With the Father (21 page)

I began skimming in
reverse then, taking more time as I went and reading a few texts along the way.
The messages weren’t overtly sexual like I’d expect from Arden. At least, the
majority of them weren’t. Most were the normal, every day conversation you’d
expect between two friends. However, she wasn’t supposed to be his friend.
She’d
been
my friend.

I laughed bitterly.
Though he’d always been ‘too busy’ to respond to my messages, he seemed to have
no problem responding to every one of hers. In fact, most of his responses were
immediate. It appeared that my ranking in our threesome had been lower than
hers.

I skipped forward
looking for messages around this date last year and confirmed Kate’s
suspicions. The day before this day last year, she’d texted,
I’m looking
forward to getting away, but I’ll have to sneak away to see my sister for an
hour or so.

He’d responded,
You
’ll be lucky if I let you out of the room.

Here’s a preview
of what you’ll be missing.
The
picture that followed brought bile to my throat that threatened to choke me. I skipped
past the naked photo, not wanting to see any more of Arden than I already had.

 
The phone came to rest on another photo,
and I tapped my finger on it to make it as large as possible. The photo had
been taken on the school playground during the Thanksgiving celebration at
school.
 
With a construction paper
pilgrim head perched precariously on his head,
Trey was being
chased by Jackson who wore a multi-colored Indian headdress
. I was also
in the picture, captured by accident while talking to a group of moms in the
background.

I flipped back to
the messages and read the message below the picture.
As usual, Jackson is
chasing after Trey.

And
then the next.
Trey just fell,
and she wasn’t even watching.

I remembered that
day. It had been nothing more than a skinned knee, and I had been right there
though Arden had gotten to him first. I’d thought she was helping both of us. I
hadn’t realized she was using it to build a case against me.

Though Arden’s
message was straight-forward,
and
 
I
had no trouble deciphering her
intent, Jonathan’s response was more cryptic.
I’m sure Trey is fine. Jackson
won’t have to chase after him for much longer. Soon love.
 

Soon love?

I skimmed further
ahead to try to figure out what he’d meant. However, the message from the next
day was unrelated and uninteresting.

I skimmed to
December, and there were messages about Christmas presents and parties. My best
friend whined to my husband about how hard it would be for her to go to the
Dalton’s Christmas party when he would there with me. Jonathan had responded by
telling her that he had no choice.
I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. You know
I’d rather be with you
.

I tried to remember
the Dalton’s Christmas party. Arden and I had spent the morning together at my
house, decorating Christmas cookies with the kids. She’d complained that she
didn’t want to go because she had nothing to wear, and I’d sympathized because
Jonathan had asked me not to buy a new dress that year ‘since money was tight.’
I’d been a wee bit jealous when she’d shown up wearing a body-hugging dress
that I’d never seen before. “Just something I found in the back of the closet,”
she’d told me over spiked eggnog and Lauren Dalton’s famous spiced
macadamia nut bread.

“I hope I don’t
fall out,” she’d leaned over and whispered during the white elephant present
exchange. I’d watched her try to harness her boobs into the dress’ plunging
neckline and laughed. Because I was worried about her self-esteem after her
husband had left her, I assured her that there were plenty of men in the room
who were hoping that they would escape again. I hadn’t realized that my husband
was one of them.

My only consolation
was that he hadn’t come through on his promise to make it up to her the next
day. He’d texted her that afternoon to cancel whatever they’d had planned.
Something’s
come up, and I can’t make it tonight
. His excuse was vague initially. When
she pressed him, he’d admitted that I’d made plans for us that he didn’t know
about.
You know I’d rather be with you
, he’d said again.

Those were words
that I’d heard often. Every time he’d called to tell me that he would be coming
home late from the office. Every time he’d missed one of the
kids
performances because he had to be out of town. Every time he’d had to work
through mass on Sunday morning. “You know I’d rather be with you,” was his
patented response. Now, I knew that when he’d rather been with her, it was
probable that he’d been with her. When he’d rather been with me, he was
probably with her.

I kept going to
find yet another picture of Jackson. In this one, he sat on Santa’s lap. I blew
the picture up and stared at it. His dark hair had been cut into a short buzz.
Shocking, light blue eyes looked happily at the camera, and a full-on grin
brought out the single dimple in his left cheek that I’d always thought was so
cute.

I exited out of the
text app on his phone and opened his photos. There were a few here and there of
random things, like a racing bike he’d had his eye on at a bike shop in Austin.
However, the majority of the pictures were of the children.
Trey
and Isabelle, riding their bikes in the driveway.
Singing in the school
Christmas program.
Jackson opening a Christmas present.
I zoomed in on that one to make it bigger. The toy, whatever it was, was still
in the box, but his face was lit up, causing the dimple to make another
appearance. I flipped to the next picture and held my breath.

Jonathan sat in a
chair. His head was thrown
back
 
as
he laughed at the little guy
on his lap. There was no mistaking where they were. I’d spent almost as much
time in Arden’s living room as she’d spent in mine. He and the boy were looking
at each other with identical artic blue eyes. A matching dimple graced each of
their cheeks.

I couldn’t believe
I’d never noticed it. But, why would I? I’d been at the hospital the day
Jackson had been born. I’d congratulated Coleman on the new baby boy who
everyone agreed looked just like him. Like any baby, his smashed little face
looked like nobody and everybody at the same time. I could see now that Jackson
had grown into his looks over the last four years, and there was no mistaking
which parent he favored now.

