Wife-In-Law (21 page)
I took the envelope. “You leave me with no choice.”
If only I had sent her, and that envelope, away. I’d give anything for a do-over, but only hindsight is twenty-twenty.
Anna granted me a smug smile. “Come on. Confess. Doesn’t this give you just the teeniest sense of satisfaction?”
“It makes me want to throw up,” I said honestly, then closed the door in her face.
Anna laughed, then went back to her red Jaguar and left.
I threw the envelope on the hall credenza as if it had been poisoned.
It
was
poison.
was
poison.
Part of me said I should throw it away without looking at it and let Kat and Greg deal with this in their own way. But another part of me worried that she might really get some social disease before she finally wised up. And Anna was right in saying that somebody would tell Kat if I didn’t.
For three days, I struggled with what to do. Meanwhile, my phone rang off the hook. Anna had definitely stomped the fire ant mound, and every stinging female in Sandy Springs was out to spread venom and offer me advice.
I finally quit answering and let the message center screen my calls.
But when my phone rang at five A.M. on Monday morning, I answered on reflex, alarmed. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mama.” It was Emma.
I flopped back into bed with relief. “Sweetie, you scared me, calling at this hour. Is everything okay?”
“No, and you know it.” Only a mother’s ear could detect the fact that she’d been drinking. “I woke up early and checked my e-mail. I got one from a friend that says Daddy’s cheating on Kat, and you have proof.”
“Damned Internet,” I muttered.
“Is it true?”
“So Anna Ormand says, but she’s the worst gossip in Atlanta,” I said. “I told her it wasn’t my business.”
“What about the proof?” Emma challenged.
“Anna says so, but I haven’t opened the envelope she gave me,” I told her, wretched that Emma had been dragged into this.
“Well, open it,” she ordered. “I’ll wait.”
“Honey, I don’t know if I should. The last thing I want is to end up in the middle of this. It’s not my business.”
“If you still care about Kat, it is your business,” she said. “She deserves to know, and so do I. I want the truth, Mama.”
Wakened at the crack of dawn, I was supposed to make a decision like this?
“Why don’t you call me later when I can think?” I deflected. “We can talk about this then. I’m still half asleep.”
“No, Mama. I need to know now if Daddy’s done this.” Her voice faltered. “Please,” she pleaded, “I need to know.”
My twelve-step program told me to stay out of it, but my mother’s heart understood Emma’s request.
Looking at the envelope’s contents wouldn’t necessarily commit me to telling Kat. Maybe the proof wasn’t really proof at all. “All right. Hang on. I’ll get it.”
Emma responded with a teary, “Thank you.”
I turned on my bedside table lamp, punched the wireless switch that lighted my way to the foyer, then retrieved the envelope. I returned to sit on my bed and unlock the clasp in the circle of light from the lamp. Pulling the contents out with one hand, I retrieved the phone with the other. “I’m back.”
“Good,” Emma said. “What’s inside?”
Right on top was a faintly grainy photo of Greg in the Ritz restaurant, nuzzling a sluttily dressed blonde who looked younger than Emma. More photos of him with the same girl, getting out of his car, going into various local hotels. More tasteless snuggling in restaurants. Then several copies of his bills for expensive suites in town, with check-in and checkout on the same afternoons. How had Anna gotten hold of
those
? Greg hadn’t even tried to cover his tracks, charging them to his American Express.
those
? Greg hadn’t even tried to cover his tracks, charging them to his American Express.
The evidence merely confirmed what I’d known deep inside, but that didn’t make it any easier to take.
“Mama?” Emma prodded.
“Looks like it’s true.”
A long silence passed, then she sniffed, collecting herself. “Mama, you have to be the one to tell Kat. I talked to her yesterday. She’s so clueless, and so sweet. Better it comes from you than somebody else. Please.”
I’d known since Anna’s call that I’d have to be the one, but I hated it, hated it, hated it.
“Okay,” I relented, against my better judgment. “I’ll tell her.”
“Today, Mama, please. The clock is ticking.”
Nausea rose in me at the thought, but Emma had a point. I sighed heavily. “All right. Today.”
“I hate Daddy for doing this,” she said with a malice I’d never heard from her before. “And for what he did to you. I wish he was dead.”
“Honey, you don’t mean that,” I said. “He’s done some bad things, but he’s still your father.”
“Amelia was right about him. Why didn’t I see it?” Hate poisoned her voice.
“Sweetie, I know you’re terribly disappointed in your daddy, but give yourself some time to think about this,” I advised. “No matter what he’s done, he’s still your father, and he loves you.”
“He doesn’t know what love means.” Emma’s words were bitter with disillusionment. “I’m divorcing him. He’s not my father anymore.”
“Honey, don’t say things like that. You’ll regret them later.”
