Scott smiled, thinking of Lauren being so silly. “My tie?”

“You had to be there. Lauren’s always made me laugh.” Morgan stared down, lower lip trembling. “She was looking for a job as a teaching assistant, and since we were on your school’s faculty page, job listings were right there. That’s how she found out about it. She said she could maybe get close to you, learn a little about what happened to Natalie.”

“Jesus,” Scott whispered, thinking of the dog.

It was so silly; as the hours turned to two days, Scott tried to label it as a pain-induced hallucination, nothing more. But it had felt so real. And it was the same with this; there was no man, surely, to whom the phrase God’s plan was more appropriate.

Idiot. He pushed it all away, focused.

“You know what happened to Natalie,” Gary snapped. “What are you trying to imply?”

Morgan sat up straight. “She killed herself the night she was going to leave Scott. We had planned it for months. She was going to move in with me, then we were going to tell her parents. She was so nervous about it. She kept putting it off, putting it off, until I gave her an ultimatum. She’d give me a date, or I’d leave her.”

Morgan shuddered. “I shouldn’t have said that. Natalie could get anxious, volatile. I was so angry, I scratched out my name. I even gave Natalie’s bracelet to Lauren.”

Scott nodded; he knew too well how unpredictable his wife could be. She’d been good in so many ways. They’d shared so much love and laughter. Scott noticed Gary shaking his head, as though this version of Natalie didn’t make sense. Scott wondered if that’s why Lauren was always fiddling with the bracelet, as a bizarre connection to his dead wife.

“I asked her to quit almost straightaway,” Morgan went on. “It was too weird. You weren’t going to tell her anything. And even if you had anything to tell, I’m not sure I’d want to know. Natalie took her life because of me.”

“Or I killed her.” Scott laughed grimly. “That’s what you and Lauren were thinking.”

“I didn’t rule it out.”

“I’d never hurt Natalie.”

“Lauren likes you, Scott. She thinks you’re a good person. Even after I asked her to quit, she kept working with you. She said you were a good teacher, a role model to the children. But look where it got her. She may never wake up. And all because of your wife.”

Scott didn’t have the energy to fight. He felt hollow after everything that had happened. “I know.”

Morgan bit down on her fingernail. “I guess we’ll wait.”

“Yeah,” Scott said. “I guess we will.”

53

SCOTT

“Lauren’s awake,” Morgan said over the phone, six days after they met in the hospital.

Scott was sitting in the garden, trying to focus on a novel; even before the phone call, he hadn’t been able to concentrate.

Now he smiled. He sat up. He felt not numb.