I wondered when the
picture had actually been taken. Had Jonathan left our family and snuck away on
Christmas morning?
 
It was unbelievably
brazen and so completely Jonathan.

Had he considered
Jackson and Arden to be his family, too?

I returned to his
text string and sped through the rest of the messages.
 
The closer I got to what I knew would be
the end, the more agitated and demanding Arden’s messages became. She
complained that it had gone on long enough.
Leave her
, she begged as if
I weren’t her best friend.
I’ve done my part. It’s time for you to do yours
,
she’d demanded. My finger flew across the screen, scrolling up again to more
than two years before, wanting to confirm what I suspected.

Coleman had walked
out on Arden during the fall of the previous year, just a few weeks after
Jackson had turned two. She’d played the woe-is-me card, crying on my shoulder
for months. We’d cursed his name over numerous bottles of wine. I bought a
pin-the-tail on the donkey game from the dollar store, and we’d laughed
maniacally as we pinned tails on the jackass in the family picture that hung in
her living room. However, it had all been a lie.

Coleman hadn’t been
to blame for the implosion of their marriage.

He knows
, her text read. I wondered if she’d been panicked.
Had she wondered if Coleman would come running to me?

About
everything?
Jonathan had asked.

No. Just about
us.

Jonathan’s next
response had been calm, cool, and collected.
He won’t tell her
. He
hadn’t been worried at all.
 
When
she’d become hysterical, he’d assured her that he was on his way.

Jonathan
to save the day.
That had been my
husband.
Always in control of every situation.
To my
knowledge, no one had ever gotten the better of him. Had I been in his shoes, I
would have been worried. Petrified. But Jonathan wouldn’t be. He’d probably
confronted Coleman Fitzgerald himself.
 

My anger reignited.
I’d known Coleman and Arden for most of my adult life. Before we’d had kids,
we’d gone out for dinner almost every weekend as couples. When the business
took off, we celebrated with them. When we got finally pregnant with Isabelle,
Arden had thrown my baby shower. After one kid turned to two and two turned to
four between us, we settled on take-out every Friday night. But we rarely
missed a weekend.

We
’d been
a foursome
. No one
invited Arden and Coleman to do anything without inviting us as well. The
reverse was equally true. When he had left Arden, I’d felt as betrayed as she
had.

But I had blamed
the wrong person.

“What did you
find?”

My head snapped up
to find Kate standing in the doorway. Her eyes were soft. Sympathetic. Knowing.

“Hang on,” I said,
holding up a finger. “I feel like I’m on to something.

She walked to the
side of the bed. “
Scooch
over.”

I made room for her
to sit beside me while still reading text message after text message. Most were
benign.
The usual stuff that you’d expect between two liars
who shared a secret love child.
If that were usual.

I skipped forward
in time again, returning to the months just before Jonathan’s death. Kate
rested her head on my shoulder, reading along with me.

There were more
cancelled dates. More ‘
You know I’d rather be with you
’
messages,
and I took some comfort in the fact that, in the end, he’d treated us like
equals. The things he told her weren’t that different from what he had told me.
He had to work late. He was distracted because of things going on at the
office.

Arden’s dissatisfaction
grew. She was vocal about her frustration and unhappiness, clearly expecting
more from Jonathan’s empty promises than he delivered. Yet, Jonathan’s
responses remained steadfast and placating.

You’re never
going to leave her
.

I’m working on
it
.
Things are in motion.

When?

Soon.

Kate lifted her
head from my shoulder momentarily. “He was leaving you.”

“So it would seem.”
The news of this wasn’t devastating to me any more. At this point, I was
expecting it. I plowed ahead, hoping to find some clue as to his plan. As I
moved through each message, reading every one now, I found no hints.

Until
the evening of his death.

Put a stop to it
, he’d said.

It’s too late.

I can’t do it.

I can’t call it
off. He’s already in place.
 

PUT A STOP TO IT.
I’m not going through with it.

She’s at the
kitchen now. I’m coming over. Erase everything.

There were no more
messages from that day. The last messages on the string were from the days that
followed. Messages sent by Arden. Messages that she knew would never be
answered. Messages that she’d sent out into the abyss, hoping that somehow he
would hear her despair and know that she’d loved him the most.

“Are you thinking
what I’m thinking?” Kate asked.

“That they were
planning to kill me?” I let out a huff of air.

“The fire?” Her
expression was perplexed.

I leaned my head
back on the pillow and squeezed my eyes shut, remembering a day that I’d tried
so hard to forget. “No. It was investigated. The fire started because of the
candle on the mantel. Jonathan was a dog, but he never would have risked Trey’s
and Isabelle’s lives.”

She winced. “What
about the insurance?” It was something I was questioning too.

“I don’t know why
he bought policies for them. But I’ll never believe that he would have hurt
them. He could fake it with me, but he loved those kids.”

 
She nodded in agreement. “I know. You’re
right.”
 

“There had to be
another reason.”

“It does explain
why he didn’t cancel your insurance policy when he cancelled his.”

“Right. If he
planned on killing me and running away with Arden, he didn’t need an insurance
policy with me listed as the beneficiary.”