“Why are you defending him?” she accused, her anger shifting to a safe target—me.
“I’m not defending what he did, to me or to Kat, but I choose not to live with anger and bitterness. They only harm me.” How could I convince her? “Thanks to my support group, your daddy can’t hurt me anymore,” I lied, for my child’s sake, then finished with a truth. “I’ve moved on, and I’m happy now. Kat will get through this too.”
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “She’s not as strong as you, Mama. She never has been. That’s why she married Daddy. She couldn’t be alone.”
Insightful, but not necessarily productive.
“She’ll get through this, I promise.”
“Only if you’re there to help her,” Emma said.
“Lucky thing I’ll be there, then.”
“Thank you, Mama. I know you didn’t want to do this, but thank you.”
“Do me a favor in return, all right?” I asked.
“What?”
“Try to forgive your father. It’s the only way to heal.”
Emma snorted in derision.
“I’m not asking you to condone what he’s done,” I went on. “Just to see him as he is and accept it without resentment. It won’t be easy, but it will come in time, and I promise, you won’t be sorry.”
“I’ll try,” she said without conviction. “But only because you asked me to.”
I closed my eyes, drained. “Good night, sweetie. I love you.”
Emma started crying openly. “I love you too.” I started to disconnect, when she added, “Call me when it’s done. Any hour. I want to know.”
“I’ll call,” I promised, but didn’t commit to doing it right afterward. I would need time to recover.
“Thanks, Mama.” She hung up.
Feeling the weight of the world, I stuffed the evidence back into the envelope, then returned it to the foyer. After a cup of hot cocoa and a sleeping pill, I watched bad TV, wide-eyed, till the sun came up, then finally fell into a few hours of fitful sleep tormented by nightmares involving Greg.
When I woke up, hungover from the pill and cotton-mouthed with death breath, it was almost noon.
Time to face the dragon.
I took a long, cool shower, then dressed and made up, slowly and deliberately. By the time I was ready, it was nearly one. Like a death-row inmate taking his last walk, I forced myself outside with the envelope in my hand.
Bad idea, but so were my alternatives.
Crossing the cul-de-sac, I felt as if somebody was watching me and scanned the neighborhood, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Probably just paranoia about Anna. With her track record, she could be in the bushes with a video camera, eager to put this on YouTube.
I walked up to Kat’s front door and rang the bell, setting off the dogs, then knocked.
“Hang on,” she hollered over the barking. “Let me put these beasts away, and I’ll be right there.”
I tucked the envelope under my elbow. Dread sent my heart hammering in the eternity that followed till Kat opened the door.
Seeing me, her welcoming expression fell to one of suspicion. “What do you want?”
I pushed past her, the envelope burning a hole in my side. “This is the last thing in the world I want to do,” I said, “but we need to talk.”
U
pset though I was, I couldn’t help noticing that Kat’s garage-sale decor had been replaced with tasteful new furniture, and the place was clean as a whistle. Greg had made his mark, though I couldn’t help wondering how Kat had felt about it.
pset though I was, I couldn’t help noticing that Kat’s garage-sale decor had been replaced with tasteful new furniture, and the place was clean as a whistle. Greg had made his mark, though I couldn’t help wondering how Kat had felt about it.
She eyed me with suspicion. “I didn’t ask you in,” she said tersely.
“I didn’t want to come,” I answered, heading for the breakfast table in her renovated kitchen, the first time I’d ever seen it clear of clutter. “But I didn’t have a choice.”
Gone were all her smarmy collectibles and layers of ancient artwork from her kids, replaced by a sleek new kitchen that would do a professional cook proud. Ironic, for a woman who only made vegetable soup.
I sat down and laid the envelope on the table. No sense beating around the bush. “I have some bad news for you, Kat. I didn’t want to be the one who brought it to you, but everyone’s convinced me it will be better coming from me than someone else.”
“Who’s everyone?” she asked sharply, her accent broadening as it always did when she was afraid. “And whut business is it of theirs?” Compulsively, Kat got out her chopping block and chef’s knife, placing them on the island between the table and the door to the garage.
“None,” I said. “But they were right about one thing. You deserve to know the truth, and I care about you. I always have, no matter what Greg’s told you, so I’m here.”
On automatic pilot, Kat got celery and onions from the hydrator, then started peeling the Vidalias for vegetable soup.
I waited for her to speak, wishing it was the next day when this would all be behind both of us.
When she started chopping the onion, tears came to her eyes, but she doggedly chopped and chopped. Swiping the tears away with the back of her wrist, she said without looking at me, “It must be somethin’ pretty awful, to git you over here after not speaking for three years.”
“It wasn’t my choice that we didn’t speak,” I reminded her. “It was yours.”
