Page 19 of The Baby
My mother had died young. My father had died young. It wasn’t a given that this woman was alive. I told myself we owed it to ourselves to find outthatmuch.
That was my justification, anyway. For hiring the private investigator. All I knew about Adele Talley was that she had come from Seattle, Washington. Jake’s father had fallen in love hard and brought her back to his ranch, but she’d never been happy in Montana. She might have left sooner if it hadn’t beenforJake.
She probably thought staying with her son until he was eleven wasenough.
Itwasn’t.
It’s not like I forgave her for that either. That’s not what this was about. This was about precautions. This was about safety nets. This was about myfears.
I sat in the study, which had basically become my office. While Jake handled the animal husbandry side of the ranch, the numbers, the accounts, that was all me. It worked especially now that I was sidelined from all of the heavier chores. At least here I still felt like I was contributing my fairshare.
Which is why I had felt comfortable opening the letter from the investigator I had hired in Seattle. Jake never interrupted me when I was in the study with the doorclosed.
It was a final bill from the investigator along with an address. At least, a last knownaddress.
My heart started to pound. Tacoma, Washington. Adele Tally was in Tacoma, Washington, and if Jake knew what I was about to do he would be sopissed.
Like on a scale of one to ten… a total tenpissed.
I could try to talk to him, I thought, but I didn’t see how his attitude would change. Not when it came to that woman. If he knew I had actually hired someone to find her, he would losehisshit.
If he knew what I wasdoingnow…
I looked at the Word document I had written and had up on the screen. I read it again. Then again. It was brief. It was factual. There was no emotion in it at all, I thought. It wasn’t as if this was some type of reconciliation. I just wanted to know where she was, what she was like as aperson.
A precaution in case something bad happened to both of us. Like something bad had happenedtome.
I knew it was wrong. Iknewit. But if I told Jake about finding her, about reaching out to her… What if she didn’t reply at all? That could be because she was no longer at the address, or it could be because she had no desire to reconnect withherson.
To Jake it would feel like he was being rejected all over again. That wasn’t something I couldhandle.
That wasn’t a justification either. That was mytruth.
I hit the button to print the letter. I stuffed it in an envelope where I had printed her name and her address on thefront.
I could rip it up. I could tear it into pieces, delete the file on my laptop, and pretend I hadn’t done thisthing.
ExceptIhad.
Which is why I instead took the truck and drove to Jefferson tomailit.
Because I didn’t want Hank at the post office to know that I was stabbing my husband intheback.
Jake
October
(Or as I refer to it, the month Ellie royallyscrewedup.)
In hindsightI should have seen it coming. But things had started to normalize in October between us. My wife had morphed from a woman who enjoyed sex on a regular basis to a walking, talkinghormone.
She was still shying away from intercourse, but everything else was fair game. Don’t get me wrong. What man has a problem waking up to regular blow jobs, and having a wife who he can get off with a look in the rightdirection?
One time I played with her nipples and made her come three times just from that. It was delicious and intimateandsexy.
Except it still felt like something was missing. I missed being inside Ellie. There was something deeply satisfying when we were connected like that. Like we weren’t two people, butoneunit.
Now, I’m no super romantic when it comes to sex. Up until Ellie it was all about friction and bodies and getting off and feeling good. Then with Ellie it became an exercise in wanting her but not being able to have her. So that maybe when I finally let myself go and gave in to my desire for her, it was superexplosive.
