Page 1 of The Lies We Leave Behind

1

William

Seattle 2003

It was the kind of day my wife had often written about in one of her novels. The kind of day when, in my younger years, I’d have grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and headed to the beach for an afternoon of swimming, lounging, and sunning myself. Or, in my not-quite-as-young years, pulled a few towels from the linen closet, grabbed a plastic bucket and shovel from the garage, and whisked my daughter and wife out the back door, across our lawn, and through the little gate with its little bell to our stretch of rocks and sand, the navy blue water of the Puget Sound stretched out before us. We’d play in the sun until our noses and shoulders turned pink, and then pack up our things, and tread tired but happy back up to the house.

It was the kind of day when, should I allow it, I could be taken back to another time and place. A too-brief period that came now only in flashes of faded memories brought about by particular scents and sounds. The smell of the earth and wildflowers, the wind rustling the leaves on the trees, the warmth of the sun pressing against my skin. And the heat of the day undulating, almost visible, but not stifling—thanks to a breeze happening by to lift the hair from my head and cool my skin with a quick kiss of relief before flitting away again.

It was the kind of day you took notice of. Appreciated. Didn’t take for granted as you lifted your face to it, eyes closed, a small smile as you took in its simple perfection.

“Magical,” a voice from the past whispered in my ear.

A memory.

A ghost.

I grinned, lost for a moment as I allowed my mind to take me back. Just for a minute. I wouldn’t let myself stay there, or else the guilt would come. I’d had too good a life to let myself get pulled into the what-ifs and why-nots. But sometimes I liked to travel back. To imagine. I felt I owed it to the man I was.

I felt I owed it...to her.

“Dad?”

A hand pressed on my shoulder and I started and turned in my chair, looking up into the concerned golden-brown eyes of my daughter, Elizabeth. Lizzie. Named for her mother’s all-time favorite literary character.

“You okay?” she asked, her dark brow furrowed. “I was calling you.”

I chuckled and pressed my hands to the worn navy blue arms of my favorite deck chair. So many times Olivia, my wife, had wanted to have it repainted. But I liked it this way. We had bought the pair of chairs soon after we’d moved in many decades ago now, and while she’d had hers sanded and painted several times over the years, I liked that mine had weathered with me, each of us showing our age, my body forming to it, or perhaps it forming to my body. Who could know. Regardless, it was mine, and I liked the way life and age had changed it, as both had changed me as well.

I got to my feet and pulled my daughter into a hug, dropping a kiss on her head.

“I’m fine. Just enjoying the weather.” I stepped back and gestured to the familiar view she’d grown up with. Below the large deck where we stood, a pristine green lawn with flower beds bursting with color gave way to the Puget Sound beyond. It was an idyllic spot, perfect for long, lazy evenings in the warmer months, cozy fires at the firepit during the long-lasting gray months, and raising a family.

“Where’s Emma?” I asked, looking past her for my granddaughter.

“She just pulled up. But she was on the phone so who knows when she’ll grace us with her presence.” She shook her head and then turned, staring inside the French doors I’d left open to the boxes stacked against one wall of the living room. “You sure you want to donate them all?”

“It’s not what I want,” I said. “It’s what she wanted.”

The boxes were filled with books. Her books. From the very first to the very last, spanning five decades. Somehow, despite an aggressive cancer diagnosis, she’d managed to stay alive long enough to finish edits on her last contracted book, see it launch, and then pass quietly in her sleep a week after it hit the New York Times bestseller list.

“I did it again,” she’d said, her voice barely more than a whisper as she’d held up her phone with a shaking hand to show me the text from her editor.

“Of course you did,” I’d told her.

They all hit the list, and deserved to. She told stories like they were real life. Women and men alike saw themselves in her characters. She had a way of pulling you in, breaking your heart, and then building you back up with love and magical moments that, as one popular morning show host said, could feed you for weeks.

I’d often found it ironic that losing her could not be described. For a woman whose career depended on words, her death left me speechless. There wasn’t any one word that could express what it felt to lose her presence. The absence of her laughter ringing out down the hallway when she’d written a clever sentence. The way she’d side-eyed me when I took an extra-large helping of ice cream. The way her hand felt in mine.