“Yeah, well, after what Greg said you’d told everybody about me,” she said bitterly, her eyes still on her task, “I figured it was for the best.”
“Kat,” I said, “look at me.”
She glanced my way.
“No, I mean, really look at me. I want you to see me when I say this.”
Grudgingly, she stopped the knife and did as I asked.
“May God strike me dead on the spot,” I told her, “if I’ve
ever
said anything bad about you to
anybody
.”
ever
said anything bad about you to
anybody
.”
Kat’s eyes narrowed.
“I don’t know why Greg felt he had to drive a wedge between us. Well, maybe I do,” I corrected. “He probably didn’t want me telling you the details of what he’d done to me. Not that I would have. But he lied when he told you I’d run you down, to anybody.”
I could see she wanted to believe me, but couldn’t let herself. Without comment, she got out the big soup pot and slammed it onto her new commercial gas range.
“Why he told you all that garbage doesn’t matter,” I went on. “It only matters that you believe I’m your friend and always have been.”
“Yeah, right.” Kat went to the new pull-out pantry beside her stainless steel refrigerator and started grabbing cans of organic tomatoes and vegetables. “After I married your ex? And your
mother
ruined the ceremony.”
mother
ruined the ceremony.”
“Everybody wanted me to be mad at you for marrying Greg, but I wasn’t,” I explained. “You didn’t break up my marriage.” How could I convince her? “I know how lonely you were after Zach died. You’d stripped away everything to take care of him, then when he was gone, everybody went back to their lives, leaving you alone with your grief and all that nurturing, with no place to put it.”
Kat stilled, genuine tears welling in her eyes.
“I know how charming Greg can be,” I went on. “How could I blame you for believing him? But I swear, I never did or said anything negative when y’all got married. I genuinely hoped he’d really changed, and y’all could be happy.”
Kat snorted, then snatched a long-handled spoon from the utensil holder and pointed it at me. “Oh, right. Like you didn’t know your mother was going to come ruin my wedding.” She started opening cans with the electric opener. “I’m not saying you put her up to it,” she said over the grinding appliance. “I know what a bitch your mother can be. But you might at least have warned me.”
Oh, come on! “Damn, Kat! Mama hadn’t been out of the house in forty years! How the hell was I supposed to know she’d started sleeping with her next-door neighbor and taking her meds so he could take her to Branson?”
Kat’s expression shifted to one of surprised amusement, her lips folding inward. “Emma didn’t tell me that when she came back over.”
“She didn’t know,” I told her. “All she knew was that Mama showed up and embarrassed the hell out of all of us. I didn’t know, myself, till she and Zach dragged Mama to my house, where Mama spilled the beans after Emma left.” I had to make Kat believe me. “I made Mama swear to go apologize to you and your guests, but she acted like a brat and ran away.”
I could see Kat was softening.
“Why do you think I was yelling at her to come back and apologize?” I asked.
Kat dumped a can of tomatoes into the pot. “Greg said you were just doing it for show, to keep up your Goody Two-shoes reputation. I was so mad, I believed him.” She bent her head without looking at me. “I’m sorry.”
“I believed him about a lot of things for a long time,” I said softly, “so I can hardly blame you for doing the same thing. But there comes a time when you have to face the truth, as painful as it may be. For your own survival, if nothing else.”
Leaving the celery unchopped, Kat kept opening cans, the grind of the can opener filling the silence between us.
She would ask for the bad news in her own time, so I waited, grateful that at least part of the bad feeling between us had been cleared.
Compulsively, she opened can after can and package after package, till the pantry and freezer were empty of every form of tomato, mushroom, bean, dried bean, okra, and corn.
Kat lit the burner beneath the pot. Then she came and sat facing me at the table, her expression that of a weary, disappointed child. “Okay. Let’s have it. What’s in the envelope?”
Tears surprised me as I pushed it across to her. “I swear, this wasn’t my idea,” I said, struggling to regain my composure. “Anna Ormand did it, after I refused to talk to her—or anybody else—about the gossip. But you know Sandy Springs. Once something makes it to the ALTA grapevine, it might as well be on the cover of the AJC.” I sighed. “Anna threatened to give it to you herself if I didn’t, so here it is. I hate it, but here it is.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “I thought you had a right to know. If you hate me for it, I’ll understand, but it was either me or somebody else who doesn’t love you like I do.”
Kat stared at the envelope as if it were a snake, then opened it with her usual lack of evasion and pulled out the contents.
I held my breath, then realized that the contents were facedown.
Kat turned them over and gasped, paling till her freckles stood out in alarming relief. “Oh, my God.”
She shoved the photos away from her and jumped out of her seat, physically distancing herself from the evidence in a bent, defensive posture, as if she’d been struck in the stomach by a cannonball. “Oh, my God, my God, my God.”
