PART 3
Neither of them moved.
The waitress approached with a pitcher of iced tea.
“You two need anything else, Mister?”
She looked at Lamar, then at Rhoda, then at me.
Lamar opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
I smiled at the waitress.
“Yes, ma’am. I’d like a glass of water. And perhaps a little explanation from this gentleman. He’s been dead for two years, you see.”
The waitress froze.
Rhoda covered her mouth.
Lamar looked down at his plate.
I sat back.
“Don’t let me interrupt your lunch.”
The waitress slowly backed away.
For a few seconds, the only sound was the water moving beneath the dock.
Then Lamar finally spoke.
“How did you find me?”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because that was the first question he had for his wife after two years of pretending to be dead.
Not, Are you all right?
Not, How have you been?
Not even, I’m sorry.
How did you find me?
“I came to have lunch,” I answered. “Imagine my surprise when I found my dead husband enjoying crab cakes with my best friend.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Roberta, please. Not here.”
“Not here?”
I leaned forward.
“Where would you prefer? At the cemetery? I could meet you there. We could talk beside the empty casket I bought for you.”
Rhoda began crying.
“Oh, Roberta. Please don’t.”
I turned toward her.
“Don’t what, Rhoda? Don’t embarrass you?”
She shook her head.
“I know how this looks.”
“Then help me understand.”
She looked at Lamar.
He gave her a warning glance.
That little movement told me something.
They had rehearsed this.
Perhaps not the exact conversation, but they had discussed what would happen if somebody discovered them.
They had prepared excuses.
They had prepared lies.
And I was apparently the last person they expected to see.
“How long?” I asked.
Neither answered.
I repeated the question.
“How long have you two been together?”
Rhoda wiped her cheeks with a napkin.
“Roberta, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
She looked down.
“Almost three years.”
Three years.
I counted backward in my head.
Three years ago, Lamar had still been coming home every evening.
Three years ago, Rhoda had been sitting at my kitchen table, drinking coffee and complaining about her husband.
Three years ago, I had helped her pick out flowers for Clifton’s funeral.
Three years ago, my husband was supposedly telling me he loved me before going out fishing.
My stomach tightened.
“You mean while Clifton was alive?”
Rhoda’s eyes filled again.
She nodded.
I felt something inside me go very still.
Clifton had been a good man. Quiet, hardworking, and kind.
He used to bring me fresh tomatoes from his garden every summer.
At our anniversary dinner, he had once raised his glass and said, “Roberta, if Lamar ever gives you trouble, you know where to find me.”
We had all laughed.
I remembered that night now.
I remembered Clifton sitting beside Rhoda, looking tired while she spent most of the evening whispering to Lamar.
I had thought nothing of it.
I had been wrong about so many things.
“Did Clifton know?” I asked.
Rhoda shook her head quickly.
“No. No, he didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
She looked at me.
“I swear.”
I wanted to believe her.
But I had learned something in the last fifteen minutes.
A person could look directly into your eyes and lie about something enormous.
I turned toward Lamar.
“Where were you?”
He swallowed.
“What?”
“Two years ago. Where were you when they were dragging the lake looking for your body?”
He shifted in his chair.
“I wasn’t in the water.”
“Obviously.”
“Roberta, listen. I never intended for you to lose everything.”
I stared at him.
“Everything?”
He looked toward the water.
“The business was in trouble. We had debts. Things got complicated.”
“The business?”
I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You told me the business was doing fine.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You told me the bank needed my signature for insurance.”
He rubbed his beard.
“I had to make a decision.”
“You made a decision?”
My voice became quieter.
“Let me tell you what your decision looked like from my side.”
I counted on my fingers.
“I buried an empty casket. I sold the bait shop. I sold the truck. I paid ninety thousand dollars in debt because you told me it was our responsibility. I used my savings. I stopped buying groceries I didn’t need because I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough money for the electric bill.”
My eyes burned, but I refused to cry.
“I went to the cemetery every Sunday for six months.”
Lamar looked at me.
I continued.
“Sometimes I brought flowers. Sometimes I just sat there. Do you know what I talked about?”
He said nothing.
“I told you about the weather. I told you about the neighbors. I told you when our old dog died. I told you I missed you.”
My voice broke.
“And you were alive.”
For the first time, Lamar looked ashamed.
“Roberta, I—”
“Don’t.”
I raised my hand.
“Don’t say my name like you’re comforting me. You lost that privilege.”
Rhoda reached across the table.
I pulled my hand away.
“Please,” she whispered. “I know I don’t deserve to ask this, but you have to understand. Lamar was desperate.”
I turned toward her.
