The Liar

“I don’t remember signing any loan, but he’d push papers in front of me now and then, ‘Sign this, it’s nothing.’ I think half the time he just signed my name himself. I could maybe have gotten out of it if I’d gone through the court process or just tossed it all in and declared bankruptcy. I wasn’t going to do that. When the house sells, and it will, that’ll take the big weight off. And until it does, I’m chipping away.”

“Selling clothes?”

“I’ve made nearly fifteen thousand on clothes so far—not counting the fur coat I took back with the tags still on it—and I might make that much again before it’s done. He had a hell of a lot of suits, and I had things I never even wore. It was a different world, Emma Kate.”

“But your engagement ring was a fake.”

“I guess he didn’t see the point in putting a real diamond on my finger. He never loved me, I see that now. I was useful to him. I’m not altogether sure how, but I must’ve been useful.”

“Finding that safe-deposit box. That hardly seems possible.”

Looking back, she could see she’d been tilting at windmills. But . . . “I was on a mission. You know how it is.”

“I know how you are when you’re on a mission.” As the sun changed angles, Emma Kate adjusted the bill of her cap. “All that cash in there, and that doesn’t even get to the other identification.”

“He couldn’t have come by it legal. I’ve had some moments over that, but I didn’t steal it, or swindle it, and I’ve got Callie to consider. If it comes down to having to pay that back sometime, I’ll deal with it. For now, I’ve got some tucked away in the bank, and when I can see my way clear, I’m going to use it to get us a little house.”

“What about this private detective?”

“He’s wasting his time with me. I have to figure he’ll come to that on his own, or Forrest persuaded him.”

“Forrest can be persuasive.”

“He’s still mad at me, at least a little. Are you still?”

“It’s hard to be when I’m more fascinated.”

They walked in silence, along the familiar trail.

“Was the furniture really that ugly?”

Amused her friend would zoom in on that, Shelby laughed. “Uglier. I wish I’d taken pictures. It was hard and slick, and dark and angular. I always felt like I was visiting in that house, and couldn’t wait to get out of it. He never made the first payment, Emma Kate. By the time he died, the bank had already sent out notices I hadn’t seen.”

She paused to open her water bottle. “I’m thinking now he was in trouble. Something in Atlanta, maybe. So he wrangled that big house up North without telling me that, either. Set it all up, then told me we were moving, he had some business opportunities. I went along. I guess that’s one way I was useful. I went along. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine how many times I did.

“I don’t even know who he was. I can’t say for sure I even knew his name. I don’t know now what he did, how he made the money he had. I just know none of it was real—not my marriage, not the life we lived.”

She stopped at the Outlook, felt her heart lift.

“This is what’s real.”

She could see for miles, the roll and rise of that deep, secret green, the dips of the valleys cupped between the rises—delicate as her old tea set. And the carpeted peaks swimming into the clouds so full of mystery and silence.

The light had gone soft as the afternoon wound down. She thought of how it looked at sunset, all brushed with gold, little tips of fire red as the mountains went to gray.

“I know, too, I took this for granted. All of it. I never will again.”

They sat on an outcropping of rock, as they had countless times over the years. Emma Kate pulled a bag of sunflower seeds out of her pack.

“It used to be gummy bears,” Shelby commented.

“I used to be twelve. I could go for some gummy bears,” she decided.

Smiling, Shelby opened her own pack, pulled out a bag. “I let Callie have them now and again. Whenever I’d open a bag of them, I’d think of you.”

“Something about gummies.” Emma Kate opened the bag, dived in. “You know, your family would help you with some of the debt—and I wouldn’t do that, either,” she said before Shelby could speak.

“Thanks. It helps you understand the why of that. I’m going to make a good life here. I know I can. Maybe I had to leave so I could come back, see what was real for me, and what wasn’t.”

“And you’ll sing for your supper after all.”

“That’s the icing. I really like Tansy’s Derrick.”

“He’s a winner. And what a face.”

“He sure is pretty. But—”

“What a body,” they said together, and laughed until they lost their breath.

“Now we’re sitting here.” Shelby let out a sigh, looked out over the spread of green. “Just like we used to and still talking about boys.”

“A puzzle that can never be truly solved.”

“So worth talking about. And both of us are doing—or for me about to do—what we used to wish for. Emma Kate Addison, RN. Do you love it?”

“I do. I really do. Hell, I never worked so hard in my life as I did to get that RN. I figured I’d work in a big hospital. And I did. I liked it, I liked it a lot.”