Harlan Coben - Six Years

Like I said before, we all have our own brand of crazy.

“What are you trying to say?” I asked him.

“I’m just telling you that that whole ‘them’ stuff is over now.”

“Natalie hasn’t been a part of my life in a long time.”

“You really believe that?” Benedict asked. “Did she make you promise to forget how you felt too?”

“I thought you were afraid of losing your best wingman.”

“You’re not that good-looking.”

“Cruel bastard.”

He rose. “We humanities professors know all.”

Benedict left me alone then. I stood and walked over to the window. I looked out on the commons. I watched the students walk by and, as I often did when confronted with a life situation, I wondered what I’d advise one of them if they were in my shoes. Suddenly, without warning, it all came rushing in at once—that white chapel, the way she wore her hair, the way she held up her ring finger, all the pain, the want, the emotions, the love, the hurt. My knees buckled. I thought that I had stopped carrying a torch for her. She had crushed me, but I had picked up the pieces, put myself back together, and moved on with my life.

How stupid to have such thoughts now. How selfish. How inappropriate. The woman had just lost her husband, and prick that I am, I was worried about the ramifications for me. Let it go, I told myself. Forget it and her. Move on.

But I couldn’t. I was simply not built that way.

I had last seen Natalie at a wedding. Now I would see her at a funeral. Some people would find irony in that—I was not one of them.

I headed back to the computer and booked a flight to Savannah.

Chapter 3

The first sign something was off occurred during the eulogy.

Palmetto Bluff was not so much a town as a gigantic gated community. The newly built “village” was beautiful, clean, nicely maintained, historically accurate—all of which gave the place a sterile, Disney-Epcot faux feel. Everything seemed a little too perfect. The sparkly white chapel—yep, another one—sat on a bluff so picturesque it appeared to be, well, a picture. The heat, however, was all too real—a living, breathing thing with humidity thick enough to double as a beaded curtain.

Another fleeting moment of reason questioned why I had come down here, but I swatted it away. I was here now, thus making the question moot. The Inn at Palmetto Bluff looked like a movie facade. I stepped into its cute bar and ordered a scotch straight up from a cute barmaid.

“You here for the funeral?” she asked me.

“Yep.”

“Tragic.”

I nodded and stared down at my drink. The cute barmaid picked up the hint and said no more.

I pride myself on being an enlightened man. I do not believe in fate or destiny or any of that superstitious nonsense, yet here I was, justifying my impulsive behavior in just such a manner. I am supposed to be here, I told myself. Compelled to board that flight. I didn’t know why. I had seen with my own two eyes Natalie marry another man, and yet even now, I still couldn’t quite accept it. There was still an innate need for closure. Six years ago, Natalie had dumped me with a note telling me she was marrying her old beau. The next day, I got an invitation to their wedding. No wonder it all still felt . . . incomplete. Now I was here in the hopes of finding, if not closure, completion.

Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something.

But what exactly did I want here?

I finished my drink, thanked the cute barmaid, and carefully started toward the chapel. I kept my distance, of course. I might be horrible and callous and self-involved, but not so much as to intrude on a widow burying her husband. I stayed behind a large tree—a palmetto, what else?—not daring to so much as sneak a look at the mourners.

When I heard the opening hymn, I figured that the coast was as clear as it was going to be. A quick glance confirmed it. Everyone was inside the chapel now. I started toward it. I could hear a gospel choir singing. They were, in a word, magnificent. Not sure what exactly to do, I tried the chapel door, found it unlocked (well, duh), and pushed inside. I lowered my head as I entered, putting a hand to my face as though scratching an itch.

Talk about a poor man’s disguise.

There was no need. The chapel was packed. I stood in the back with other late-arriving mourners who couldn’t find a seat. The choir finished the spirited hymn, and a man—I don’t know if he was a minister or priest or what—took to the pulpit. He began to talk about Todd as a “caring physician, good neighbor, generous friend, and wonderful family man.” Physician. I hadn’t known that. The man waxed eloquent on Todd’s strengths—his charity work, his winning personality, his generosity of spirit, his ability to make every person feel special, his willingness to roll up his sleeves and pitch in whenever anyone, stranger or friend, needed a hand. I naturally wrote this off as familiar funeral narrative—we have a natural habit of overpraising the deceased—but I could see the tears in the eyes of the mourners, the way they nodded along with the words, as though it was a song only they could hear.

From my perch in the back I tried to glance up front for a glimpse of Natalie, but there were too many heads in the way. I didn’t want to make myself conspicuous, so I stopped. Besides, I had come into the chapel and looked around and even listened to words of praise for the deceased. Wasn’t that enough? What else was there to do here?

It was time to leave.

“Our first eulogy,” the man at the pulpit said, “comes from Eric Sanderson.”

A pale teen—I would guess that he was around sixteen—rose and moved to the pulpit. My first thought was that Eric must be Todd Sanderson’s (and by extension, Natalie’s) nephew, but that thought was quickly shot down by the boy’s opening sentence.

“My father was my hero . . .”

Father?

It took me a few seconds. Minds have a habit of going on certain tracks and not being able to hop off. When I was a child, my father told me an old riddle that he thought would fool me. “A father and son get in a car accident. The father dies. The boy is rushed to the hospital. The surgeon says, ‘I can’t operate on this boy. He’s my son.’ How can that be?” This was what I mean about tracks. For my father’s generation, this riddle was, I guess, mildly difficult to figure, but for people my age, the answer—the surgeon was his mother—was so obvious, I remember laughing out loud. “What next, Dad? Are you going to start using your eight-track player?”

Here was something similar. How, I wondered, could a man who has only been married to Natalie six years have a teenage son? Answer: Eric was Todd’s son, not Natalie’s. Either Todd had been married previously or at the very least had a child with another woman.

I tried again to see Natalie in the front row. I craned my neck, but the woman standing next to me gave me an exasperated sigh for invading her space. Up on the podium, Todd’s son, Eric, was killing it. He spoke beautifully and movingly. There wasn’t a dry eye in the chapel except, well, mine.

So now what? Just stand here? Pay my respects to the widow and, what, confuse her or disrupt her day of mourning? And what about selfish ol’ me? Did I really want to see her face again, see her crying over the loss of the love of her life?

I didn’t think so. I checked my watch. I had booked my flight out tonight. Yep, quick in and out. No muss, no fuss, no overnight, no hotel cost. Closure on the cheap.

There were those who would state the obvious about Natalie and me—that is, I had idealized our time together out of all rational proportion. I understand that. Objectively I see where that argument has validity. But the heart isn’t objective. I, who worshipped the great thinkers, theorists, and philosophers of our time, would never stoop so low as to use an axiom as trite as, I just know. But I do know . I know what Natalie and I were. I can see it through clear eyes, nothing even slightly tinted, and because of that, I cannot compute what we’ve become.