Page 60 of Silent Is The Heart

It’s like walking in a dream, being hyperaware of the smallest things. The floor creaks under his weight, telling me he does, in fact, have mass. I can hear the scrape of his shoes against the boards. The couch cushion depresses as he sits on it and pats for me to take the place next to him. He looks so foreign sitting here; like a puzzle piece that got thrown into the wrong box. As I sit down and take in his new look, a thick but trimmed beard covering his once impeccably shaved jaw, the bizarre dream is starting to feel like a nightmare. There’s only one man I’ve stared at sitting across from me on this couch, and his name is Easton, the man I’m in love with. It’s not his playful, smiling face staring back at me. It’s not his wavy brown hair and smooth face. It’s a past I worked hard to get over and it’s… back. My husband is back. I should be crying with joy.

“What…what happened?How?I…”

Sighing, he sets a black gym bag down on the floor I hadn’t even registered he was carrying and unbuttons his coat. Each move of his hands is more surreal than the last. Sitting back, he leans his elbow over the back of the couch like it’s perfectly natural for him to be lounging in my living room and…not dead!

Reaching out, he grabs my hand off my lap and holds it in his, brushing his thumb over the top of my knuckles. It’s a hand I tried to remember holding so many times after I thought he died. Right now, it sets off an unusual panic in me as though it’sa bear trap and I’ll lose fingers or exchange the death I thought he had with my own.

“Do you remember that addition I had put on the clinic a few years ago?”

“Yes.”

Why is he talking about his clinic? He should be talking about how he didn’t die. Ihave to bedreaming.

“Remember all those problems I had with the contractors screwing me over, changing the estimate and the labor hours repeatedly?”

“Yeah, but…what does that have to do with anything?”

“They were criminals. I didn’t tell you, but they kept threatening me, saying I owed them more money, and each time I refused to pay, they added interest.”

What does this have to do with him being killed in a car accident? A car accident that didn’t happen. Or did it? My head feels like it’s going to explode. Easing my hand back, I rub my temples.

“I don’t understand. You never said anything. Did you tell your lawyer?”

“No, Aar, you don’t.” He frowns, shifting. It’s the annoyed tone I remember he always used when I couldn’t understand something because he wasn’t telling me all the details. “They were organized crime. Not the kind of people you can solve disputes with by getting a lawyer.”

Like the mafia? Is he telling me the mafia was after him?

Holding up my hands, I try to piece together why being on the wrong side of an organized crime faction would make someone disappear for almost two years and then show up with a beard and glasses.

“Are you in the witness protection program or something?”

My mouth gapes open, watching him laugh. It’s a loud, amused sound that has no business in this conversation. “Oh, my God. You still watch one too many movies. No,” he adds, leveling me with a coy look. “I’m smarter than that. I played them at their own game. I found out that they were going to come after me.”

“Come after you? Like…murder you?”

He traces his fingertip over my shoulder and grimaces. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. I went to the police, but they wanted to put a wire on me and have me meet with them, but I wasn’t going to risk losing you if it all went south or have our names all over the news.”

I wait for more, but his very real-looking mouth doesn’t move again. That’s it?

I blink stupidly, trying to wrap my head around the information, but the fingertip tracing anxious circles on my shoulder is distracting; like a spider crawling on me—a dead spider.

“So…so what? You…pretended that you died?” Instantly, a pang of guilt hits me at how accusatory the question comes out. “Or did you really get hurt? Your car…I saw it. It was completely crushed.”

Scoffing, he rolls his eyes and stands. “Aaron, enough about the car, okay? I’m a doctor. I know how to get medical records.”

I blink, unbelieving, as he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his black slacks and starts to leisurely pace around the room. He… planned to die. Or… planned tofakedie. Am I really hearing this?

“I had to lie low for a while and wait until you got out of town. I figured you would,” he says, glancing over his shoulderat me with a pleased gleam in his eyes. “And you did. Just like I hoped.”

Seeing any kind of joy on his face after I was so miserable for so long has me suddenly frustrated. He planned this entire thing down to how he thought I would move on with my life in his absence? It’s all just too much.

“You never said a thing to me. You could have told me something.”

Sighing, he swoops in, taking a knee in front of me. I flinch when he cups my face, but blame it on the quick movement. Why would someone flinch when their husband touches them?

“Babe, I couldn’t. They were watching the house. It wouldn’t have been safe for either of us if I’d tried to contact you.”

I remember all the nights spent feeling so numb it seemed like I’d been electrocuted; sickening nausea, being unable to eat, and my eyes so puffy I physically couldn’t cry anymore.What does he mean he couldn’t have ended that misery? He could have sent me a postcard or an anonymous phone call.

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