Page 81 of Absolution

“Mom, I can’t. Please don’t ask me why, but I’ll be in danger if I do, if you do, if anyone does. Please trust me.”

“Have you been alone in this the whole time?”

“I’ve talked to Gayle, and Rebecca a little. Mom… Chloe, she’s missing, and I think he’s got something to do with it.” Tears well up in my eyes again. “I can’t!” My voice breaks and Mom scoops me into a tight embrace.

“There are things you’re not telling me,” says my clever mom.

I nod. “But I really can’t. I just hurt. It hurts. He’s my everything, but I don’t want to see him ever again.”

“Are you in love with this man? Kerry, he sounds dangerous!”

“He is,” I whisper, “but he would never hurt Cecilia and me.”

“You can’t know—”

“No, I know. It’s all those other things… He’s not a good man. I need a good, kind man, not… What have I done? Why did it have to be him, Mom?”

My mother doesn’t answer. There is no answer to that.

“Someone like Evan?” she finally says.

“Maybe.”

“He is a good man.”

I think of the cheating, and now the stealing, all his stupidity, that is really just naivety. But all our years of friendship meant something too. It was a calm life.

“Someone like him.”

“But not him?”

“No, Mom!”

She has never quite grasped that he cheated on me, that he was fucking a blonde at the office the last six months of our marriage, but I’ve tried to tell her so many times, and she keeps living in denial. Initially it even felt like she blamed me for not being wife enough, but at least that passed. She really loved Evan.

I stay for hours, until past lunch, when I’ve finally come back to myself a little. There’s no solution to the mess I’m in. I shouted at him to stay away, that I won’t let him see Cecilia, but that’s a threat that’s impossible for me to keep. He’ll take what he wants, and do I really not want to see him ever again? The thought makes me hurt. Everything hurts. Will I ever find peace again?

In the car heading home, my phone rings. I vaguely recognize the number but can’t place it. Putting the call on loudspeaker, I answer. “Yes?”

“I’m so sorry for calling again.”

“Evan?”

Oh my freaking God. Did you fuck a Russo? His harsh words from last night ring in my ears, but at the same time: isn’t he right? His judgmental tone hurt, but today I feel he’s right.

“Ker, I just wanna say I’m sorry for last night. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”

“How did you know?”

“I just happened to talk about you with a friend, about you having a kid. It shook me a little, I’m sorry, I just had to vent, and he knew whose it was.”

Apparently not exactly whose, but way too close.

“Ker. Wanna grab a coffee today? I just want to make peace. Bring Cecilia, she’s so cute. It makes me wanna have kids myself. I’ve made so many wrongs, but I know now how I’m gonna make them right, and then I’ll get my life in order. Meeting you inspired me.”

It’s not Evan per se. He’s not the one for me. But someone like him, and he catches me at the exact time when I just want to see one normal person. Or, close to normal at least.

“Sure. Same place?”

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