Harlan Coben - Six Years

I stood as gently as I knew how and moved toward the refrigerator. There were dozens of family photographs done up in a magnetic collage. The photographs were wonderfully unspectacular, almost too expected: fishing trip, Disney visit, dance recitals, beach-Christmas photograph, school holiday concerts, graduations. The refrigerator missed none of life’s little yard markers. I leaned in and studied Todd’s face in as many of them as I could.

Was he the same man?

In every image on the refrigerator, he was clean-shaven. The man I had met had that fashionably annoying stubble. You could grow that in a few days, of course, but I found it odd. So again, I wondered: Was this the man I saw marry Natalie?

I could feel Delia’s eyes on my back.

“I met your husband once,” I said.

“Oh?”

I turned toward her. “Six years ago.”

She picked up her coffee—evidently she took it black—and sat at another stool. “Where?”

I kept my eyes on her as I said, “In Vermont.”

There was no big jolt or anything like that, but her face did scrunch up a bit. “Vermont?”

“Yes. In a town called Kraftboro.”

“You’re sure it was Todd?”

“It was in late August,” I explained. “I was staying at a retreat.”

Now she looked openly confused. “I don’t recall Todd ever going to Vermont.”

“Six years ago,” I said again. “In August.”

“Yes, I heard you say that the first time.” There was a hint of impatience in her tone now.

I pointed back toward the refrigerator. “He didn’t look exactly like this though.”

“I’m not following you.”

“His hair was longer,” I said, “and he had stubble.”

“Todd?”

“Yes.”

She considered that and a small smile found her lips. “I get it now.”

“Get what?”

“Why you came all this way.”

This I was anxious to hear.

“I couldn’t figure it out. Todd hadn’t been an active member of the alumni or anything like that. It wasn’t as though the college would have much more than a passing interest in him. Now all this talk about a man from Vermont . . .” She stopped and shrugged. “You mistook my husband for another man. For this Todd you met in Vermont.”

“No, I’m pretty certain it was—”

“Todd has never been to Vermont. I’m sure of that. And every August for the past eight years, he traveled to Africa to perform surgery on the needy. He also shaved every day. I mean, even on a lazy Sunday. Todd never went a day without shaving.”

I took another look at the photographs on the refrigerator. Could that be? Could it be that simple? I had the wrong man. I had considered that possibility before but now, finally, I was sort of believing it.

In a sense, that didn’t change much anymore. There was still the e-mail from Natalie. There was still Otto and Bob and all that happened. But now, maybe, I could put this connection to rest.

Delia was openly studying me now. “What’s going on? Why are you really here?”

I reached into my pocket and plucked out the photograph of Natalie. Strangely enough, I have only one. She didn’t like photographs, but I had snapped this one while she was asleep. I don’t know why. Or maybe I do. I handed it to Delia Sanderson and waited for a reaction.

“Strange,” she said.

“What?”

“Her eyes are closed.” She looked up at me. “Did you take this picture?”

“Yes.”

“While she was sleeping?”

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“No.” She stared down at the photograph. “She means something to you, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“So who is she?”

The front door opened. “Mom?”

She put down the photograph and started toward the voice. “Eric? Is everything okay? You’re home early.”

I followed her down the corridor. I recognized her son from his eulogy at the funeral. He looked past his mother, his gaze boring into me. “Who’s this?” he asked. His tone was surprisingly hostile, as though he suspected that I’d come here to hit on his mom or something.

“This is Professor Fisher from Lanford,” she said. “He came to ask about your father.”

“Ask what?”

“Just paying my respects,” I said, shaking the young man’s hand. “I’m very sorry for your loss. The entire college is.”

He shook my hand and said nothing. We all stood in that front foyer like three awkward strangers who hadn’t yet been introduced at a cocktail party. Eric broke the deadlock. “I couldn’t find my cleats,” he said.

“You left them in the car.”

“Oh, right. I’ll just grab them and head back.”

He rushed back out the door. We both watched him, perhaps with the same thoughts about his fatherless future looming in front of us. There was nothing more to learn here. It was time for me to let this family be.

“I better be going,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”

“You’re welcome.”

As I turned toward the door, my line of vision swung past the living room.

My heart stopped.

“Professor Fisher?”

My hand was on the doorknob. Seconds passed. I don’t know how many. I didn’t turn the knob, didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. I just stared into the living room, across the Oriental rug, to a spot above the fireplace.

Delia Sanderson again: “Professor?”

Her voice was very far away.

I finally let go of the knob and moved into the living room, across the Oriental carpet, and stared up above the fireplace. Delia Sanderson followed me.

“Are you okay?”

No, I wasn’t okay. And I hadn’t been wrong. If I had questions before, they all ended now. No coincidence, no mistake, no doubt: Todd Sanderson was the man I saw marry Natalie six years ago.

I felt rather than saw Delia Sanderson standing next to me. “It moves me,” she said. “I can stand here for hours and find something new.”

I understood. There was the soft morning glow hitting the side, the pinkness that comes with the new day, the dark windows as though the cottage had once been warm but was now abandoned.

It was Natalie’s painting.

“Do you like it?” Delia Sanderson asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “I like it very much.”

Chapter 17

I sat on the couch. Delia Sanderson didn’t offer me coffee this time. She poured two fingers’ worth of Macallan. It was early and as we’ve already learned I am not much of a drinker, but I gratefully accepted it with a shaking hand.

“Do you want to tell me what this is about?” Delia Sanderson asked.

I wasn’t sure how to explain this without sounding insane, so I started with a question. “How did you get that painting?”

“Todd bought it.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Please,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Could you just tell me when and where he bought it?”

She looked up, thinking about it. “The where I don’t remember. But the when . . . it was our anniversary. Five, maybe six years ago.”

“It was six,” I said.

“Again with six,” she said. “I don’t understand any of this.”

I saw no reason to lie—and worse, I saw no way to say this in a way that would soften the blow. “I showed you a photograph of a sleeping woman, remember?”

“It was only two minutes ago.”

“Right. She painted that picture.”

Delia frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Her name is Natalie Avery. That was her in the photograph.”

“That . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I thought you taught political science.”

“I do.”

“So are you some kind of art historian? Is that woman a Lanford alum too?”