He moved to the nightstand and carefully lifted the glass toward her, easing the straw between her lips. She sipped greedily. The water was pure ambrosia. When she finished, Dave put the water back on the nightstand and sat next to her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like I kissed a bus.”
He smiled and stroked her forehead. “Let me get the doctor.”
“Not yet.” His hand felt cool against her skin. She closed her eyes and enjoyed his touch. A tear ran down her cheek. She wasn’t sure why.
“I’ve been running through everything you told me,” Dave said. “I’m still trying to process.”
“I know. But talk to me, okay?”
“Okay.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him.
“It’s hard,” Dave said. “I mean, on the one hand, it doesn’t really matter, I guess, what you were in the past. Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Are your feelings for me a lie?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then what else matters? We all have pasts. We all have secrets. Or something.” He shifted in his seat. “That’s the one hand. That’s the part I get.”
“And the other hand?”
Dave shook his head. “I’m still processing.”
“Processing,” she said, “or judging?”
He looked confused. “I’m not sure I get what you mean.”
“If my secret past was that I’d been, I don’t know, a rich princess and a virgin before we met, do you think you’d have as much trouble processing?”
“You think I’m that shallow?”
“I’m just asking,” she said. “It’s a fair question.”
“And if I said, yes, that scenario would be easier to process?”
“I’d understand, I guess.”
Dave considered that. “Do you want to hear an odd truth?”
She waited.
“I never fully trusted you, Megan. No, wait, that’s not really true. What I mean is, I never really believed you. I trusted you. Implicitly. I made you my wife and I loved you and I know you loved me. We shared a life and a bed and had children together.” Dave swallowed hard, looked away, turned back to her. “I would trust you with my life. You know that.”
“I do.”
“And yet I didn’t always believe you. You can trust someone and know there is something else there. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Was it hard lying to me all those years?”
“Not just you. Everyone.”
“But mostly me.”
She didn’t argue.
“Was that hard?”
Megan considered that. “Not really, no.”
He sat back. “Wow, that’s honest.”
“The truth wasn’t really an option. I didn’t see any point in telling you about my past. The truth could only make things worse.”
“Had to be hard though, right? On some level.”
“I guess I got used to it.”
He nodded. “Part of me wants to know details because otherwise my imagination won’t let it go, you know what I mean?”
She nodded.
“But most of me knows it’s better to just let it go.”
“It was a long time ago, Dave.”
“But it’s part of you.”
“Yes. Just as your past is part of you.”
“Do you miss it?”
“I won’t apologize for it.”
“That’s not what I asked. I asked if you miss it.”
More tears came to her eyes. She was not going to lie again, not after she had gone through so much to tell the truth. “When you were in high school, you were into that theater group, right?”
“So?”
“You guys hung out and hooked up and smoked dope together. That’s what you told me.”
“I’m not sure I see the point,” Dave said.
“You miss that, don’t you? You wouldn’t go back. It’s a time that’s over and gone. Do I have to hate my past in order for you to accept me?”
Dave sat back as though startled. “You really think it’s the same thing?”
“How is it different?”
He rubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know. That’s what I need to process.” Dave tried to smile. “I think the lies were harder on us than you know. They gave us distance on some level. They had to. So it will be different now. But maybe it will be better.”
The phone on the nightstand jangled.
Dave frowned. “You weren’t supposed to be disturbed.”
Megan reached for the phone with her good arm. “Hello?”
“I heard you had a rough night.”
It was Detective Broome.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Have you turned on the television yet this morning?”
“No, why?”
“Carlton Flynn is dead. So are a bunch of other men. We found their bodies in a well near the old furnace.”
“What?” Megan managed to sit up this time. “I don’t understand. Stewart Green too?”
“Probably. They’re still going through the bodies.”
Talk about trying to process. “Wait, so someone murdered them all?”
“I’ll give you the details later, but right now I need your help.”
“How?”
“I know you’re in a lot of pain so if you can’t handle it-”
“What do you need, Detective?”
“Last night, we arrested Ray Levine for the murders.”
She opened her mouth, but for a moment no words could come out. Her world flipped upside down all over again. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“No-”
“What’s wrong with you? Are you out of your mind?”
Dave looked at her quizzically. She ignored him.
“Broome,” she shouted.
“I’m here,” Broome said.
Megan started to shake her head, ready to tell him that it simply wasn’t possible, but then she thought back to last night, to the last thing Ray had said to her: “I didn’t tell you the truth.”
