Page 32

Aaron

Killing the engine of the Suburban outside the cottage, the frazzled mood that accompanied me to work today amps up another level at the sight of the black Lexus in my driveway. Florida plates—the car Jason drove away last night when I locked up for the second time.

Is it a rental? If so, how is he able to rent a car without an identity when I can’t even get a credit card at the moment?

Glancing around the yard, I don’t see a sign of him. It’s too frigid and windy to take a stroll in the surrounding woods. An eerie feeling prickles the back of my neck, searching for a sight of him. It adds to the paranoia from the questions that ran through my head all day. How did he even know where to find me?

Fingers going numb, cheeks frozen, I start for the door, deciding that he’ll resurface like he did last night. He’d better and soon. Easton’s supposed to be coming over. I don’t want Jason here when I have to try to explain to him that my husband is no longer dead.

God, I might vomit. How am I going to do this? I don’t want to lose him, but it feels like the end of… the beginning.

His playful text messages today left me feeling like a traitor each time I mustered some kind of witty reply. I refuse to tell him something like this over the phone or via text. I’d like to refuse to tell him at all, but how can I? This is what I get for cursing my previous reality before we reconnected. What is he going to think?

Unlocking the door, the smell of herbs assaults my senses. I gape at the movement in my kitchen. Sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a dish towel slung over his shoulder, Jason looks well at home in front of a boiling pot on my stove and a frying pan of grilling meat, scrolling through a phone. He has a phone? Why didn’t he leave me his number?

“Hey, there he is!” he calls.

It’s such a jarring welcome, as though it’s perfectly natural for him to be in my kitchen… and alive like nothing has changed. “What are…how did you get in?” I hedge, trying to keep the accusatory tone out of my voice as I tear out of my coat. “Was George here?”

Stirring the steaming pot in front of him, he flashes me a smirk. “I’ve learned a few things living off the radar.”

If that was meant to dissipate my wariness, it did nothing of the kind. Can he pick locks now? Is that what he’s been doing for the last two years?

Seeing my last box of pasta open and empty on the counter touches yet another nerve. I was going to cook Easton dinner. Before or after I unloaded my terrible surprise on him, I don’t know—I hadn’t decided yet which would be best. He texted earlier to inform me he’s spoiling me yet again by bringing dinner over, but still. That was my pasta. Mine and Easton’s. I’ve been budgeting well, coming up with a payment plan for the remainder of the debt I was able to consolidate into one payment. That includes saving up as much as I can to buy a used vehicle so I can return Easton’s before the worst of winter gets here. Every dollar counts, and if Jason is still able to obtain that expensive cologne he always wore, he doesn’t need to be using my pasta. I’m glad I asked him to leave last night. The number of peculiar details that jumped out at me today while at work, like remembering that hit of his cologne I got last night, put things into perspective. Something isn’t adding up.

“Jason, you can’t…I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to just turn up like this,” I begin, inching my way into the kitchen. “I mean, if you’re not going to go to the police and you say you have all these people after you…Well, anyone could see you. My family thinks you’re dead. This is one of George’s rentals. What if he’d been here and seen you? I…I don’t even know how to explain to him yet. And if you’re worried about people finding you, won’t my family be in danger if they find out you’re alive?”

“Here. Sit down,” he says, completely unfazed, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs. I comply, simply because I’m so baffled that sitting seems like a good idea. He heard me, right?

Turning back from the stove, he wields one of my wooden kitchen spoons, ladled with a helping of the sauce he’s cooking. Holding it out, he cups his other hand underneath it and brings it toward my mouth. “Try this.”

Dumbly, I part my lips when the spoon gets so close to my mouth that I can’t avoid it. My face, however, must say what-the-actual-fuck though, because he sighs as I take a sip of the exotic-tasting red liquid.

“I told you. I have a plan.” Turning back to his cooking, he carries on like some master chef. “I started a practice in S?o Paulo.”