It had taken months for me to stop calling out her name with a question on my lips. My sleep was often interrupted as my leg drifted toward her side of the bed and found it lacking the warmth that used to be there. I couldn’t seem to remember I was the only one drinking the coffee, and still, even now, a year later, made enough for two in the morning.

And her smell...the scent of lavender and vanilla...had all but ceased to exist in the house, time slowly stripping it, stealing it—and her—away.

The front door opened and shut with a small bang that sent a tremor through the walls. Lizzie shook her head and gave a little laugh.

“Apparently, Emma has decided to join us.”

“Hey, kid,” I called out to my granddaughter who, at thirty-six was still as much of a whirlwind as she’d been at six.

Like her grandmother, she was an artist, but her stories had always come in the form of dance. I had loved watching the two sit together over the years, the elder and the younger, one with a pen and paper, the other twisting her body like a pretzel as they chatted about the art of storytelling.

“Hey, Old Man,” she said, entering the room, her long dark hair in its ever-present ponytail, her willowy silhouette all grace and fluidity.

She’d been the prima ballerina at the San Francisco Ballet for a decade, hanging up her shoes only four years ago to take a job as lead choreographer for Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet Company. How it thrilled us to see her featured in the newspaper, appreciated for her “fresh take on old classics, while honoring those who had come before.”

She was a star. A star who, at close to forty, still had the impish look of the girl she’d been three decades before, and a mischievous streak to match.

“You start that job I tasked you with?” she asked, narrowing the blue eyes she’d inherited from me. It was the only physical trait that linked us. But the mischief she got from me too.

“I got close,” I said, raising my hand and holding my forefinger and thumb an inch apart.

“Old Man...” she said, shaking her head. “I’m disappointed in you.”

“But the longer I hold off, the more likely you are to come around and check that I did it, providing me with much needed company.”

“You’re not fooling anyone.”

She winked and then turned to her mother and the two headed toward the boxes stacked against the wall. There were hundreds of books. Author copies Olivia had held on to for giveaways, for friends and family, and donated to women’s shelters and local charities. To go with the novels there was also the swag. Book bags with her book covers emblazoned on them, pins, buttons, pens, stickers, bookmarks, and mugs. There were a handful of custom bobbleheads we had made when one of her characters became so swoon-worthy, she’d given him his own series of books. There were fleece blankets, candles, and a tin of mints for a novel that had come out fourteen years ago.

Much of it was destined for the trash bin, some would be sent to her publisher and agent for special gift sets they were putting together for her most rabid fans, and the rest would be given away, Lizzie, Emma, and I keeping only what we couldn’t bear to part with.

While the women discussed who was taking what where and when, I threw on my favorite worn-in cardigan and ambled down the hallway, my slippers scuffing across the hardwood floor as my gaze skimmed over the family photos lining the walls, the most recent at the start, the oldest at the far end. Memory Lane, Olivia had dubbed it. On these walls, one could document nearly our entire life together as a couple, starting from the night we met, thanks to a mutual friend having a camera on hand. We met moments before the flash went off, and then spent the rest of the night talking tentatively, both of us carrying pain we could hardly bear, but not wanting it to rule our lives.

Olivia was a salve. Funny, kind, and determined to not let herself dwell in the past. And I was a distraction. Maybe not what she was used to, but someone she came to rely on, trust, and eventually fall in love with. We often told those who asked that we saved each other. Right time. Right moment. Right person.

I stopped for a moment in the doorway of her office. It had always amused me that such a sunshiny woman did her work in a space so dark. But she’d insisted on the deep blue wall color, the plush plum velvet couch, and dark wood desk.

“I need to be in a cave,” she’d said. “I need to sink down and disappear into my stories. Light and bright will just distract me.”

Sometimes I’d join her, slipping quietly from my office across the hall while she typed away, her glasses perched on her nose as she leaned toward the screen to peer at some word or sentence. I’d sit in the corner of the couch, a book or sketchpad in hand, and be a few dozen pages in before she noticed she wasn’t alone. Rather than be startled though, she’d just grin, give a happy little sigh, and get back to work.

