A Widow Redefined (5 page)

I was terrified. Terrified, then angry.

I opened the car door and stepped outside. It had stopped raining. I exhaled loudly and smoothed my clothing one more time before I began walking up the driveway.

As I made it up the little hill, the house came into sight. It was a sprawling, beautiful mansion. The closer I got to the house, the more enraged I became. Shaking, I stood in front of the large front door and stared at it. Then I reached out and knocked.

I heard footsteps coming and then the door opened.

“Hello,” the older gentleman from the cemetery said. “How may I assist you?”

“I’m looking for the woman you just came here with,” I said.

“Ms. Bergman?”

“If that’s her name, that’s the person I need to see.”

Visibly irritated he asked, “May I have your name?”

“Tell her I’m Justin’s wife.”

“One moment,” he said, then politely excused himself, closed the door halfway, and began calling the name Sabrina.

All of a sudden I heard lighter, quicker footsteps approaching, and I went from being angry back to being terrified. I considered leaving, but it was too late. The door flung open and there she stood.

“Hello Amy,” she said with a warm smile, as if I were one of her oldest friends.

Sabrina was beautiful in a way that I wasn’t, with long, wavy dark hair that reminded me of a 1940’s movie star. Her skin was porcelain; her figure tall and slim. I wasn’t prepared to be dealt a blow of this magnitude; it made me lose my balance a bit. After regaining it, I cleared my throat.

“You know my name?” I asked.

“You’re Justin’s wife.”

“But I never said my—

“My name is Sabrina,” she said, extending a hand.

Instinctively, my hand shook hers. She continued smiling like we knew each other. It all seemed surreal and wasn’t going according to plan, not that I’d had a plan.

“Why don’t you come inside,” she suggested. “We could chat over a cup of tea.”

“No.” I responded, a little louder than I should have. “No thank you.” Lowering my voice, I asked, “How exactly did you know my husband, Justin?”

She smiled again. “I hired him to renovate this house.”

That made sense. And it threw me off. For some reason, I had never considered that.

“And you were at the cemetery leaving him flowers because?”

“Because I knew it was his birthday,” she responded defensively. Her expression grew more serious; she could see we weren’t going to “chat” over tea.

Standing in the doorway, staring at each other, I decided to come right out and ask the question.

“Did you have an affair with my husband?”

Sabrina looked shocked, then said, “Absolutely not!”

This answer would’ve been satisfactory, and could’ve ended the conversation, but I wasn’t a fool.

“Well let me ask you this: Do you think it makes sense to go to a cemetery and give flowers to a contractor on Valentine’s Day too?”

This took her by surprise. She fumbled her words. “It’s not what you think, Amy. Nothing like that ever happened. You’ve got it all wrong.”

I maintained eye contact without speaking as my frustration grew.

“I was here a lot while he worked,” Sabrina added. “I’m afraid I asked him a lot of questions and he was kind enough to answer them,” she went on in a syrupy tone.

Her explanation was making me nauseous. Although it sounded believable, and I could picture Justin doing something like that as he often got stuck with chatty clients, I couldn’t accept it. Something didn’t seem right. For starters, she wasn’t one of his little old ladies who wanted to re-live their life story, talking about how their son went off and fought in the war. This woman looked like a goddess.

My confidence began slipping away, and suddenly I felt a strong desire to flee.

I wasn’t prepared for all this.

“I think I’d better be going now,” I mumbled while looking down.

Sabrina seemed to understand. No doubt she must’ve felt uncomfortable too. Then, as I began walking away, she said, “See you next time.” Confused, I turned and looked back at her. I said nothing in response to her odd comment, then continued on my path down the drive.

On the drive home, I mentally reviewed everything and decided I was satisfied with how the whole thing went down. I had set out to find the person and I’d managed to do it. I’d hoped to confront her, and I did. In the end, I was wrong about my suspicions. She was just a high maintenance client who’d had a crush on my husband.

At least that’s what I told myself.

The phrase brought me some comfort and the feeling of closure… for a little while.

