Page 46 of The Five Year Lie

“The event planner asked if this was my first marriage,” my mother says suddenly. “And I told her no—that I was widowed five years ago.”

“She wasn’t prying,” I point out. “She was just taking your temperature on what kind of event this will be.”

“I know.” My mother laughs. “But I felt like I just had to giveher the timeline, so she wouldn’t judge me. Then she said it wasbraveof me to get married again.”

“Well, isn’t it?”

“Marriage is always a big leap of faith,” she says quietly. “But I’m a very different person than I was when I married your father. So there’s no way things can turn out the same.”

“That must be a relief,” I say. “Seeing what a bastard he was.”

She actually lets out a gasp, because we never do this. We never talk about him. “Ariel, I have no regrets about marrying your father.”

“None?” I challenge.Seriously?

“Of course not. Edward gave me you, and then you gave me Buzz. So ofcourseI don’t regret it.”

I don’t even know what to say to that. Because regrets aren’t an all-or-nothing proposition. My gaze sharpens on Buzz, who’s leaning over in the wet sand, picking up shells and turning them over.

It’s possible to love my little boy, but to still wish I’d paid more attention to Drew’s evasions and lies.

I don’t regret Buzz, but I do regret letting Drew break me in half.

We walk a little farther.

“Your father was a difficult man,” my mother says.

“Yeah? I hadn’t noticed.”

She flinches instead of laughing. “You’re still angry at him? After all this time?”

“You’re not?” I counter. “He wasn’tniceto us. Ever. And when things went wrong, he took a coward’s way out.”

“Youassumehe did,” she says. “But you don’t actually know what happened. None of us do.”

I stop walking. “What do you mean bythat?” When I turn to my mother, she has tears in her eyes. And I’m so confused rightnow. My mother doesn’t get emotional. She’s not a sharer, either. I’m pretty sure I learned it from her.

“He wasn’t the kind of man to overdose,” she says quietly. “He just wasn’t.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “But the medical examiner told you he was full of painkillers. So he overdosed—either accidentally or on purpose.”

“The official cause was heart failure,” my mother says crisply. “Probablycaused by painkillers. But only God knows how that happened.”

“Right.”Whatever makes you feel better, Mom.

“Did he seem odd to you?” she asks. “That last summer—you were working with him. Was he different? Did he do anything strange?” She dabs her eyes daintily with the knuckle of her index finger.

“Mom,” I say carefully. “He seemed strange to me my whole life. That summer was just the same song, different verse. I did a half-assed job in the office. He told me I was a failure at every opportunity, and I vacillated between trying to do a good job and trying to piss him off.”

She looks away. “Did you know he was struggling with pain pills?”

“Nope.” I give my head a firm shake. “But he’d never confide in me, and he hated to look weak. So I’d be the last person to know.”

“Well,Iknew it,” she says in a low voice. “I saw how often he took them. But I didn’t speak up. He would have taken it poorly.”

I barely hold back another snarky comment, because that’s a vast understatement. My father never valued my mother’s opinion on anything more pressing than cocktail party catering. It’slaughable to think he’d listen to her about something like a drug habit.

“... But I don’t think he would have ended his life on purpose. Did you ever imagine your father was capable of that?”