Secrets of Eden

rendered and accurate, others modified by the caprices and needs of an aura, some gifts from an angel-in my case has a series embedded there that is more fiction than fact. That is, perhaps, all fiction. A string of pearls that turn out to be bath beads when you squeeze them.

And a part of my later sadness would stem from the reality that so many of our long talks together had been total fiction. I discovered I had been lied to for nearly five weeks.

But for those five weeks I had been as content as I have ever been in my life.

It all came apart after one more of his conversations with his attorney. As he did always when he spoke to this Aaron Lamb, he took his cell phone and stood at the corner window, retreating to the section of my loft I lived in least. He spoke softly, and while I might hear an occasional word-investigation, allegations, evidence, office-I never knew precisely what they were talking about. I heard no specifics. And that last phone call was really no different, though I did hear two words that struck me in a way that none had in any of their previous conversations: diary. And DNA. I honestly think I knew before Stephen had ended the call that something different and new had transpired, and it boded ill for our affair.

After he slipped his phone into his pants pocket, he folded one arm around his chest and rubbed at his chin with the other. He hadn’t shaved yet-that week he tended to shave just before lunch-and he seemed to be toying with the stubble along his jawline. It was obvious that this call had agitated him more than most.

I pushed my chair away from my desk and turned to him. “Anything interesting?” I asked softly, though it was evident to me that there was.

He cleared his throat before speaking. “I’m not sure interesting is the right word,” he said carefully. “It may be interesting for uninvolved parties. The prurient who have followed one family’s nightmare in the media. But for me? I’m not sure I would use the word interesting.”

“What word would you use?”

He had remained on his feet, and his fingers were still at his face. “Let’s see. Disturbing, perhaps. Disquieting. Problematic.”

“Sit down. Tell me: What did he have to say this time?”

He didn’t sit, and so I stood and went to him. I pulled his arms from his body to mine and rested them on my hips. For the briefest of seconds, he seemed to resist. I noticed the room wasn’t as bright this time of the morning as it had been only days earlier, and I realized we had reached a stage in the season when the sun no longer rose quite as high over the surrounding buildings.

“Tell me,” I said again.

“Well, where to begin… ” He was frowning.

“Aaron told you something. Begin there.”

“He did.”

I was growing restless at the protracted way he was sharing his news. I wanted to know what he had learned so I could offer comfort and counsel. And though I no longer presumed it would be essentially nothing and he would need from me only reassurance, still I hoped. As we stood together in silence, I sent a short, brief petition to my angel that my misgivings were unwarranted. That nothing had changed. “Are you going to tell me?” I asked finally, careful to keep my voice light.

He took a breath and looked out the window over my shoulder. “Alice kept a journal,” he said, his voice a little clipped.

Instantly my anxiety was transformed into dread, and I felt as if I were sliding underwater. For the rest of that conversation, his voice would sound slightly muffled to me, as if my ears were beneath the smooth plane of a very still lake. I understood from the moment he had said there was a journal that we were moving inexorably toward separation. If I didn’t know precisely what he was about to tell me, I had a feeling. The gifts of prophecy and fear? Trifles compared to the insight an angel will give a receptive mind. I didn’t yet remove his hands from my body, but only because I clung to the tiniest strip of kindling that I was mistaken.

“Go on,” I said.

“In all likelihood I am in that journal.”

“As her pastor?”

“As her… ”

“For God’s sake, Stephen, just tell me.”

He sighed. “There is an element to the story-a little background, if you will-that I didn’t share with you. Arguably, I should have. But I made the calculated decision that it would only distress you if I did. I think, in some way, I thought I was shielding you.”

“From what? The idea you’re a killer? I think you have grave demons, Stephen, but I promise you: I don’t see you as a killer.”

“I’m glad. Thank you,” he said, and I am convinced he added that only because it gave him an extra second to stall. To frame his thoughts. Then he continued, “For a time Alice and I were lovers.” He looked into my eyes, but I looked away, and after a brief second I pushed myself off him. I may have seen something like this coming, but the sensation of betrayal was nonetheless palpable, and I could hear my heart thrumming in the back of my head.

“We were lovers, and-”

“I heard you the first time.”

“And I should have told you.”

“When were you two together?” I asked. It seemed the first of a great many pieces of very basic information I needed to gather.

“Late last year. Early this year.”

“How early? It’s currently September. Was this two nights? Two weeks? Two months?” Outside my window I watched a double-decker tour bus lurch to a stop at the traffic light.

“Two seasons.”

“Winter and spring.”

“Yes. Through the second week in May.”

“And in all of our conversations about the murder and the suicide and your guilt, you never told me this… why?”

“I don’t know. I thought I was protecting you. And it didn’t seem relevant.”

“I think the fact you fucked her is as relevant as the fact you baptized her,” I said, though I was able to restrain myself from raising my voice.

“I deserved that.”

I tried to remind myself that hostility invariably boomerangs back. In the end we wound ourselves, too, when we lash out.

“I imagine I was concerned that you would get the wrong idea about Alice’s and my relationship,” he went on when I remained silent. “Or, perhaps, that you might presume I was at her house that evening.”

“The evening they were killed?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” I asked him.

“About Alice?”

“About anything.”

“No. But things are changing. I am going to have to return to Vermont and give them what they call a DNA swab. I am going to have to give them some fingerprints and turn over my laptop.”

“Are you being arrested?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

I took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “Are you scared?”

“Of?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I would think being a suspect in a murder investigation just might unnerve a person.”

“I can’t tell: Are you being sarcastic?”

“Yes, Stephen. I am being sarcastic.”

“That doesn’t seem like you.”

“I just asked you if you were frightened, and you asked me what of. The moment seemed to call for sarcasm.”