will suffer depression.”

The doctor pulled up a slide showing a normal brain next to a brain afflicted with stage 2 CTE, images from an autopsy. “See those darkened spots? Okay, then here in stage three—” He pulled up new slides. “We see progression to the temporal section of the brain. By now, the patient suffers confusion and memory loss. Then we get to stage four.”

Matt’s camera guy zoomed in on the slide of a healthy brain next to one with stage 4 CTE.

“That’s significantly smaller than the healthy brain,” Matt said.

“Half the size,” said Dr. Massey. “The brain is now deformed, brittle. The cognitive function of the patient is severely limited.”

Matt’s phone rang. Craig.

“Hey, man,” he said, pausing the video. Painfully aware of the footage he did not have a week after telling Craig that Lauren had agreed to an interview.

“Just checking in,” said Craig. “How’s it going?”

“Good, good. Making progress.”

“When you have a minute, send me your interviews with Lauren Kincaid. I know you haven’t had time to edit. I just want to get a sense of where we’re at.”

Matt closed his eyes. “Craig, I’m really close.”

“Close to what?”

“To interviewing her.”

“Last week you said she agreed to talk to you. Did she change her mind?”

“No. It’s just…a process.”

“So you lied to me.”

“It’s a process,” Matt repeated. “I really am making progress. This is delicate work, Craig. You gotta trust me. I just need a little more time.”

In the silence that followed, Matt wanted to say something but kept quiet. The project spoke for itself. It was important. Craig knew it—Matt was certain of that.

“It’s not the fact that you don’t have the interview yet,” Craig said. “It’s that you lied to me. Andrew Dobson warned me that you were unreliable, and now I have to believe him. I’m sorry, Matt. I’m out.”



Lauren couldn’t tell if her mother and sister were still entertaining Neil Hanes on the back deck, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She slipped in quietly through the front door and carried her takeout from Sack O’ Subs upstairs.

The upstairs hallway was dark, but behind the door of the guest room, Ethan’s light was on. All she wanted to do was close herself in the privacy of her room, but she felt bad for the kid.

She knocked once lightly on the door and opened it. Ethan, wearing short-sleeved Spider-Man pajamas, sat on his bed playing with some sort of robot action figure.

“Hey there,” she said from the doorway. “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” he said, looking up. “Aunt Lauren, did you read the Harry Potter books?”

“Absolutely.”

“When you were my age?”