“ S?o Paulo? ”

That sounds foreign. Why does that sound foreign? And how could he start a practice when I have to count how much money I have to afford pasta?

“Brazil,” he informs me cheerfully.

He’d talked about how he did a few mission trips there early in his career when we first met, charming me with his knowledge of the Portuguese language and culture. It was one of the things that made me think he was so worldly and far beyond my station.

I’m so lost in connecting dots that I barely catch his excited chatter. “We can start over there. Have a new life. You can change your name.”

“ Change my name?”

“I changed mine.” He turns around, grinning at me. “I got you a new identity too when I did, and…” Holding up a hand, his frenetic movements are dizzying as he starts out of the room. “Wait here a second. I have a surprise.”

I don’t want a surprise , pleads some sensible voice in my head that’s seen millions of horror movies. I watch him scurry to the sideboard by the door and rifle through that black gym bag he brought with him last night. Is he living out of there?

Hurrying back, he’s carrying what looks like a certificate paper in his hands. Beaming proudly, he hands it to me. I can’t make heads or tails of the foreign print on it. From what I can tell, though, it’s an agreement between two men. I have no idea why he’s showing this to me.

“What is this?”

“It’s our marriage license for our new lives.”

I read the names again. Tomás and Afonso . Which one am I supposed to be, I vaguely wonder. It’s dated eight months ago. Eight months . Suddenly, his excitement over his plan and his ease in explaining it, as though it’s already in motion, activates a light bulb in my brain. He has a practice there, he said. ‘Our new lives.’ He… wants me to move there with him?

The panic that hasn’t hit me in months comes in full force like a gale wind. My lips go numb, and my pulse erratic.

“But…my family.”

“They can come visit us. I have a beautiful house there. You’re going to love it.” Squeezing my shoulder, he drops a rough kiss on my forehead and slips the paper from my fingers. “I told you, everything is going to be fine,” he calls, returning the document to that now eerie-looking bag that feels like Dora’s backpack if Dora the Explorer were someone on the run in a Lifetime Movie Network film.

“Honestly,” he chuckles, holding his hands out to the sides, “this might have been the best thing that ever happened to us.”

How ? I want to screech, but my voice comes out in barely a whisper. “But…m-my job.” I realize he probably has no clue about the new life I’ve built while he was out foraging for one for the both of us, thinking he was solving our problems. I also realize what a pleaser I was, the way I bowed to whatever he wanted. It explains why that old suffocating feeling is back. “I’m back at Hampton Hills,” I continue, grasping for straws while still locked in that submissive role I never acknowledged I held in our relationship. “I took over Dr. Norton’s old position.”

Snorting, he shakes the skillet, flipping the meat he has cooking in it. The potent overuse of herbs is starting to turn my stomach.

“I know. I did an internet search. Don’t worry. You won’t ever have to work at a place like that again. You’ll love the clinic. You can head the speech pathology program there. I’ve already performed quite a few vocal repair surgeries.”

His disdain for the place we met is nothing new, but hearing his plans for me makes me feel like livestock that has no say in my fate rather than a considerate action to ease my employment concerns. It’s too reticent of all the grand promises he made that were the allure of going to Seattle with him.

When I chose to stay on at Seattle Mercy after finishing my fellowship there instead of joining him at his clinic, it was a point of contention I felt represented a power struggle to him. I thought keeping our work separate would be better for our marriage. At the time, he said he agreed, but I can see my wishes went unheard in the end.

The zeal pouring off him as he anticipates my reaction has my heart in my throat. I can see his excitement over this extension of our love story that he’s concocted in his mind, but mine doesn’t share the vision. There’s already a permanently rooted vision there that looks nothing like him.

“And my…” The word boyfriend wants to burst out like a penalty flag to halt his escalating fantasy, but I know I’m technically not allowed to have one of those if I’m still married, so I settle for, “I have friends here.”

His shoulders go slack as he blinks at me. “Aaron, it’s not like I have many choices,” he finally lets out. “I know you probably need some time to process this, but we’ll be happy there. I know it.”