W
hen I came home on time for dinner, Mom looked surprised. She began saying, “I didn’t expect you,” but didn’t finish her sentence. I knew she thought I’d be at the cemetery after work, but didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to encourage a habit that might be ending.

I felt numb from the experience I’d just had. And I couldn’t share anything, so I pushed it from my mind.

“I’m starved,” I said. “What are we having?”

“Ratatouille,” Mom replied while waving her hand over the pot on the stove. “Tyler saw the recipe in one of Josephine’s cookbooks. Since we had just watched the movie, I figured it would be a nice change.”

I smiled at her. She was so sweet. She’d gone out of her way and done this for us, to celebrate Justin’s birthday.

Once dinner finished, we sat around the kitchen table, stuffed. We’d saved just enough room for crème brulee.

Tyler raised his glass of milk and said, “Happy Birthday Dad.”

“To Justin,” Mom chimed in, lifting her glass too.

I raised mine and tapped it against theirs in celebration. I smiled, trying to squash the uneasiness I felt spreading throughout me.

•••••

The next morning I woke up drenched in sweat and had the chills. My throat hurt and my body felt achy. I cursed myself for lying to my boss about having the flu.

That’s what I get, I thought.

I tried to get out of bed, but a sinking feeling came over me, the kind that once it hits, makes you long for sleep. I forced myself to get up and change into dry pajamas. Then I wandered into the bathroom to take some cold medicine.

Afterward, I went back to my room and collapsed into bed. Remembering work, I reached for my cell phone and called my boss. It was early, so I was guaranteed voicemail. “Hey Dave. It’s me, Amy. I’m still sick and won’t be able to make it in.”

The next time I woke up it was right before lunchtime. I had no energy and my head was stuffed up. I didn’t feel hungry, but figured I should eat something, so I shuffled into the kitchen and ate an orange. The house was empty. I walked around a bit, taking in the abnormal silence, but got bored right away, and decided to sit down and watch TV. I flipped through a bunch of channels and realized nothing good was on, then turned it off. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a stack of photo albums. I got up and grabbed them, then sat back down on the sofa.

The first was an older one, with pictures of Justin and me at the high school prom. God—we were skinny. And we ate whatever we wanted. As we danced the night away to all our favorite songs, who could have known what the future held? How our lives would turn out?

The next album had vacation shots from Arizona. Although it was pretty, I remember us both dying of heat and feeling like someone was holding a blow-dryer to our faces. Justin’s mom and dad were there too. His dad loved the place, and could picture retiring there. He said nothing compared to the beauty of Sedona’s red rocks. Justin’s mom, on the other hand, had no intention of ever moving away from her only son.

The last album was more recent, with pictures of Tyler as a baby, and Justin holding him in his arms by the Christmas tree surrounded by piles of presents. I stared at that one for a long time. He still looked healthy in those photos. I couldn’t find any evidence of what was soon to come.

Looking through the pictures brought back so many good memories. But the sinking feeling came again, and I could barely stay awake, so I decided to take some more medicine and lie down.

While in bed I thought about how long I’d known Justin, and all the experiences we’d had together, how we had known everything about each other.

But I didn’t know about Sabrina.

Maybe nothing happened and she was just a customer, but he never mentioned her. I pictured her at the cemetery with the flowers, how she’d been crying. As I closed my eyes, I heard her voice repeating over and over in my mind, “I hired him to renovate this house.”

If Sabrina knew him well enough to deliver flowers to him, like he was a friend, or, God forbid more, how come I didn’t even know she was his client?

Though I was beyond exhausted, I decided to get up and go down to the basement. All of Justin’s old business records were stored down there.

I slid into my old pair of slippers and made my way down the creaky stairs. Once I found the boxes and separated them from the other stored items, dust began flying around, causing me to launch into a major coughing fit. Gagging on phlegm, I had to sit down to regain composure. Once my breathing returned to normal, I wiped the box with a dirty rag I found nearby, then used every last ounce of remaining strength to carry it up the stairs and into my room, where I let it drop with a loud thunk.