Her wounded glance fixed on me, the green of her eyes darkened to almost black. “You tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. How could I have been so stupid? I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t let myself face it, and now …”
I got up and tried to hug her, but she warded me off like a wounded animal. “I should have known you’d never do the things he said you had, but he was so convincing. And I was so lonely by myself, with the kids gone back to their lives, that I truly wanted to die.” Her face crumpled. “I even thought about taking some of Zach’s leftover medicine and ending it, but then Greg came around and made me feel so special.”
Both of us were crying. I pulled her into my arms and patted her back. “I know,” I comforted, “I know. This is not your fault. It’s his. You didn’t do anything wrong. He did.”
“I
did
do something wrong,” she said harshly, rearing back to face me with bitter regret. “I believed what he told me about you, even though I knew better. I let him drive a wedge between us, just so he could cover his ass.”
did
do something wrong,” she said harshly, rearing back to face me with bitter regret. “I believed what he told me about you, even though I knew better. I let him drive a wedge between us, just so he could cover his ass.”
Her paleness shifted alarmingly to redness, and she jerked free. “The bastard!” She started throwing the empty vegetable cans across the kitchen, scattering their juices everywhere. “I was so stupid. All those lies about turning his life around. I swallowed them hook, line, and sinker.” The dregs in a big tomato can sent red juice across the pristine white cabinets and new stainless hardware. “Lies. It was all lies.” Kat started cussing like only a backwoods Kentuckian could, wreaking destruction in the kitchen till all the cans were flung.
She was making so much noise, neither of us heard anything till Greg opened the garage door and halted at the sight of the mayhem.
What was he doing home at that hour?
“What the hell is going on here?” He glared at me. “What kind of mischief are you up to?”
“Nothing like the mischief you’ve been up to, you lying bastard!” Kat shouted, throwing the spattered photos at him.
At the sight of the photos and bills, Greg’s face went dark red with fury.
No repentance. No regret. Just anger.
Distraught, Kat started chopping the celery as if it were his balls.
My ex-husband zeroed in on me. “You bitch! You just couldn’t stand for us to be happy, could you?”
The man’s arrogance was breathtaking.
“Me? What about you, whoring around on Kat for all of Buckhead to see? I didn’t take these pictures, but Kat has a right to know what a sorry-assed louse she married.”
Sobbing now, Kat kept mincing and mincing away between us, unable to face the conflict directly.
“What did you do, have me followed, you white-trash, compulsive bitch?” Greg demanded. “Just couldn’t let me go, could you?”
The hubris was staggering.
“Don’t talk to her that way!” Kat hollered, still intent on her task.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when Greg grabbed a long knife from the block on the island and lunged toward me. “Bitch! I’ll teach you to ruin other people’s lives!”
The whole thing happened like it was in slow motion. Just as he launched himself for me, Kat turned, knife in hand, and said, “Cut it out!”
Greg ran straight into her knife, impaling himself to the hilt, front and center, blood spurting everywhere.
Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Just like my dream!
Kat screamed and let go, covering her face with her bloodied hands.
Greg looked down in surprise and let out a strange, strangled sound, then went to his knees. Before I could stop him, he fell forward, driving the knife even deeper.
Frozen, I looked down on him with an overwhelming sense of detachment, as if it wasn’t really happening, and I was watching it on TV instead of in real life. But the smell of blood brought me back to reality.
“Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!” Kat knelt beside him and turned him over, her knees in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. “Call 911!”
I snatched up the phone and dialed.
Greg’s eyes were wide open, and he wasn’t breathing.
Kat started to pull the knife out, but I stopped her. “No! Don’t pull it out. It will only make things worse! Do CPR!”
A recording came over the receiver. “You have reached 911 emergency. Please hold, and emergency personnel will answer your call as soon as possible.”
Dear Lord! They put me on
hold
?
hold
?
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Kat repeated as she straightened Greg’s neck, then tilted his head back to open an airway and started CPR. With every chest compression, the pool of blood got larger.
He was dead. I could tell.
How could somebody die that fast from a single cut?
Internally cursing the delay with 911, I pressed my fingers to his carotid artery, but felt nothing. He stared at nothing, with no signs of life, the surprise rigidly etched on his face.
Kat kept up the chest compressions, but I pulled her away. “He’s gone, Kat. The more you push, the more blood comes out. You have to stop.”
She fought free of me and resumed the CPR. “He can’t be dead,” she said breathlessly after forcing air into his lungs. “He can’t!”
“Nine-one-one emergency,” a live voice finally said into my ear. “What is your emergency?”
“There’s been a horrible accident,” I said. “We need an ambulance right away at 3232 Eden Lake Court.” I tried to gather my wits. “Someone was stabbed by accident, and he’s not breathing. We tried CPR, but every time we compress his chest, more blood comes out.”
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