Page 95 of The Husband Hour
“How?”
“I’m offering you the chance to tell your side of the story. On the record.” He waited, watching her mull it over. “I think you know I’m not the enemy here. And I don’t think you’re the bad guy either, Stephanie.”
He could see her grappling with the idea of confessing. He’d witnessed it many times over the course of his career. People needed to talk. The need for absolution was a strong and universal impulse.
When Stephanie looked back at him, she had tears in her eyes.
“The guilt is killing me,” she said. “And I have no idea what to do about it.”
The house was empty when Lauren returned after work. Her mother’s car was gone from the driveway. Lately, her mother had been spending a lot of time baking, but the kitchen showed no sign of activity even from earlier in the day. The deck was empty, the pool quiet. Would she have a rare night of the house all to herself? For once, she actually didn’t want to be alone.
She dialed her mother’s cell.
“How’s it going there, sweetheart?” Beth said.
“Fine—I just got home from work. Are you here for dinner tonight?”
“Didn’t your sister tell you? I went to Philly with Ethan for an overnight trip. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
When she hung up, she immediately tried Stephanie’s phone, but it went straight to voice mail.
She walked upstairs, paced around her bedroom, then called Matt. Again, voice mail.
“Matt, it’s Lauren,” she said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I said last night, and I just don’t want your portrayal of Rory to be so mired in the negative. I don’t believe that’s who he was. The end doesn’t define the beginning. You know what I mean? Call me when you can.”
The house was completely silent.
Lauren opened her closet.
The boxes from the attic were still taking up the entire bottom. She dragged them out, the one she’d already opened with her high-school keepsakes and another marked 2010–2011. She remembered packing this one, basically dumping an entire dresser drawer into it: cards from her wedding, Ethan’s blue birth announcement (Stephanie Adelman is proud to announce the birth of her son, Ethan Jake Adelman, 7 lbs., 8 oz., April 6, 2011), her wedding album (which she would not open under any circumstances), a few editions of the Los Angeles Times that mentioned Rory in the sports section, a scented candle from their honeymoon hotel in Negril, two shot glasses from Jamaica, and there, at the very bottom, a hotel-room key card that read OJAI VALLEY INN AND SPA.
She reached for it, clutched the small piece of plastic to her chest. I held this on one of the happiest days of my life, she thought.
Lauren placed the key card back in the box. And then she changed her mind about the wedding album—sort of. She wouldn’t look through it, but she would hand it over to Matt. Maybe there was something in there he’d find useful. After all, Rory was more than a hockey player and then a soldier. For a time, a brief time, he had been a husband.
They’d married on the roof deck of the Franklin Institute, framed by a panoramic view of the Philadelphia skyline at sunset. The reception took place in the planetarium, under the stars.
Lauren walked down the aisle on her father’s arm; she wore a simple A-line dress that she’d picked out with her mother at a bridal shop in Center City. Rory stood at the altar flanked by his groom’s party: his brother, Dean Wade, and two friends from Harvard. Her bridal party consisted of friends from Lower Merion, her roommate from Georgetown, and Emerson’s wife. She felt Stephanie’s absence acutely and regretted their argument that day at the airport.
But all of that paled next to what truly marred that nearly perfect summer night: the secret she held deep and sharp in her gut. In six weeks, Rory would be leaving for basic training in Georgia. As he was a Ranger, his enlistment would be three years, and he could choose among a few places to be stationed. They’d decided on Fort Lewis, outside of Seattle.
And then, for a brief and shining moment, as she stood with Rory on the scenic roof deck, a warm summer breeze rustling her waterfall veil, the confrontation with Emerson didn’t matter. Stephanie’s absence didn’t matter. Rory’s enlistment did not matter. Hand in hand with Rory, both of them turned toward the nondenominational minister they had chosen, everything that had happened in the past nine years leading to that moment unfolded in her mind, a storybook montage. It was a miracle that they were standing there together, a beautiful miracle. Rory’s dark eyes locked on hers as they exchanged their vows. She felt safe and sure, and everything else fell away.
Lauren rummaged through her desk for a pair of scissors. The next box, labeled LM, was wrapped in layers and layers of blue tape.
Underneath a thick layer of maroon and white clothing, she found the Philadelphia Inquirer article that Matt wanted to see. She stared at the grainy black-and-white photo of seventeen-year-old Rory standing in a face-off on the ice at the Havertown Skatium. She put it aside.
Next, a beat-up hockey puck saved from a game, the significance of which was long forgotten.
A midnight-blue velvet jewelry pouch. Inside, she’d tucked his dog tags, knowing she should keep them but not knowing when she would ever want to look at them again.
And then her fingers found a white sealed envelope scrunched in the corner. Lauren’s hand covered her mouth.
Strange, how the mind worked. How it could obsess or obfuscate. How strange that it was possible to be the unreliable narrator of your own life. She shouldn’t be surprised that she had forgotten about the letter. But she was.
She hadn’t set eyes on it in four years.
In the days following Rory’s death, she had been surrounded by friends and family, consumed with logistics and arrangements. The night of his memorial was the first time she’d been alone in the house, alone with his things. All she had left of him.
