Molly’s face contorts with grief. “You sat there and listened to me tell you about my father. You held me and comforted me. And you said nothing.”
Everything in me wants to tuck tail and run, but whether she realizes it or not, Molly has changed me. I’m finally ready to set the record straight. Only her anger is unnerving me. Because she’s accusing me of the very thing that was done to me.
“You have something on Augusta, and she has something on you,” she says bitterly. “You were content to let her say whatever the hell she wanted because you didn’t want her to comment publicly about you. And she won’t tell anyone else about…this because you know something about her.” Her gaze is accusatory. “That’s why you’ve only had two sponsees, isn’t it? You’re supposed to tell them about your past, but you were ashamed?”
“Yes, Molly,” I sneer.
I should have told her yesterday, and I would have, if I hadn’t been so determined to preserve our perfect day. Now I’ve ruined us forever. But I won’t take full responsibility for that. She gets part of the blame too. The moment Augusta started slinging accusations, she could have left.
“You’re quite the investigative reporter,” I choke out. “Yes, I’m ashamed of what I told Augusta.”
“So you did have an affair?” she sputters. Her face drains of color. “And your confession sent your wife running out of the house that day…”
My eyes sting with unshed tears. “So you believe her. You believe Augusta.”
“I’m asking for your side. Are you guilty or not?” she says, her hands fisted at her sides. “Stop hiding, Cal! Tell the truth!”
“Only one of her claims is true,” I say.
She gasps. Which one has shocked her?
“You want the truth, Molly? Here’s the ugly truth. Alice was having an affair. She’d been having an affair for a year and a half, only I was too stupid to see all the signs. She was distracted and withdrawn. Secret calls and texts. Going to work early and coming home late. All the signs, all there, but I trusted her, so I wrote every one of them off.”
Her eyes are huge and red, but she looks like she’s been blindsided.
“I was in the dark until the day she died. Her boyfriend came to see me.” I draw in a ragged breath and push it out. “I was working in my workshop, and he came in and told me that he’d been fucking my wife for seventeen months. That he loved her and wanted me to stop being a dick and finally give her the divorce she’d been begging for. Except here’s the thing, Molly. She’d never asked for a divorce. Trust me, I’d remember if she had.”
She reaches for me, releasing a sob. “Cal…”
I rock back, and her hand drops. “She was an English teacher at the high school. He was a science teacher and a football coach. I should have known something was up when Alice volunteered to coach the cheerleading squad. She’d always made fun of the cheerleading coaches. I realized later it was so they could spend more time together.”
She reaches for me again, but I take another step back and lift my hands to ward her off.
“The baby she lost? He told me the baby was his.”
“Cal.”
I run my hand through my hair. “So I waited for her to come home, but he must have warned her that he’d talked to me, because she didn’t come home until late.”
The memories come flooding back, and I feel like I’m about to be swept away.
“She tried to deny it, all of it, but she finally caved and admitted everything. Even the baby.” I drag in another breath. “I asked her how she could be sure. She said we hadn’t had sex during her fertile window, but she’d been with Dean.”
I start to cry. “I was so excited about that baby, Molly. I painted the nursery and made a cradle for our baby. Our baby.” I release another bitter laugh. “I was such an idiot.”
“Cal.” The expression on Molly’s face has morphed from anger to concern. “Maybe we should go inside.”
That pisses me off. She started this, and now it’s too much for her?
“You wanted to know the truth. Well, here it is,” I say, all the pain and bitterness I’ve carried for years gushing out like spray from a fire hydrant. “I told her we were done. To pack up her shit and get the fuck out, but she insisted we could make it work. She claimed she still loved me.” I run a hand through my hair and then grip the back of my neck, hard enough to hurt. “She tried to leave multiple times, saying she’d give me time and space to think about everything, and I called her a coward and made her stay to deal with it. To put everything out there. She finally admitted she hadn’t loved me for years. She loved Dean and wanted to be with him, but she knew her parents would never forgive her if she left me for him.”
Molly looks like she wants to hug me, but the expression on my face must be holding her back. I don’t want her anywhere near me right now.
“So she ran out sobbing, saying she’d be back the next day to talk when I was more reasonable, and I told her I wished I’d never married her. That marrying her was the worst mistake of my life.” I pause, exhaling a long, shaky breath. “And then she crashed into a tree.”
“Cal.” Silent tears are streaming down her cheeks.
“So yeah,” I say bitterly, “Augusta has something on me. I admitted to killing my wife, because if my stupid pride hadn’t gotten in the way, she would have left before she got hysterical, and she wouldn’t be dead.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Does your dad know about Alice?”
“No one knows about Alice other than me, Augusta, Dean, and now you.”
Her body stiffens. “Why haven’t you told anyone?”
“Alice’s mother thought her daughter could do no wrong. Do you know how much it would have destroyed her to find out that the daughter she’d lost was an adulterer?”
“What about your dad?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?”
“When was I going to tell him?” I snap. “Right after the police called him to be with me? Before Alice’s parents showed up at our house in shock? Or maybe at the funeral when her lover showed up, bawling his eyes out. Maybe that would have been a good time.”
Her face goes pale. I wonder if she’s thinking about Lacy, at her father’s funeral. When she told me about that, I was definitely thinking about Dean.
“When was the right time to tell him that his son killed his wife?” I press.
“You didn’t kill her, Cal,” she says. Some of the color has returned to her cheeks, and she’s holding a hand out to me like I’m a wounded animal. “It was an accident.”
“An accident that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t forced her to stay.”
I’ve said everything I have to say, so when she doesn’t immediately respond, I turn around and walk toward my truck.
“That’s it? You’re leaving?” she asks in dismay.
“Do you think I want to leave?” I ask, my voice quavering. “I like you, Molly. I really, really like you.”
“Why do I sense a but in there?”
I take a few steps toward her. “Because you spoke to a known liar and took her word for it. You trusted Augusta over me.”