I sat down next to it and pulled out the folders, spreading them across the floor. Each file represented one month. The box held two years’ worth of files. I thought it made sense to start at the beginning of the invoices and end with the most recent. Thumbing through them, I saw a bunch of different customer names and lots of job codes (Justin’s shorthand) followed by detailed descriptions of the work done. At the bottom was the amount billed.

Looking at the addresses, I realized he drove all over the place for work, wherever clients could be found. I smiled, remembering how motivated he was, a force to be reckoned with. Marveling at all the money he’d made and all the projects he’d done, I came upon the first invoice. “Sabrina Bergman, Lake Forest, Illinois, job code C—consultation on project, two hundred dollars.”

A tiny spark of energy I didn’t know I had woke me up. This now had my full attention. I continued flipping through the invoices, folder by folder, reading their contents. Each month, there she was. Getting her hardwood floors resurfaced, remodeling her master bathroom and installing a claw-foot Jacuzzi tub.

My interest piqued, but I was sinking again. I couldn’t stay awake a moment longer. I had used my last drop of remaining energy and my body was in protest. I left everything spread out on the floor and climbed back into bed. Once my head hit the pillow, I was out.

Hours later the sound of the garage door opening woke me. I still felt terrible, but forced myself out of the covers and into the kitchen. When my mom and Tyler walked in I greeted them both and tried to give my son a hug, but he pulled away.

“Mom. Don’t give me sick germs.”

“Good point,” I noted. “How was school? How was last night’s lesson?”

“We had testing today and I think I did fine. Last night Josephine gave me an assignment to draw a piece of fruit.”

“That sounds easy enough,” I said.

“Yep,” Tyler replied, then threw his bag down and ran to the family room to watch his favorite show. Mom came in after using the restroom.

“Honey, you look awful. And what’s that big mess laying all over the floor in your room?”

Thinking quick on my feet I replied, “Oh, I was just looking for Mrs. Pembroke’s number. I remembered Justin did some work for her.”

“Well do you need help cleaning that up? I can help you, you know.”

“No. No thanks,” I said. “I’ll deal with it later.”

I felt bad saying it, because I knew clutter drove her crazy. She hated disorder and couldn’t bear to walk past something and see it out of place. But I didn’t mind clutter as much. And those invoices were staying right where I wanted them, until I was done investigating.

She pressed pause on being a neat freak and said, “Why don’t you take a bath and I’ll get dinner started.”

“All right,” I said, realizing I could use one since I smelled bad.

While sitting and soaking, I thought about my tub. It was your basic, plain Jane tub—no jets, no claw feet. In fact, everything about my house was like that, nice and comfortable, but un-spectacular. Justin and I hoped our next house would be the one with all the options we wanted. He didn’t think it made sense to sink a bunch of money into this one.

After relaxing for a long time, and being so tired I almost drowned, I crawled out of the tub, dressed in fresh pajamas and headed back to my bedroom. Once I walked in, I realized it smelled disgusting, a combination of sick and dusty basement. I used a small burst of energy to change the sheets, then I lay back down and passed out.

•••••

Friday morning I still didn’t feel well. I decided I’d use another vacation day and hope I’d be recovered by Monday. I felt bad calling Dave, because he was there rain or shine, no matter what. I guessed that’s how it was when you owned your own business.

With the house empty, I got up and took the opportunity to look through the rest of the folders.

Each month Sabrina’s name was there, either beginning a new project or continuing a previous one. “Looks like she never wanted him to finish,” I exclaimed sarcastically.

After looking through two years’ worth of files, I realized she was Justin’s biggest customer. The majority of his income—our income—came from her. This surprised me, and at the same time made me very uncomfortable.

He’d never mentioned her, yet he was at her house many times over the course of two years.

Hmm.

But it wasn’t a “Hmm, that’s interesting.” It was a “Hmm—now I’ve got to know more.”

Unable to stop myself, I wrote her phone number on a sticky note and put it inside my wallet.

M
onday morning Fatima approached me before I could sit down. “Oh my God girl. You totally missed all the action.”