Page 63 of Silent Is The Heart

Killing the engine of the Suburban outside the cottage, the frazzled mood that accompanied me to work today amps up another level at the sight of the blackLexusin my driveway. Florida plates—the car Jason drove away last night when I locked up for the second time.

Is it a rental? If so, how is he able to rent a car without an identity when I can’t even get a credit card at the moment?

Glancing around the yard, I don’t see a sign of him. It’s too frigid and windy to take a stroll in the surrounding woods. An eerie feeling prickles the back of my neck, searching for a sight of him. It adds to the paranoia from the questions that ran through my head all day. How did he even know where to find me?

Fingers going numb, cheeks frozen, I start for the door, deciding that he’ll resurface like he did last night. He’d better and soon. Easton’s supposed to be coming over. I don’t want Jason here when I have to try to explain to him that my husband is no longer dead.

God, I might vomit. How am I going to do this? I don’t want to lose him, but it feels like the end of… the beginning.

His playful text messages today left me feeling like a traitor each time I mustered some kind of witty reply. I refuse to tellhim something like this over the phone or via text. I’d like to refuse to tell him at all, but how can I? This is what I get for cursing my previous reality before we reconnected. What is he going to think?

Unlocking the door, the smell of herbs assaults my senses. I gape at the movement in my kitchen. Sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a dish towel slung over his shoulder, Jason looks well at home in front of a boiling pot on my stove and a frying pan of grilling meat, scrolling through a phone. He has a phone? Why didn’t he leave me his number?

“Hey, there he is!” he calls.

It’s such a jarring welcome, as though it’s perfectly natural for him to be in my kitchen… andalivelike nothing has changed. “What are…how did you get in?” I hedge, trying to keep the accusatory tone out of my voice as I tear out of my coat. “Was George here?”

Stirring the steaming pot in front of him, he flashes me a smirk. “I’ve learned a few things living off the radar.”

If that was meant to dissipate my wariness, it did nothing of the kind. Can he pick locks now? Is that what he’s been doing for the last two years?

Seeing my last box of pasta open and empty on the counter touches yet another nerve. I was going to cook Easton dinner. Before or after I unloaded my terrible surprise on him, I don’t know—I hadn’t decided yet which would be best. He texted earlier to inform me he’s spoiling me yet again by bringing dinner over, but still. That wasmypasta. Mine and Easton’s. I’ve been budgeting well, coming up with a payment plan for the remainder of the debt I was able to consolidate into one payment. That includes saving up as much as I can to buy a used vehicle so I can return Easton’s before the worst of wintergets here. Every dollar counts, and if Jason is still able to obtain that expensive cologne he always wore, he doesn’t need to be using my pasta. I’m glad I asked him to leave last night. The number of peculiar details that jumped out at me today while at work, like remembering that hit of his cologne I got last night, put things into perspective. Something isn’t adding up.

“Jason, you can’t…I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to just turn up like this,” I begin, inching my way into the kitchen. “I mean, if you’re not going to go to the police and you say you have all these people after you…Well, anyone could see you. My family thinks you’re dead. This is one of George’s rentals. What if he’d been here and seen you? I…I don’t even know how to explain to him yet. And if you’re worried about people finding you, won’t my family be in danger if they find out you’re alive?”

“Here. Sit down,” he says, completely unfazed, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs. I comply, simply because I’m so baffled that sitting seems like a good idea. He heard me, right?

Turning back from the stove, he wields one of my wooden kitchen spoons, ladled with a helping of the sauce he’s cooking. Holding it out, he cups his other hand underneath it and brings it toward my mouth. “Try this.”

Dumbly, I part my lips when the spoon gets so close to my mouth that I can’t avoid it. My face, however, must saywhat-the-actual-fuckthough, because he sighs as I take a sip of the exotic-tasting red liquid.

“I told you. I have a plan.” Turning back to his cooking, he carries on like some master chef. “I started a practice in São Paulo.”

“São Paulo?”

That sounds foreign. Why does that sound foreign? And how could he start a practice when I have to count how much money I have to afford pasta?

“Brazil,” he informs me cheerfully.

He’d talked about how he did a few mission trips there early in his career when we first met, charming me with his knowledge of the Portuguese language and culture. It was one of the things that made me think he was so worldly and far beyond my station.

I’m so lost in connecting dots that I barely catch his excited chatter. “We can start over there. Have a new life. You can change your name.”

“Changemy name?”

“I changed mine.” He turns around, grinning at me. “I got you a new identity too when I did, and…” Holding up a hand, his frenetic movements are dizzying as he starts out of the room. “Wait here a second. I have a surprise.”

I don’t want a surprise, pleads some sensible voice in my head that’s seen millions of horror movies. I watch him scurry to the sideboard by the door and rifle through that black gym bag he brought with him last night. Is he living out of there?

Hurrying back, he’s carrying what looks like a certificate paper in his hands. Beaming proudly, he hands it to me. I can’t make heads or tails of the foreign print on it. From what I can tell, though, it’s an agreement between two men. I have no idea why he’s showing this to me.

“What is this?”

“It’s our marriage license for our new lives.”

I read the names again.TomásandAfonso. Which one am I supposed to be, I vaguely wonder. It’s dated eight months ago.Eight months. Suddenly, his excitement over his plan and hisease in explaining it, as though it’s already in motion, activates a light bulb in my brain. He has a practice there, he said.‘Our new lives.’He… wants me to move there with him?

The panic that hasn’t hit me in months comes in full force like a gale wind. My lips go numb, and my pulse erratic.

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