“Sarah, I love you. I love you so fucking much. I just want this to be over. I want things to go back to the way they were. I want to start a family with you. I want to be with you and only you. I’m an idiot, and I should never have cheated. I know that, and I promise I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you—just as soon as this is all over. I swear to fucking God.” I grab her hand wanting her to show me some sort of emotion, wanting her to love me, wanting her to yell at me or hit me or something. I need her to be mad at me. I need her to cry. I need her to tell me she loves me. I need her to hold me. I need her to tell me everything is going to be okay.
She pauses. Her hand is warm, but her eyes are cold. She’s hurting, and I don’t blame her. She pulls her hand away. “Adam, I need you to understand, I am here as your lawyer, not your wife.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “Why are you defending me? After what I did to you?”
“Because when I said ‘til death do us part’ I meant it and I’m the only person that has any chance in hell of getting you off.” There’s ice in her voice and rightfully so.
I drop eye contact. I can’t look at her. How could I do this? How could I get us to this point? “I’m sorry.” I let out a soft sob.
She puts pen to paper and gives me a stern look. “I need you to tell me everything… every single detail. Do not leave anything out. Do you understand?”
I nod. I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I should just tell her that I’ll get a different lawyer, but she’s right—she’s the best, and she’s my only shot at getting out of this. From what Deputy Hudson told me, the evidence is stacked against me. He said I’ll for sure fry, and he’ll be happy to see me pay for this crime. They’ll find my semen in Kelly. They’ll find my fingerprints and DNA all over her. They’ll discover texts and phone calls and meet-ups that go back over a year.
“When did you two first meet?”
“About a year and a half ago.”
“And how did you meet?”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, remembering that warm summer day—the day Kelly entered my life.
13
Adam Morgan
It was the beginning of summer, and we had just purchased the lake house a few weeks before. Sarah was supposed to come down for the weekend to help me get the finishing touches on the house, but work kept her in the city like it had the previous two weekends. It was late morning when a caffeine headache kicked in. I had just finished unpacking my office and found there was no coffee in the house, so I decided to go for a walk. I hadn’t met anyone in town yet, and it seemed everyone pretty much kept to themselves in typical elitist, D.C. suburban transplant fashion. I picked up my laptop and my bag and walked the ten minutes into town.
The town is ablaze with the dichotomy of the area—a mix of rustic Virginia charm and all the trappings of your standard one-percenter needs. Large oak and juniper trees engulf the town’s perimeter, a sea of green paused only by the economic center. That day, the old cracked asphalt streets looked almost wet in the morning heat.
The contrasts are poetic in their sadness. A small quaint church sits only a block away from a franchise commercial banking spot. Little mom and pop businesses, laundry service, diners, gift shops, stand shoulder to shoulder with chain pizza joints, Starbucks, and designer clothing stores. The modernization looks less like progress, and more like a virus that has infected the town.
I finally found a small café called Seth’s Coffee. It had just the small-town unique charm I was looking for. Hardwood flooring that creaked loudly as you walked across it. Mismatched furniture, ranging from hardwood chairs and carved driftwood tables to steel diner chairs with bright red plastic-covered vinyl seating. None of the dishes were a part of a set, and the menu was written over the counter on an old blackboard that looked like it had been commandeered from a nearby schoolhouse. Colorful chalk covered the random spots on the wall, which shared the space with photographs, paintings, and sculptures all from local artists, price tags included.
Nothing matched or paired together, and in that wild miasma of clashing, everything worked, and it was utterly beautiful. Or at least I thought it was until that beauty and charm were put to shame when I saw her, Kelly. She caught my eye immediately. It was the light of the uncovered hanging light bulbs playing off the sparkle of her blue eyes and her carefree attitude that grabbed me like two strong hands around my throat, and it wouldn’t let go.
She was working the patio, so I decided to take a seat out there. Every fiber of my being just wanted to know her, who she was, what she liked, what made her… her. I didn’t just want to be in her presence, I needed it.
I pulled out my laptop and began typing. What I wrote was a description of her. I watched her every movement, bouncing around from table to table, taking care of the needs of every patron. I waited for my turn. She was captivating, every part of her. Maybe it was the loneliness that made her much more appealing or perhaps it was that she seemed nothing like Sarah.
Sarah is a calculating, a type-A personality through and through. Sarah is always put together, no matter where she is or how she is dressed, whether in pajamas or in a $2,000 business suit on her way into work. But then there was Kelly, imperfectly perfect. Her freckles splattered across her face. Her long brown hair flowing around her shoulders in the warm summer breeze. She occasionally tried to tame it, but as soon as she waited on tables, she, for the most part, would let it do its thing, while she did hers. Her apron was haphazardly tied around her tiny waist. Her breasts were full and uncaged under her white tee. Her nipples were prominent and slightly visible, but she didn’t care. She carried herself most unapologetically, smiling and laughing around the patio area.
Finally, she was standing right in front of me. I hadn’t met her, but I felt like I already knew her. That’s what watching someone for some time will do. Her face lit up with the sun shining down on her from behind. Her short skirt grazed the side of the table as she swayed her hips.
“Hey, what can I get for you?” Her voice was light and airy.
I stared into her eyes, and it was then I noticed that the same sadness I had in me, she had in her. I’ve always believed the eyes cannot lie. They hold the truths we are unable or unwilling to speak. Her eyes full, large, and bursting with pain. But pain from what? Her smile faded a bit as she waited for me to speak. She stared back into my eyes, and I like to think she recognized the hurt and loneliness in mine.
“I can give you a few more minutes,” she said. Her voice had lost some of its lightness in those few seconds.
“No, no.” I smiled at her, letting her know from this point on things were going to be all right. Maybe she didn’t know what that smile meant to me, but I knew I would soon make her understand what it meant. She smiled back.
“I’ll have a cup of coffee… black.”
“You got it!” The lightness in her voice had returned.
“I’m Adam.” I held out my hand to shake hers. She looked down at it and then reached hers out to shake mine with only the slightest bit of hesitation. I noticed the band on her ring finger, and she noticed mine. We stared at each other’s hands for seconds, our eyes met, and there was a sense of understanding between us.