My eyes took in the familiar sights of the room that was hers and hers alone. This was where one came to find the real Olivia. This was the room where all her barriers came down. Where she didn’t pretend to be anyone but herself. Not wife, not mom, not even New York Times bestselling author Olivia Mitchell. She was just her. Silly and ruthless and perfect.

“This is where I let the kid in me out to play,” I’d overheard her tell a friend once as they perused the comics she’d clipped from the newspaper and tacked to a bulletin board. Three stuffed doggies took up the corner of the couch opposite the one I always sat in, dolls she’d found while traveling sat on shelves along with numerous other knickknacks and images she’d found funny or quaint or inspiring and had stuck here and there all over the room.

I sagged against the door frame. It seemed impossible that it had been a year. A year and six days exactly since she’d said my name, held my hand, or brushed her fingertips across my cheek. A year and six days since those warm brown eyes had closed to me for good, taking with them her opinions on what glasses looked good on this old face, the hand that reached for that last bite of toast I may or may not have wanted but would always give to her regardless, and her side of every story we were ever part of together.

I sighed and turned, staring into my own office where a large box of photos sat on top of the trunk I used for a coffee table, a catch-all, and a footrest.

I’d been circumnavigating the box for a week, and steering clear of the room altogether if I could help it. It wasn’t hard, the only work I did anymore was consultations, and I could do my daily allotment of word games from anywhere in the house with the shiny silver laptop Olivia had bought me two Christmases ago. At one point I’d even shut the door. But I’d always loved how the light that poured in from Olivia’s office met with the light that poured in from mine, meeting in the middle of the hallway. Shutting my door had cut off the joining of our lights, making me feel lonelier than I already did, so I’d opened it again, leaving me with no choice but to just keep ignoring the large box of photos of my wife at all her many author events through the years. I’d been tasked with going through them. Disposing of some, keeping others, and gathering a pile to send off to her publisher.

I took a seat on the sofa and slid the box toward me, glancing down at the old trunk it sat on and running my hand over its smooth surface.

Olivia was the only person, aside from myself, to ever see the contents of the trunk I’d hauled stateside from Europe. It had been covered up, shoved into the shadows, forgotten and found again, and then finally placed in this very spot several years ago by my late wife who’d claimed it was an important part of my story, and she hoped one day I’d share it with our daughter and granddaughter. But like so many others who had served, sharing that part of my life was the last thing I wanted to do, and so it had stayed locked, its contents unseen and unspoken about.

The night Olivia had seen its contents was the one time early in our relationship that I’d stood her up for dinner. Rather than accept such treatment, she’d driven to my house, marched up the muddy front path, and banged on my door, ready to give me a piece of her mind. But when she’d seen the state of me, drunk and red-eyed from crying, she’d immediately dropped her purse to the floor, slipped off her mud-splattered heels, and led me to the couch where the trunk sat open, what was inside on full display.

She took a beer from my fridge, sat beside me, and asked careful questions about the comrades standing beside me in one photo after another. After a while, I felt a glimmer of hope for my future. This woman wasn’t daunted by my pain, my sorrow, or the photo of a pretty young blonde woman staring into the lens of my borrowed camera with obvious love in her eyes. She’d run a gentle finger over a sprig of dried bluebells she’d found pressed within the pages of a book. She’d smiled gently, understanding my agony. She knew what it was to have loved and lost.

After she’d finished her drink, she’d helped me place the memories back inside the trunk, lock it up, and set fresh cans of beer and two bowls of spaghetti I cooked for us on top. I never opened the trunk again, and she never asked. But a few weeks later I woke in her bed to find her watching me. Hesitantly, she handed me a small velvet bag.

“What is it?” I’d asked, watching her cheeks redden.

“I hope it’s okay,” she said. “I just thought...” She shrugged and bit her lower lip. “It’s okay to remember.”