“Desperate enough to let me think he was dead?”
She lowered her head.
“He said he would explain everything once things settled down.”
“How long was that supposed to take?”
She didn’t answer.
I looked at the bracelet on her wrist.
It was a thin gold bracelet with a small blue stone.
I had received it from Lamar on our fortieth anniversary.
He told me he had bought it from a jewelry shop in Tallahassee.
I had worn it for years.
After the funeral, I put it in a little velvet box because I couldn’t bear looking at it.
Now it was on Rhoda’s wrist.
I pointed toward it.
“Where did you get that?”
She instinctively covered it with her other hand.
Lamar closed his eyes.
“Roberta, don’t.”
“That bracelet belonged to me.”
Rhoda’s face turned red.
“He gave it to me.”
I looked at my husband.
He had given my anniversary bracelet to my best friend.
Something about that hurt more than the kiss.
Perhaps because the kiss could have been explained away by a moment of weakness, however terrible.
But that bracelet meant he had taken something from our marriage and placed it on another woman’s wrist.
“Take it off,” I said.
Rhoda stared at me.
“What?”
“Take it off.”
She slowly unclasped the bracelet and placed it on the table.
I didn’t touch it.
I didn’t want it anymore.
“Keep it,” I said. “You two seem to have collected enough of my life already.”
Then I stood.
Lamar reached for my arm.
“Roberta, wait.”
I stepped away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“We need to talk.”
“Yes. We do.”
I took my phone from my pocket.
“I have your picture. I have your face. I have your little restaurant date. And I have two years of financial records waiting for someone to examine them.”
His expression changed.
“What financial records?”
I looked directly at him.
“The ones I kept.”
That wasn’t entirely true.
I had kept some paperwork, but I didn’t know what it would prove.
However, I had learned during forty-one years of nursing that sometimes you had to let a patient talk before you knew where the pain was coming from.
Lamar looked toward Rhoda.
She looked frightened.
“Roberta,” he said, lowering his voice, “you don’t understand what you’re getting involved in.”
I gave him a small smile.
“Then explain it to me.”
He looked around the restaurant.
“Not here.”
I nodded.
“Fine. Tomorrow morning. You can tell me everything.”
He seemed surprised.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. Unless you’re planning to disappear again tonight.”
He looked away.
I picked up my purse.
Then I remembered something.
“One more question, Lamar.”
He looked up.
“Did you ever love me?”
His mouth opened.
For several seconds, he couldn’t answer.
Then he said, “Of course I did.”
I nodded slowly.
“That’s what makes this so difficult.”
I turned and walked away.
Ione was waiting near the entrance.
She didn’t ask questions.
She simply put her arm around mine and walked me back toward the bus.
But before we reached the parking lot, my phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
The message contained only one sentence.
Mrs. Ashby, please don’t meet Lamar tomorrow. You don’t know what he did with your money.
I stopped walking.
Ione looked at my face.
“What is it?”
I showed her the screen.
She read it twice.
“Who sent that?”
“I don’t know.”
Another message arrived.
This time, there was a photograph attached.
It was a picture of a document.
A bank transfer.
My name appeared at the top.
The amount was $60,000.
And underneath it was the date.
October 14.
The same day the sheriff had knocked on my door.
I felt my knees weaken.
“Roberta?” Ione whispered.
I zoomed in on the photograph.
The money had been transferred from our joint savings account into a business account.
The account holder’s name was visible.
Clifton Gaither.
Rhoda’s dead husband.
I stared at it.
Why had my husband transferred sixty thousand dollars to a man who had died three years earlier?
Ione took my phone.
“Lord, Roberta.”
Then another message appeared.
That account was not Clifton’s personal account. It was opened under his name six months after his funeral.
I felt cold despite the Florida sunshine.
I typed a reply.
Who is this?
The answer came almost immediately.
Someone who worked at the bait shop. Someone who knows why Lamar disappeared.
I looked back toward the restaurant.
Through the glass windows, I could see Lamar and Rhoda still sitting at the table.
They were no longer eating.
They were talking urgently.
Then Lamar stood up.
He took his phone from his pocket and looked toward the parking lot.
For one terrible second, our eyes met.
He knew.
He knew someone had contacted me.
Ione squeezed my hand.
“Get on the bus, honey.”
I nodded.
But my eyes stayed on the restaurant.
Because something else had just occurred to me.
If Lamar had been planning to disappear, if he had known the bank would come after the bait shop, and if he had arranged for sixty thousand dollars to be moved on the very day the sheriff came to my house…
Then the drowning story had not been an accident.
It had been a plan.
And perhaps the worst part was that I had helped him carry it out without knowing.
