The Last Flight(49)

Trying to figure out Eva’s life is like trying to fill one of those cartons. Some spaces are filled with things that don’t make sense—a prepaid cell phone left behind. A lack of any personal items. A house paid for in cash. A woman, waiting for a phone call from Eva, inquiring about how things went. And others are still empty, waiting to connect it all. To make sense of everything.

A heaviness descends. This isn’t how I thought it would be. Maybe it was naive, but I never considered the stress of trying to live a lie. I only thought of how it would feel to be free of Rory.

And here I am. I’m free, but far from liberated.

*

Saturday morning, I’m up early, eating a vanilla yogurt and watching Rory and Bruce debate whether to release a printed version of the eulogy Rory wrote for me after the funeral is over. Bruce—yes. Rory—no.

And then:

Rory Cook:

What did Charlie say when you met?

I sit up and carefully set my yogurt aside while I wait for Bruce to respond.

Bruce Corcoran:

I did as you asked. I explained that you were too devastated by Claire’s death to come yourself, that it was incredibly opportunistic to come forward now, violating the terms of an ironclad nondisclosure agreement. Doing so would force us to bring a lawsuit, which no one wanted to do. Especially now.

Rory Cook:

And?

Bruce Corcoran:

Didn’t make a difference. Kept saying if you’re going to run for office, the voters need to know what kind of a criminal they’re voting for. That what happened to Maggie Moretti needs to be brought out into the open. The people who loved her deserved to know the truth.

And just like that, all of my assumptions rearrange into something new. I feel a rush of adrenaline pass through me at the mention of Maggie and I hold my breath, waiting.

Bruce Corcoran:

What do you want me to do now?

I can practically hear Rory yelling as words appear next to his name.

Rory Cook:

I want you to do your fucking job and make this go away.

Bruce Corcoran:

I’ll put together a package, see whether that might silence this. Try to be patient.

Rory Cook:

I don’t pay you to tell me to be fucking patient.

And then they’re gone, leaving my mind spinning, trying to figure out how Charlie Flanagan, Rory, and Maggie Moretti intersect.

When I was young, I used to ride my bike across town and into a small wooded area. I loved the way the sidewalk would just end, picking up the beginning of a dirt trail, rutted and winding through patches of shade and dappled sunlight, riding beneath tall trees that kept my secrets.

But my favorite part was when I’d emerge again, my entire body vibrating after so long on the rough terrain, and what it felt like to glide back onto the asphalt—all the bumps smoothed flat again.

I feel that zip now, after so many days of rough riding. I’ve come out again and can see a path forward.

I return again to the thumb drive, finding a file buried in the M’s, labeled simply Mags. But when I open it, there isn’t much. Rory and Maggie dated pre-internet and pre-email. So there are only about twenty scanned images—photographs, notes on lined paper, cards, a hotel bar napkin. Each one labeled with a meaningless IMG number. Clicking through them, an eerie shiver passes through me, Maggie’s handwriting as personal as a fingerprint, as quiet as a whisper in my ear.

It doesn’t surprise me that Rory kept these images, long after he’d destroyed the hard copies. I know he loved her, in the only way he knew how. Like a road map, they trace the path of their relationship from the bright and shiny passion of new love into something more complicated, and reading them is like listening to an echo of my own marriage, musical notes that are both familiar and hollow at the same time.

Near the bottom of the folder, I open a scanned image showing the blue lines and ragged edges of a page torn from a spiral notebook. It’s dated just a few days before she died.

Rory,

I’ve thought a lot about your suggestion we spend the weekend upstate, to work things out. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I need space to figure out whether I want to keep seeing you. The last fight we had scared me. It was too much, and right now I don’t know if it’s possible to continue as we have been. Please respect my wishes, and I’ll call you soon. No matter what, I will always love you.

Maggie

I read the note again, feeling like a wheel yanked out of alignment, steering me in a new direction as I remember that dinner from so long ago. Maggie wanted us to get away for a quiet weekend. To reconnect and really talk without the distractions of the city.

But Maggie didn’t want a weekend away to reconcile. She wanted to break up. And I know firsthand how Rory reacts when a woman tries to leave him.

It’s a gruesome irony that both Maggie Moretti and I had to die to finally be free from him.





Eva


Berkeley, California

October

Four Months before the Crash

It didn’t take long for Liz to start asking questions. First, it was a comment about a smell in the backyard she couldn’t place, which forced Eva to work at night, after she was certain Liz was asleep.

“Are you sick?” Liz asked her another day, after three consecutive all-nighters, dark circles under her eyes. Eva had tried to deflect the questions as best she could, blaming the neighbors across the alley for the smell and a sinus infection for her haggard face.