Thought I Knew You (23 page)

I got into bed and slept fitfully. I waited for the creaking door, the soft pad of footsteps. I wondered if he slept any better than I did. When the first light of the morning shone in my window, a quicksilver of pink and gold, I got up and packed. I found an envelope and a pen in the kitchen and wrote a quick note:

Figure out what will make you happy and do it. For once in your life, do something for you, not me.

I slipped out the front door, into the streets of New York. Oddly for a place known as “the city that never sleeps,” the streets were deserted. I hailed a cab to Penn Station and hopped the first train to Annandale.

I cried the entire way home.

Chapter 27

T
hat year, I cooked Thanksgiving
dinner in its entirety. Mom and Dad came over, and I invited Rob and Robin Masters. Surprisingly, they didn’t have plans and happily accepted. I did not call Drew, and he did not call me. The evening felt festive, hopeful.

I thought of Greg a few times, recalling past Thanksgivings. Specifically, the year he had insisted on deep-frying a turkey. Mom was skeptical, but he swore it was the absolute juiciest turkey. He started at three in the afternoon, and at nine o’clock, we were
finally
sitting down to eat. He cut into the bird along the breast bone, and the inside shone white with a touch of pink. Mom looked as if she might cry. He ran to the closest grocery store and bought four leathery rotisserie chickens. He cut them up and presented them on the turkey platter, smothered in Mom’s gravy. We almost didn’t know the difference. Almost.

I recounted the story at the dinner table, and Hannah seemed to delight in the memory, although she couldn’t have been more than a year old.
I have to bring him up more,
I thought.
Let her talk about him, let her remember him.

With Thanksgiving over, I began preparations for Christmas, our second without Greg. I didn’t count on Drew coming. I hadn’t heard from him since the gallery opening. I was sad about that, but not overly so. I didn’t doubt that we’d still be friends. We just needed time, and I had tons of that.

The first week in December, we went to the tree farm, something we used to do as a foursome. I let Leah pick the tree and told Hannah she could pick it the next year. I made Christmas lists and decorated the house. I even dug out all the Christmas CDs and sang with the girls.

Mom watched the kids while I trekked back to the mall. I was reminded of the previous year’s trip, and for the millionth time, I was content with how far I’d come in the past year. There would be no overabundance of toys and no Drew to distract us. In some ways, Christmas could very well be harder.

I pushed the cart up and down the aisles of the toy store. Hannah wanted another Barbie. She’d also asked for a Wii. Greg had always been adamantly against video games. But I had researched age-appropriate games and decided I could set limits. The Wii, at least, had active games that involved jumping around and dancing. I purchased the game console, a combined gift for both girls, and a game for each. I added a few small things for their stockings and paid just under two hundred dollars, drastically different from last year’s spending spree. We were back to normal, a new kind of normal. I drove home and stashed the gifts in my bedroom closet. I would wrap them on Christmas Eve, only a few short days away.

December’s visit with Detective Reynolds came a week before Christmas, our last meeting before we started our semi-annual meetings. Hannah was at school in the morning, and I settled Leah in front of the
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
while I made coffee.

Matt was fifteen minutes late, but I forgave him when he handed me a brown paper bag, the scent of sugar and cream drifting up as soon as I unfolded the top. He settled at the kitchen table and opened the file he usually brought with him to review latest developments with me. I had always thought it pathetically thin. It looked almost… thick.

True to form, he did not mince words. “Claire, there’s been a development.”

My heart thudded. I sat in a chair across from him and stared at the file.

“I don’t beat around the bush, so I’m going to start the story and tell it to the end. You can interrupt if you have questions, but try to wait until I’m done, okay?”

I nodded. I glanced at Leah sitting on the floor in the living room, absorbed in the television.

“About a year ago, a car went into the Onondaga Lake. Do you know where that is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s north of Syracuse, New York, about an hour and a half drive from Rochester. Two people were in the car, a woman and a man. A few months ago, I began researching unidentified deceased males in a concentric pattern around Rochester. I had a few leads, but none of them panned out. Eventually we identified them all, except for the passenger in this car. Their bodies were found about three months ago, in the car at the bottom of the lake. The police were trolling the lake for a teenage girl missing from the Syracuse area, believed to have drowned. They found the car at the bottom. The lake is sixty-five feet at its deepest. It was a rental car, leased to a woman named…” He consulted his file. “Melissa Richards. Does that name sound familiar to you?”

“No, I’ve never heard it before.”

“Basically, they located two pelvic bones held in place by seatbelts and the crushed car. There was a femur and a tibia found in the car, but no other bones. They believe the driver was a woman and the passenger was a man, based on the width of the pelvic bones. Do you have any questions so far?”

“What happened to the rest of the bones?” I asked, curious as to how two whole skeletons could just disappear.

He coughed and looked down at the file. “When the car went into the lake, the passenger broke the window, trying to get out, which had to have happened prior to the car sinking, otherwise, the pressure would be too great. Apparently, neither could get out of their seatbelts, so they drowned.” He averted his eyes as he said the last words. “And the Onondaga Lake is unique in that it is the fastest flushing natural lake in the United States, about four or five times in a heavy rainfall year. The lake discharges into the Seneca River and the water eventually ends up in Lake Ontario. So with that depth, and that level of water exchange, we wouldn’t expect to find intact skeletons nine months after they were submerged.” He spoke in a clinical voice, devoid of emotion.

I pushed images of Greg in a sinking car out of my mind. I thought back to the hairbrush and other personal items of Greg’s that the police had taken from the house. “What about DNA?” I read the news, and knew they could do amazing things with bones.

