The Best Friend by Adam Mitzner

Author:Adam Mitzner [Mitzner, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542005753
Published: 2020-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

27.

Hours after I returned from the Four Seasons, Clint casually asked me what I’d done that day. In response, I stroked my stubbled scalp and lied to my husband for the last time in my life.

“I just went for a really long walk in Central Park. It was something I had wanted to do while I still could. Just walk aimlessly and look at everything one last time.”

“Is there anything else on that list?” he asked. “Something I can help with, maybe?”

“No. My bucket is empty.” I laughed, realizing I had the metaphor wrong. “I guess I should say, my bucket list has been fulfilled. All I want to do now is love you and the girls as much as I can for as long as I can.”

He nodded, as if to say he understood, but I could tell he had something else on his mind. Something he wasn’t quite sure how to ask me.

Given the state of guilt and paranoia brought about by my meeting with Nick, I assumed Clint had found out how I’d spent my day. Or maybe he hadn’t but was aware of the deeper secret I’d kept from him and wanted it out in the open, once and for all.

Over the years, there had been a handful of times that I’d thought Clint was on the brink of confrontation. Sometimes it came when we were arguing, and at others, in moments of tranquility. Circumstances in which he looked at me in such a way that could only mean he knew. More than that, actually. It told me that he had always known.

There were other moments, however, when I was certain that my secret was safe. Those times when he looked at me with the starry eyes that made me feel more loved than I could have ever imagined. Ironically, it was in those instances that I most wanted to tell him. To relieve myself of the burden I’d been carrying, or at least ask him to share the weight with me.

Neither of us had ever said a word about it.

Clint’s silence might have been unintentional, a product of his not knowing. I often told myself that my silence was the right thing. That telling Clint would have been selfish. Or perhaps we both kept our peace because we feared that the truth would break us, and so we caged it, as if my secret were a wild animal that could never be tamed and could only hurt our family.

That night, contrary to what I’d told Clint, I realized I did have one last item on my bucket list: to set the record straight.

I gathered the strength to make a final confession.

“There’s something else that maybe we should talk about,” I said, my voice halting with each word. “Something, I don’t know, that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.”

I’m certain that my tone and demeanor conveyed that what I was planning to impart was of the gravest concern—if only because that was the expression I saw on Clint’s face as I spoke.

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