Could I be happy there with him? Could I be happy with him anywhere ? I made a promise, ‘until death do us part.’ The problem is that I thought the death part came and went, leaving me to put away my hopes for the life I had before in the past.

“Or…don’t you want me anymore?” he ventures quietly.

My gaze snaps to his. I must have been sitting here in my own thoughts for too long. How do I answer that question?

Rising from my chair, I go to the kitchen window that overlooks the backyard, hoping a reply will come to me. Do I want the man he was before? No… not exactly. Do I want the man he is now? I don’t even know who he is now. I feel like I should want some version of him, but obligation and want are two different things. I wait too long to answer.

“Is there someone else?”

My face burns with shame, and then it burns some more because I’m not ashamed of what I have with Easton. “It…it’s new.”

From the corner of my eye, I watch his expression turn stony. He sets the cooking spoon down and nods, but more to himself. Sucking in a breath, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and faces me with a tight smile. “I forgive you.”

My head might have actually reared back. What is there to forgive? He let me think he was dead.

“Are you in love with him?”

It feels like I’ve been unfaithful, standing in the line of his narrowed gaze. Technically, I have, but given the circumstances, I’d like to think my actions are forgivable. Maybe it’s just the eerie calm about him that has me reluctant to share any details.

“I told you. It’s…new.

Stepping forward, slowly, his eyes never leave my face. He doesn’t stop until his chest brushes against my shoulder. I want to move, but moving seems like it would give off an indication of guilt.

“Are you fucking him?” His words come out disturbingly low, almost like the thought of it turns him on.

My windpipe seems to have constricted two sizes. I don’t like the filthy connotation affixed to his query, nor the derision. Stepping away, I throw my hands up. “I thought you were dead! It’s been almost two years.”

“That’s a long time to wait,” he says dryly.

I never get mad. Ever. Right now, though, I hate that I’m being put on trial. I never fully grasped what a passive-aggressive bully he was, but it’s glaringly obvious at the moment.

Some bold version of my voice speaks up, one that was grown in love and happiness. “And it’s a long time to think your husband’s dead.”

Even as I say it, though, my breath feels caught in my throat, anticipating repercussions. His shoulders rock on a bitter puff of laughter, though, and he looks down, shaking his head in amusement.

I never knew how to argue, but it feels like I have the upper hand, so I continue with false confidence and frustration. “He’s supposed to be coming over here, so I think you should leave. I need to talk to him.”

“About us?”

I have so many mixed feelings about hearing us as an us . What even are we now? What are Easton and I?

“Well, I at least need to tell him you’re alive.”

I don’t know if I’m even allowed to do that. If Jason hasn’t told his mother and has kept this big secret from me, it seems like no one should know, but I can’t not tell Easton. Yet, he nods and fetches his coat from where it’s slung over one of the chairs. I watch with bated breath, wondering what his sudden compliance means, but then I hear the front door creak open.

“I hope you’re still in the Christmas spirit because—”

Easton doesn’t finish his sentence, but my heart breaks seeing the boxes of Christmas lights under his arm and bags of takeout slung over his other. Could he be any sweeter? And now I have to deliver hell to him.

“Hi,” I call, but barely any sound comes out. It’s too bizarre having him and Jason in the same room—my past and my present.

Jason steps in front of me, blocking my view, and leans in, murmuring, “On second thought, maybe it’s better you don’t tell him.”

I don’t understand why there’s a smirk on his face when he draws back. What’s amusing about this? Does he see something in Easton he finds comical, or is it the situation? It’s like being suspended in time, watching him walk to fetch his bag mere feet away from Easton.

“It looks like your company’s here,” he calls back cheerfully to me. “I’ve got to get going, anyway. It was nice to see you again. We can catch up more another time.”

Easton looks confused and subdued, almost like he thinks he just burst in on me having company. I can’t move. All I see in front of me is an impossible choice—a life I didn’t know I was supposed to live and one that was so close I could almost taste it.