“I’ll be okay, I just have to figure this all out,” I tell her. We’re standing at her car and I hand her a bag with towels and life jackets. “I don’t know what to think.”
Mom clucks her tongue as I buckle in the twins. I exhale as she pulls open the driver-side door. “You need to call the cops about this, if he faked his death before, Penny, that’s important for them to know.”
“Is it?” I question. “If I tell them this, I can’t backtrack later. I need to make sure I don’t say something, do something I shouldn’t. Ledger isn’t a stupid man. I trust him. He would have his reasons.”
“You trust him after what she said?”
“I don’t know Emma from anyone,” I say, rubbing my temples. “And you said it yourself yesterday, the crash was a terrible accident. You were sure he was dead, telling me I needed to face the facts.”
“Right, but Penny, now the facts have changed.”
I try to focus on what I know. “I love him, Mom. He can’t be gone. He would never do this to me.”
Mom’s eyes narrow. She slams her door shut so the kids can’t hear, and leans over the roof of her car. “Penny, I know you loved Ledger, but we all know that he wasn’t exactly stable.”
My throat goes dry. “Don’t, Mom. I can’t.”
“Penny,” she says more gently. “He’s always had issues. Maybe—”
“Mom,” I say, my voice tight, clipped. “Not now. Please, I don’t want to rehash a breakdown that happened three years ago. Please. Let it rest.”
She nods, knowing I’m not emotionally capable of going there. Ledger may not have been perfect, but he was perfect for me. I’m not ready to face the possibility that any part of our love story could have been fake.
He loved me. Loves me.
In the house, I find Emma standing in the kitchen with her arms crossed, her face blank, looking as numb as I feel.
“Hey,” I say. “The kids are gone for the day.”
“They’re so sweet,” she says. “Clementine is just a doll.”
“She is. It’s funny how, in life, sometimes the thing you never asked for is exactly what you need.”
Emma gives me a sad smile. “Henry and I…” She stops, running her finger under her eye. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I want her to finish whatever she was saying — anything I can learn to understand the situation better will help.
“It’s just, seeing the twins reminds me of… of the daughter Henry and I…”
My blood goes cold. There are so many things wrong with this situation, but the idea of Ledger having a child with another woman is one thing too many.
“We had a little girl, Eva. She died when she was an infant.”
“Oh, God,” I say, covering my mouth, feeling sick. This is going to put me past the breaking point.
“I know,” she says, pressing her knuckles to her lips. “It’s too complicated. I get that, Penny, I do. The person I loved… the man we both loved… it seems like it was all a lie.”
“Ledger wouldn’t—” I stop talking because what can I say? He wouldn’t betray me? There must be something more to this story? Those words would devastate Emma — she’s already reeling from so much loss. Not only did she bury her husband, but she buried her daughter.
“I’m so sorry to have barged in on your life like this,” Emma says, taking a deep breath and attempting to regain her composure. “I know you want me to stay and start piecing this together, but I think I should go get a hotel, shower, regroup. I could grab us lunch and then come back once we’ve both had some time to process?”
It’s not just my life that has been upended. She believed her husband was dead. That his body was burned in a car fire, lost forever. She grieved the death of a man I fell in love with, my soulmate.
“I just don’t want you to leave my life as quickly as you entered it,” I say. “It might sound crazy, but I feel like we need to talk. About all of this. Before I go to the cops.”
She bites her bottom lip. “I want to talk with you too, but maybe the cops should be involved. I mean, what Henry did is a crime. Right?”
“I don’t know what to think.” I press my fingertips to my forehead. “You’re right, though, I do need a second to process.”
I pull her into a hug before she goes. She’s my ally in some strange, twisted way. And she should hate me; I slept with her husband while they were still married. He got me pregnant with his twins. I realize, with a shaken sense of truth, that in this story she’s telling, Ledger is the villain. He is the one who lied, cheated, broke her heart and is now breaking mine. The man I loved — love — might also be a man I don’t know.
Alone, my head spins as I look around my house. Each photograph hanging on the wall threatens what I know to be true — candid pictures of a happy family — but was he happy? The bed we slept in together with the twins nestled between us, now empty. The couch we binge-watched television on now looks cold. Everything surrounding me was written with the pretense of commitment. How can it be a life shaped by love when it began with such horrific lies?
There’s a knock on the door and I pull myself together, not sure who it would be. Last time I answered the knock, it was Emma. The woman who just rewrote my entire narrative.
But standing on the doorstep is a familiar face. Jack Barrett walks in, coffee cups in a cardboard holder, and he wraps me in a hug. “Shit, Penny.”
It feels good to have Jack here — I need to talk to him, really talk to him, before Emma comes back. If anyone knew Ledger, it’s him.
“How are you holding up? Everyone at work is a wreck over this, and I couldn’t go in, couldn’t face seeing anyone. So I came here instead. Maybe it was a bad idea. I know he’s your husband, but damn, you guys are the closest thing I’ve got to family.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say, wiping my eyes and taking the iced caramel latte. “I could use the company.”
“Yeah?” He pulls me into a hug and I hold onto him, closing my eyes, wishing it was Ledger. Wishing my husband was the one here to comfort me. When I step back, Jack clears his throat, runs a hand over his neck. “Maybe no news is good news?”
I take a sip of the latte, the rich caramel syrup coating my throat, and I blink back tears. “Maybe.”
“See, Pen,” he says, squeezing my hand. “It’s gonna be okay.”
Okay? Not with Emma in the picture, with my entire perspective suddenly off-kilter.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he says. “Ledger would be pissed if he knew I upset you.”
I wipe my eyes, exhaling. “He hates seeing me cry. Remember when I sprained my ankle last Thanksgiving during our flag football game?”
“He carried you home like you were a baby.” Jack smiles at the memory and I feel my shoulders fall. “I’ve never seen him so worried.”
“It was the same when the twins were born. He was a wreck at the hospital.” I smile at the memory of my burly husband falling apart. “I yelled at him, Ledger, it’s childbirth, I’m supposed to be screaming.”