“Remember that last day when we went sailing,” I said, “and I wanted to have a baby?”
He nodded, still with that same troubled, tortured expression.
“I had no idea that I was already pregnant.” I picked up my wine, took a sip, and set the glass down again. “Would that have made a difference?” I asked. “Would you have stuck around if you knew?”
Without hesitation, he replied, “If I’d known you were already pregnant, I wouldn’t have left you. I only left that night because I thought it best to make my exit before we took that next step. I didn’t think I was cut out to be a father, and part of me worried that it was in my genes. I didn’t want to pass that on.”
“Make your exit . . .” I frowned. “As if our life together was some sort of theatrical performance?”
I couldn’t help myself. I picked up my glass of wine and splashed it in his face.
Dean sucked in a breath of shock, then quietly dried his face with the back of his hand. We both sat motionless for a few seconds, without speaking.
“That drink was for you,” I finally said. “Now I’ll need a refill, please.”
He didn’t argue. He simply stood, fetched the bottle of wine, and poured me another glass.
“Let’s back up a bit,” I said as he sat down again. “Because I don’t really want to tell you about my life, except to say that it’s been wonderful. I married Gabriel Morrison, who you met once at that coffeehouse in SoHo. Do you remember him?”
“Yes.”
I took another sip of my wine and stared at Dean coolly over the rim of the glass. In a way, I wanted to hurt him with that information, like a form of revenge for what he had put me through.
“Suddenly I’m wondering if I’m a bigamist,” I said bitterly. “I suppose I am. But let’s not get sidetracked. I want to know about your relationship with Melanie Brown and how she ended up in an unmarked grave.” My tone was clearly combative.
“She was a client when I was a therapist,” he told me. “I started seeing her for grief counseling before you and I met. I knew for a while that she was developing romantic feelings for me, which is not uncommon. It’s called erotic transference, which is when—”
“I know what erotic transference is.”
He stopped. “Then you know that sometimes it can go both ways.”
My eyebrows drew together, quizzically. “Go on.”
He hesitated and fixed his eyes on the center of the table between us. “I was going through a rough time after my aunt died. I was lonely and . . . there’s no excuse for it. It was a terrible abuse of power, but I eventually gave in to Melanie’s declarations of love and . . .” He paused. “I hate talking about this. But one day in my office, we kissed. I knew without question that it was wrong, but I was a mess and in need of . . . I don’t know. Something.” He cupped his forehead in his hand. “It was a mistake.”
“How long were you involved with her?” I asked.
“About five months, but not by choice. I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to end it because she could have destroyed my career if she told anyone about us, so I had to tread carefully.”
I tried not to speculate about their relationship. Instead, I pressed him to continue. “What happened after that?”
He closed his eyes. “I knew that, in her mind, her love was real, but it wasn’t real for either of us. I recognized that after the first forty-eight hours. But by that time, it was too late. I was involved, and I’d already violated the ethics of my profession, so I couldn’t just walk away. Unfortunately, she’d ended her therapy, which was also a mistake. At the very least, I should have moved her to someone else, but I didn’t. Obviously, I didn’t want her talking about me. So I stayed, and I tried to help her, I guess. I was still her therapist in a way, and that was the crux of our relationship. It’s what she wanted from me. I thought—I hoped—that maybe things would improve and that I could grow to love her. I did care about her. But then I met you, and it became an enormous sacrifice to stay with her only because she could report me if I didn’t. It was a very unhealthy relationship.”
“So you killed her,” I said, leapfrogging over the ugly parts of the story, because, after all these years, I was impatient.
“No,” he firmly countered. “I went to her apartment one night to try and end things with her, but she’d had a lot to drink, and she was emotional, and she shoved me out the door. I fell onto the landing, and she . . .”
He stopped talking and went very still. He stared off into space as if he had disappeared into the past. I was reminded of that day on my sister’s sailboat when I spotted the dolphins.
“Dean?” I sat forward slightly.
He shook his head as if to clear it and began talking again. “She kept screaming at me to get out. Then she tried to push me down the stairs, but I grabbed hold of her to keep myself from falling, and we both fell.”
His words echoed through my mind, and I felt a strange melting away of rage and suspicion. “It was an accident then.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you call the police or an ambulance?” I asked. “If it wasn’t your fault . . .”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “But it was my fault. It was all my fault. I panicked. I was falling in love with you by that point, and I was so afraid of what would happen if anyone found out that I was involved with a client. You, especially. I didn’t want you to see me that way when you thought so highly of me.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I barely remember what happened after that. It was pouring rain, and I carried her to my car . . .” He began to quietly weep.
“Oh God.” I felt sick. “I don’t know if I want to hear the rest.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” he continued to explain, regardless. “I just wanted it all to go away, like it never happened. I wanted to be with you. I wanted you to love me.”
“I did love you,” I said with a blaze of anger. “How could you have doubted that?”
He shook his head ashamedly. “It was still so early. I didn’t know. It all seemed so precarious. I barely even remember everything I did. Just flashes of it.” He paused. “Sometimes, when I start to think about it, I have to force myself to forget. I meditate. I do anything to steer my thoughts away from it. If I didn’t, I’d probably just . . .”
“You’d just what?”
“I don’t know. Get on my boat, sail to the middle of the ocean, and dive over the side.”
I closed my eyes. “Please don’t say that.”
He grabbed big clumps of his hair in his hands.
“Why couldn’t you have just told me?” I asked, more gently now. “After we were married, you sometimes had nightmares. They were about that, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“You could have confided in me. I would have helped you, somehow. You didn’t have to do what you did—fly off in your plane and never come home. That was a terrible thing you did to me. You caused me so much pain.”
His eyes lifted, and they were red with tears. “If you only knew how many times I’ve had that conversation with you in my mind, where I tell you everything and you understand and absolve me and say that you’ll love me no matter what. Back then, I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t bear the thought of your disappointment in me. You were so perfect and happy, and I wanted to protect you from the nightmares. I knew that my pain would become your pain, and I couldn’t lay that on you. It was hell then, and it still is. I thought you would be better off without me.”