I gave her a quizzical look and then untied the string and turned the bag over, watching as a small but heavy dome of glass fell into my palm. Inside it were the bluebells.

“William?” she said after a minute during which I’d sat in silence. “Are you... You’re mad. I’m so sorry. I just thought—”

I’d met her eyes, my own filled with tears, and reached for her hand.

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”

Over the years, that little bit of glass had found itself in the silliest places. A plant pot, an Easter basket, a candy dish, beneath the Christmas tree, out in the yard, brought there by our old dog Charmer. It once went on vacation with us to Hawaii, a road trip down the Oregon coast, and had even made it into the pages of one of Olivia’s early books.

And now it was in my granddaughter’s hands as she stood in the doorway of my office, watching me.

“Were the flowers special to Gran for some reason?” she asked, smoothing a long, slender finger over the top of the clear dome of glass. “I just realized I’ve never seen bluebells anywhere else in the house. Did you pick them for her?”

“No,” I said, reaching my hand out and smiling as she handed it over. “And this wasn’t hers. It’s mine.”

Her mouth opened as if to ask more, but I cut her off, the scent of food wafting down the hall toward us.

“Your mom cooking?”

“Lasagna. You won’t go hungry for at least another week.”

“Thank God. I was starting to worry.”

We laughed. Every week Lizzie came over and made a week’s worth of food, claiming it was an accident.

“How does one accidentally make enough food for a small squadron?” I’d ask, but she’d just shrug and get back to work.

The doorbell rang then and Emma pushed off the door frame.

“I’ll get it,” she said. “Probably the guys coming to pick up the books.”

As she wandered off down the hall, I slid the glass sphere into the pocket of my sweater and pulled the lid off the box of photos.

“Here goes nothing,” I said to myself as I grabbed the first envelope.

The photographs inside were from one of her last in-person events. There she was sitting on a tall stool, one of her author friends beside her on another stool, microphones in their hands. There she was signing books. Laughing with a reader. Giving the photographer a silly smile as she posed with a wall of her books the bookstore hosting her had thoughtfully displayed. There she was with me, her head resting against my chest, me proud as anything as I held her latest novel up. Her and Lizzie. Her and Emma. Her and—

“Grandpa?”

I startled, not because I was surprised by the voice, but because of what she’d called me. Emma didn’t call me Grandpa unless something was amiss.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, meeting her eyes and noting the little crease between her brows.

“There’s someone at the door for you. A woman.”

I sat for a moment more, watching her, and then got to my feet. As I passed her in the doorway, she reached out and squeezed my hand.

“Love you, kiddo,” I said, kissing her forehead.

“Love you, Old Man.”

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I grasped the glass piece I’d forgotten was there and then reached for the handle of the front door and pulled it open, finding myself staring at a face that looked strangely familiar, though I was positive I’d never seen the woman before.

And then I noticed her eyes. A shade of pale blue reminiscent of another time, long ago.

Neither of us said anything for a long moment, and then I chuckled, embarrassed at myself and my lack of manners.

“I’m sorry,” I said and shook my head. “Can I help you?”

A breeze lifted her shoulder-length blond hair, blowing it gently around slender shoulders. My breath caught as a memory tried to force its way forward.

“It is for me to apologize,” the woman said in a rich French accent, her voice low and husky. “I am sorry to intrude at dinnertime. But...are you William Mitchell?”

“I am,” I said, looking for a name tag or a bag of some sort with whatever product name she was trying to sell me emblazoned on it. But there was nothing. Just a large but tasteful handbag hanging from her shoulder.

“My name is Selene Michel. I am wondering if you knew a woman named Gisela Holl?nder?”

I frowned and shook my head.

“No. I’m sorry. I’ve never heard that name.”

She seemed to expect this, nodding, her eyes searching mine as she took in a deep breath, let it out, and then said a name I hadn’t heard in nearly six decades.

“And what about Kate Campbell?”

A million tiny moments flashed through my mind, a song long forgotten playing its tune in my head. I looked down at the bluebells in my hand that I hadn’t realized I’d removed from my pocket, and then back at the woman.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes. That’s a name I’ve heard before.”