“Normally, yes, we could work on that, but contrary to what you see in the movies, it’s nearly impossible to extract a viable DNA sample from bones that have been underwater for almost a year. So we went back to Melissa Richards. Richards had been reported as missing around the same time as your husband, and her case was closed a month ago when it was concluded that she was in the car. She was from Syracuse. Did Greg have any connection to Syracuse at all that you can think of?”

I shook my head. “Nothing other than the obvious connection to Rochester.”

“I’ve been working with the Syracuse police, and they’ve dissected every avenue of Richards’s life. We looked into boyfriends, family members, and friends. There is no other person in her life that would be an obvious candidate for the passenger. She was last seen alone.”

“Matt,” I began finally, not exactly sure what I was going to ask with the questions tumbling fast and furious over each other in my mind. “Do you really believe Greg was in the car with her?”

“It’s worth considering,” he replied heavily. “But I don’t know that we’ll ever know for sure.”

After Detective Reynolds left, I called Mom and relayed the whole conversation.

“How are you? Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just so tired of it. I had the memorial. I need him to be dead in my mind. Isn’t that terrible? That’s awful. I can’t think about it anymore. I am so sick of wondering where he is, and this isn’t any better. It’s not any closer really to having a definitive answer. As far as I can tell, they aren’t going to be able to prove it’s him. So I’m not actually any better off.”

“What does Detective Reynolds think?”

“He never says what he thinks. He just says what he can or can’t prove. I’m so frustrated. I need this year to be over.”

“Do you want me to come over?” Mom asked.

“No. I need to go meet the bus in an hour or so anyway. Thanks for listening.”

We hung up, and I checked on Leah before going upstairs to Greg’s study. I braced myself for the smell as I opened the door, but it seemed to have dissipated and didn’t hit me as hard. I grabbed his brown leather journal and went back downstairs to sit at the island in the kitchen so I could keep an eye on Leah.

Slowly turning every page, I looked for any reference to a Melissa or MR or Syracuse. Nothing. I studied the note
Call Karen at Omni S.D.
When had it been written? I tried to figure it out based on the location in the book, but it was jotted sideways, so if he couldn’t be bothered to turn the book upright, then would he have made sure to turn to the next available page? No, probably not. On the next page of the book, “2009 Resolutions” had been written and underlined twice. If the chronology was to be believed,
Call Karen
was written sometime in late 2008 or early 2009. I didn’t think that was likely if Karen was the mystery woman. Our marriage was great in early 2009. No, I believed the note had been jotted on the backside of a randomly opened page, sideways, in a hurry.

I reread all the pages. Some comments were still endearing. Others were more puzzling.
I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart.
A line from a poem, maybe? And jotted next to it was “C!” which may have been intended for me. But Greg hadn’t liked poetry much.
Or at least the Greg I knew didn’t
. I felt a pang of tenderness. I wish I had known the real Greg. He had held everything close to the vest, protected.
What were you protecting yourself from, Greg?
I closed the book and got Leah ready to go pick up Hannah from the bus stop.

Chapter 28

W
e awoke on Christmas Eve
morning to discover an unexpected snowstorm had hit Clinton. Almost ten inches of snow had fallen, and the grass and trees were covered in a marshmallow blanket that evoked Christmas spirit. Among the clamoring of high voices, I dug out snow suits and boots from the previous year—too tight all around, but good enough for one day.

After building a lopsided snowman and having a snowball fight that ended in tears—because with a three-year-old, most activities involved some tears—we retired in the comfort of the living room with mugs of hot cocoa. We hunkered down for the evening and played Memory and Candy Land.

When darkness fell, we all dozed in the living room, watching
A Charlie Brown Christmas
. I carried both girls up to bed. I watched them as they smiled in their sleep, dreaming of Christmastime magic, Santa, reindeer, and candy canes.
As perfect a day as I could ask for
. With Christmas music softly playing in the background, I lugged all the presents downstairs and wrapped them—brightly colored packages under a lit Christmas tree.

For the first time, I was alone on a Christmas Eve. I curled up on the couch, with the music and the lit tree, and sipped a glass of wine while I reflected on the year. Just as I was about to call it a night and head to bed, I heard a soft knock. Thinking I was imagining things, I waited. I heard it again. Someone was definitely knocking on the door.

I tiptoed down the hall and peered through the peephole. Drew stood on the porch, his hands in his pockets, staring at his shoes.

I opened the door. “Drew! What are you doing here?”

He stepped over the threshold and gently, unexpectedly, his hands curved around my jaw, and his lips crushed to mine. My mouth opened automatically. He pulled me to him, running his hands down my arms, then around my back. He shifted his weight and pushed me back against the door jamb. The desire swelled up in me so fast I couldn’t contain it and let out a sharp gasp. He pushed my sweater up, cupped my breasts, then trailed his fingers down my stomach. I couldn’t keep track of his hands. He kissed my neck, then sank to his knees and kissed my stomach. He stopped and rested his head against the top of my jeans. We were both breathing heavily, and my hands were immersed in his thick hair. I caught my breath and knelt on the floor in front of him.

“There is only one woman in my life, Claire.” His face was hopeful, filled with love, anticipation.

I kissed him, my ears thundering. I felt a release I had never felt, even with Greg. Everything about him felt different from Greg, as if I’d come home. He tipped my head and kissed my lips gently.

I stood up and led him into the living room, where I poured him a glass of wine with shaky hands. We sat on the couch on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other.

“What—”

“How—”

We spoke at the same time and laughed self-consciously. He nodded for me to go first
.

“Why did you come back? What happened? What does this mean?”

The lights from the Christmas tree twinkled in his eyes as he smiled shyly. “I tried, Claire. I did. After you left, I talked myself into believing it was for the best. I needed to be with someone, to be focused on someone other than you. For once in my life. And Olivia… she was great. We were great… but she knew. She knew before I did. She broke it off last week.”

“Are you here because she broke it off?” I asked, offended.