“I didn’t,” she says, her voice rising with every word, “but if you’re asking me whether I had any doubt, then I won’t deny it. You had a secret, Cal! A secret so big you let Augusta get away with her bullshit, when you’re not the kind of person to let a bully have free rein. What the hell was I supposed to think?”
“How about you give me the benefit of the doubt before you presume the worst about me?”
“I did! You think I would have stuck around to talk to you if I didn’t think she was probably lying? But I would have been foolish—beyond foolish—not to look at the information I’d collected and consider the possibility it was true.”
I hold out my arms. “Hell, maybe I’m lying now! I mean, the only people who know what happened that night are me and Alice, and one of us is dead.”
“You’re not lying,” she says, looking devastated.
“How do you know?” I ask, crumbling inside with defeat. “Maybe we should find Dean’s number so you can ask him. Isn’t that what investigative reporters do? Check their sources? I don’t have it on me, but he still works at the school and coaches the football team.”
“No.” She looks like she’s going to be sick.
“So what makes you trust me now but not when I pulled into your driveway ten minutes ago?”
Her only response is to blink at me, staring blankly.
“Was it my tears? Or the pain in my voice?”
“You’re not being fair!” she fires back.
“You know what’s not fair?” I say, ready to be done with this conversation and go find comfort with a bottle of whiskey. “What’s not fair is hurting so badly you think your heart will literally break, and not being able to tell anyone. Living the lie of the grieving widower.” I exhale. “Getting everyone’s pity when what I felt most was anger.”
“I know a thing or two about that,” she mutters.
“I wanted to tell you,” I say, fighting back my tears. “But I knew the only other person you’d told about your dad was Mary, and I didn’t want to drag my dead wife into the mix. She’s already screwed up my life enough. And here she is, screwing it up some more.”
“So you weren’t going to tell me?” she asks, her back stiff. “You planned on keeping it a secret forever?”
“I was going to tell you before we left on our date tonight. I wanted to have it all out in the open.” Then I add, “But I guess you beat me to it. Congrats on the big scoop.”
“You don’t have the right to judge me,” she chides.
I study her defensive pose. “Why not? You sure judged me. A few words from a known liar were enough to have you thinking I might be a cheater and a killer.”
I open my truck door, about to get in, then change my mind and turn back to face her. “Maybe this is for the best. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else, because you’re so screwed up by your dad that you’ll never trust another man.”
The same could probably be said of me and my inability to trust, but my rage and sorrow eclipse everything else as I get in and slam the door. Remorse hits me center mass when I see the pain and shock on her face. What I just said was unforgivable, but maybe that’s why I said it. She’s going to leave anyway—we were both fooling ourselves to think otherwise—so we’d never work. At least this way she won’t leave with regrets. Regret’s an old friend of mine, so I might as well be the one to claim it.
I stop by the liquor store and buy a new bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Dad and I haven’t had a drink together in ages, and I don’t know how much we have left at home. My argument with Molly tries to replay in my head, but I shut it down. I refuse to confront it until I’m at least partially soused.
When I pull in front of the house, I expect Dad to come out and ask me why I’m home so early from my date, but thankfully the front door remains closed.
Once I’m planted in one of the chairs on the porch, I unscrew the top of the bottle and take a swig, my throat burning. I drink two more gulps in quick succession, then lean back in the chair and close my eyes, waiting for the alcohol to dull my pain.
I hear the front door open, then footsteps on the porch. Dad lowers into the chair next to me.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks.
I’m surprised when the dam to my emotions breaks, and I begin to sob. It all comes rushing out of me, all the grief and betrayal I’ve kept bottled up for years. I cry for what I thought I had with Molly and so obviously lost.
My dad rocks in his chair, waiting patiently. At some point he pulls the bottle from my hands, then takes a swig and sets it on the table between us.
When I finally settle down, he says, “Are you ready to talk about it now?”
I wipe my face with the back of my hand, then reach for the bottle and drink. I’m becoming pleasantly numb, but it’s not nearly enough.
“No, but I need to tell you anyway.”
“Okay, son,” he says. “I’m listening.”
I spill my guts, telling him everything about Alice in much more detail than I told Molly and with a whole lot less animosity. He sits quietly and mostly listens, asking a question every so often. We both continue drinking, and by the time I finish my angst-ridden story, I’m buzzed.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, son?” he finally asks.
I’m not sure anymore. It felt so necessary to keep it quiet at the time, and truthfully, I still don’t want it to get out. “A lot of reasons. I was in so much shock. I was trying to protect Alice’s mom. I was trying to protect Alice.”
“Why would you protect Alice?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” I say, taking another drink. The bottle is half empty now, and I’ll have a bitch of a hangover tomorrow. “Because she wasn’t here to defend herself? Because it felt wrong to destroy her when I already had?”
“Are you talking about her accident?” When I don’t answer, he says, “You didn’t kill her, son. It was a horrible accident.”
“She was a mess when she left, Dad. If she hadn’t have been so upset—”
“You didn’t kill her, Cal.”
“You don’t—”
He holds up a hand, effectively shutting me down. His nose is clownishly red and his eyes are puffy, but there is a firmness to him, a resoluteness, that buoys me. “You didn’t kill her. Say it.”
I refuse, shaking my head.
“It was an accident. An unfortunate accident. Her car hydroplaned. That had nothing to do with you or her mental state. The road was flooded with water.”
“But—”
“No,” he barks. “You did not kill Alice.”
I start to cry again, but he won’t let this go. “Say it.”
I stare at him in confusion. Is it true? Am I really not responsible?
“Alice’s dad and I talked to the officer. He said it was the road conditions. Sure, her mental state may have contributed to her not being able to recover from the skid, but the hydroplaning was the road. They actually fixed the road a year later, so it wouldn’t flood anymore. Don’t you remember?”
“No, Dad. You’re just telling me that to make me feel better.”