The Stranger(26)

“Don’t understand what?”

She looked up into his eyes. “How did you find out, Adam?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You have no idea how much it matters,” she said in a soft voice. “Who told you to look at the charge on the Visa bill?”

“A stranger,” he said.

She took a step back. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Some guy. I’d never seen him before. He came up to me at the American Legion and told me what you’d done.”

She shook her head as though trying to clear it. “I don’t understand. What guy?”

“I just told you. A stranger.”

“We need to think about this,” she said.

“No, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

“Not tonight.” She put her hands on his shoulders. He backed away as though her touch scalded him. “It isn’t what you think, Adam. There’s more to this.”

“Mom?”

Adam spun toward the voice. Ryan stood at the top of the steps.

“Can one of you help me with my math?” he asked.

Corinne didn’t hesitate. The smile was back in place. “I’ll be right up, honey.” She turned to Adam. “Tomorrow,” she whispered to him. There was a pleading in her voice. “The stakes are so high. Please. Just give me until tomorrow.”





Chapter 10



What could he do?

Corinne simply shut down. Later, alone in their bedroom, he tried anger, pleading, demanding, threats. He used words of love, ridicule, shame, pride. She wouldn’t respond. It was so frustrating.

At midnight, Corinne carefully took off the anniversary diamond studs and placed them on her night table. She turned off the lights, wished him a good night, and closed her eyes. He was at a loss. He came close—maybe too close—to doing something physical. He debated ripping off her covers, but what would that do? He wanted to—dare he even admit it to himself?—put his hands on her, to shake her and make her talk or at least see reason. But when Adam was twelve, he had seen his father put his hands on his mother. Mom had egged him on—that was how she was, sadly. She would call him names or insult his manhood until eventually he cracked. One night, he saw his father wrap his hands around his mother’s neck and start to choke her.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t so much the fear, horror, and danger of seeing his father use force against his mother that bothered him. It was how pitiful and weak this act of dominance made his father look, how, even though she was on the receiving end, his mother had manipulated his father into becoming something so pathetic that he had to resort to doing something so out of character, so not him.

Adam could never lay a hand on a woman. Not just because it was wrong. But because of what it would do to him.

Unsure what to do, he slipped into bed next to Corinne. He pounded his pillow into the right shape, laid his head on it, and closed his eyes. He gave it ten minutes. Uh-uh, no way. He headed downstairs, pillow in hand, and tried to sleep on the couch.

He set his alarm for 5:00 A.M. so he’d be sure to get back upstairs into his bedroom before the boys woke up. There was no need. If sleep paid any visit, it was too brief to register. Corinne was deep in sleep when he went back up. He knew by her breathing that this wasn’t an act—she was out cold. Funny, that. He couldn’t sleep. She could. He remembered reading somewhere that cops could often tell guilt or innocence by suspects who slept. An innocent man left alone in an interrogation room, the theory went, stayed awake because of confusion and nerves about being falsely accused. A guilty man fell asleep. Adam had never bought the theory, one of those things that sounds cute but doesn’t really hold up. Yet here he was, the innocent guy staying awake while his wife—the guilty?—slept like a newborn.

Adam was tempted to shake her awake, catch her in that cusp between dream and consciousness, maybe get the groggy truth out of her, but he had come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t work. She had a point about being careful. But more than that, she was going to work in her own time frame. He couldn’t push it too much. And maybe that was best.

The question was, what was he going to do now?

He knew the truth, didn’t he? Did he really have to wait for her to confirm that she’d faked a pregnancy and a miscarriage? If she hadn’t, he would have heard the denials by now. She was stalling—perhaps to come up with a reasonable rationale or perhaps to give him time to calm down and consider his alternatives.

Because what could he do here?

Was he ready to walk out the door? Was he ready to divorce her?

He didn’t know the answer. Adam stood over the bed and stared down at her. How did he feel about her? He told himself, right now, without thinking about it, answer this: If it was true, did he still love her and want to be with her for the rest of his life?