A Curve in the Road(35)
The bartender’s cheeks flush with color, as if he’s realizing only now the enormity of what he’s just revealed to me. I imagine what he must be thinking: Don’t kill the messenger.
I might not want to kill him, but I sure as hell would like to yell at him and shake him until his teeth rattle, just to vent some of my anger, because I feel like a pressure cooker with the lid about to fly off.
He glances over his shoulder. “I gotta get back inside.”
He gives me the address of an apartment in town. Apparently it’s within walking distance, a few blocks away. Not that Paula’s in any condition to walk. She’s passed out cold.
I look in at her and feel an extreme antagonism building up inside of me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so outraged by anyone. Not even Lester.
I get into the driver’s seat and can’t think about inserting the key into the ignition because I’m angrier than a bull. All I can do is stare at Paula—she’s so gallingly pretty—and wonder about the lies my husband must have been telling me over the past few years. Or maybe during our entire marriage.
Was Paula the only one? If he had a place of his own in this town, there might have been others.
I have no idea what to do or how to go on living the life I thought I knew. That life is over, not only because my husband is dead but also because my marriage to him wasn’t what I thought it was. He was a stranger, a cheater, a liar, and he betrayed me.
How could I not have known? And how can I possibly grieve for him now? Part of me wishes he were alive so I could kill him myself.
Suddenly I feel like I’m hanging upside down by my ankles and I don’t know which way is up. It takes all my concentration to turn the key and start the car, because I want answers from the woman passed out in the seat beside me and I’m determined to get them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Come on—get up. You have to walk,” I say to Paula as I open the passenger-side door, unbuckle her seat belt, and try to wake her by tugging at her arm.
Her head swivels like it’s on one of those bobblehead toys, and she looks up at me in a daze.
“That’s right—time to walk.” I pull her to her feet. “Do you have a key to the front door?”
“Pocket,” she drawls, seeming unable to retrieve it on her own. I’m forced to slide my hand into her coat pockets to find it.
A moment later, she’s staggering up the walk in her camel-colored wool coat and jeans, making her way to the entrance of a run-down three-story brick apartment building with dilapidated wooden balconies. It’s a far cry from the expensive South End home Alan and I shared in Halifax. Nor does it hold a candle to Paula’s tidy little house in the Lunenburg subdivision full of families.
She opens the door to a security entrance with an intercom to each unit. I glance at the names and see “Sedgewick” handprinted in ballpoint pen on a little piece of white paper. My stomach burns. If this is Alan’s secret love pad, how long did he have it, and how was he paying for it? Was he using our retirement fund? Or did he have a private bank account I didn’t know about? Where did the secrets end?
It takes a moment for me to focus my attention on finding the right key to let us in, while Paula leans against the wall with her eyes closed.
At last, I unlock the door, pull it open, and gesture for her to follow me. She pushes by and makes a beeline for the elevator, and we ride up to the third floor in silence. As soon as the doors open, she takes the keys from me, walks out, and lets herself into an apartment at the end of the hall, leaving the door open for me to follow her inside.
She goes immediately to the bathroom, and I remain just inside the door, looking around the small space. The walls are beige and full of stains. The brown wall-to-wall carpet smells musty—it probably hasn’t been changed in twenty years—and the sofa looks like something someone picked up on the side of the road on garbage day.
Alan certainly wasn’t trying to impress anyone. He probably chose this place because he could stay hidden here. Like Paula said, they didn’t expect to run into anyone they knew in this neighborhood. And the costs were probably low enough not to affect our financial situation. I wouldn’t have noticed. Hell, I hadn’t noticed.
Or maybe he had a hankering for the world he knew as a child, because according to the stories he told me, his family had sometimes lived below the poverty line.
I hear the toilet flushing and water running in the bathroom, so I steal the opportunity to poke around in the living room in this secret place Alan kept hidden from me. I figure I’ve earned the right.
I let the shock settle in while I look at things. On the end table next to the sofa, there’s a framed photograph of Alan and Paula together on a whitewater rafting adventure. He must have taken her with him when he went away for a medical conference somewhere, which makes me feel jealous and angry. How could I not have suspected anything?
Swallowing uneasily, I force myself to do the unthinkable. I wander to the bedroom, but I can’t bring myself to step over the threshold. All I can do is stare at the bed covered with masculine gray and black bed linens and contemplate the fact that my husband made love to another woman in those sheets.
I’m afraid I might throw up.
Paula emerges from the bathroom and collapses on the ratty sofa. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have texted you. Thanks for the ride, but you should go now.”