Laura Dave - The Last Thing He Told Me

I nod, knowing that’s what Grady’s trying to convince me of—that I should be on board with Bailey and me entering protection. That I need to be on board because everything is set up for Owen to join us in this new life. Everything is set up for our family to be reunited. New names, but reunited. Together.

Except this is what I can’t let go of despite Grady’s insistence, what I know Owen doesn’t want me to let go of. My doubt. My doubt when I think about the leak at WITSEC and when I think about Nicholas Bell. My doubt when I think about Owen’s hasty exit and what I know about him, which would explain it. The only thing that would explain it. Everything I know about Owen is convincing me of something else.

Grady is still talking. “We just need Bailey to understand that this is the best way to keep her as safe as possible,” he says.

As safe as possible. That stops me. Because he doesn’t just say safe. Because there is no safe. Not anymore.

Bailey isn’t wandering the streets, but she is on her way to this office and to a world in which to be as safe as possible, Grady is going to tell her she is going to have to become someone else. Bailey, no longer Bailey.

Unless, of course, I manage to stop it. All of it.

Which is when I brace myself against it. What I need to do now.

“Look, we can get into all of this,” I say. “The best way to handle Bailey. But I just need to go to the restroom first… splash some water on my face. I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.”

He nods. “No problem.”

He holds the door open and I start to head out of the conference room, pausing in the doorway, pausing when I’m right next to him. I know this is the most important part, making him believe me.

“I’m so relieved she’s safe,” I say.

“Me too,” he says. “And look, this isn’t easy, I get that. But this is the best thing to do, and you’ll see, Bailey will get comfortable with it sooner than you think, and it won’t all seem so scary. You’ll get to be together and we’ll get to bring Owen to you as soon as he reemerges. I’m sure that’s what Owen’s waiting for now, to make sure you’re safe, first, make sure you’re all set up…”

Then he smiles. And I do the one thing I can. I smile back. I smile like I trust him that he knows why Owen is still gone, like I trust a relocation will be the answer he and his daughter need to be together. To be safe. Like I trust that anyone is capable of keeping Bailey safe—except for me.

Grady’s phone rings. “Give me a minute?” he says.

I point toward the restroom. “Can I?”

“Sure thing. Go ahead,” he says.

He is already walking toward the windows. He’s already focusing on whoever is on the other end of his phone call.

I head down the hall, and in the direction of the restroom, turning back to make sure Grady isn’t watching. He isn’t. His back is to me, his phone to his ear. He doesn’t turn around as I walk past the restroom’s door and the elevator, where I press the down button. He keeps staring out the conference room windows, staring at the rain while he talks.

The elevator arrives blessedly fast and I jump in, alone, pushing the close button. I’m in the lobby before Grady gets off his phone call. I’m outside, in the rain, before Sylvia Hernandez is sent into the ladies’ room to check on me.

I have turned the corner before she or Grady look on the conference room table and see what I left there for them to find. I left the note on the table, beneath the phone. The note that Owen left me. I left it for Grady.

Protect her.

And I walk at a quick clip down the unfamiliar Austin streets to be there for Bailey now, to be there for her and Owen the best way I know how, even though it’s taking me back to the last place I am supposed to go.

Everyone Should Take Inventory

Here’s what I know.

At night, before he went to sleep, Owen did two things. He turned on his left side and then he leaned into me, wrapping his arm around my chest. He would fall asleep that way—with his face against my back, his hand on my heart. He was peaceful.

He went for a run every morning to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge and back home.

He would live on Pad Thai, given the choice.

He never took off his wedding ring even to shower.

He kept the windows open in the car. Ninety degrees or nine degrees.

He talked about going ice fishing on Lake Washington every winter. He never went.

He couldn’t turn off a movie, no matter how awful, until he’d made it to the credits.

He thought champagne was overrated.

He thought thunderstorms were underrated.

He was secretly afraid of heights.

He only drove a stick shift. He extolled the virtues of only driving a stick shift. He was ignored.

He loved taking his daughter to the ballet in San Francisco.

He loved taking his daughter on hikes in Sonoma County.

He loved taking his daughter for breakfast. He never ate breakfast.

He could make a ten-layer chocolate cake from scratch.

He could make some mean coconut curry.

He had a ten-year-old La Marzocco espresso machine that was still sitting in its box.

And he was married once before. He was married to a woman whose father defended bad men—even if he thought it was a little simplistic to call them bad men, even if he thought it was incomplete. He accepted his father-in-law’s work because he was married to this man’s daughter and that’s who Owen was. Owen accepted his father-in-law out of need, out of love, and maybe out of fear. Though he wouldn’t have named it as fear. He would have named it, incorrectly, as loyalty.

Here’s what else I know. When Owen lost his wife, it all changed. Every single thing changed.

Something broke open in him. And he became angry. He became angry with his wife’s family, with her father, with himself. He was angry about what he’d allowed himself to turn a blind eye to—in the name of love, in the name of loyalty. Which is part of the reason why he left.

The other reason is that he needed to get Bailey away from that life. It was primal and it was urgent. Keeping Bailey anywhere near his wife’s family felt like the greatest risk of all.

Knowing all that, here’s what I may never know. If he’ll forgive me for what I feel like I have to risk now.

The Never Dry, Part Two

The Never Dry is open now.

There is a mix of the after-work crowd, a few graduate students, and a couple on a date—spiky green hair for him, tattoo sleeve for her—completely focused on each other.

A young, sexy bartender in a vest and a tie holds court behind the bar, pouring the couple matching manhattans. A woman in a jumpsuit eyes him, tries to get his attention for another drink. She tries, simply, to get his attention.

And then there’s Charlie. He sits alone in his grandfather’s booth, drinking a glass of whisky, the bottle resting beside it.

He runs his finger along the glass, looking lost in thought. Maybe he’s playing it back in his head, what happened between us earlier, what he could have done differently when he met this woman he didn’t know and his sister’s daughter whom he only wanted to know again.

I walk up to his table. He doesn’t notice me standing there, at first. When he does, instead of looking at me with anger, he looks at me in disbelief.

“What are you doing here?” he says.

“I need to talk to him,” I say.

“Who?” he says.

I don’t say anything else, because he doesn’t need me to clarify. He knows exactly who I’m talking about. He knows who I’m angling to see.

“Come with me,” he says.

Then he stands up and steers me down a dark hallway, past the restrooms and the electrical closet, to the kitchen.