After Ninety-Nine Lies, My Husband Finally Told Me the Truth novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Sparrow Cove

Cliff finds her at her grandmother's cabin and reads the entries aloud. She corrects three from memory and cannot correct the fourth. Anders's truck idles at the end of the road all night, and Signe texts that she has brought Cora's sleeping pills.

My grandmother's cabin sits at the end of Sparrow Cove Road, where the gravel gives out and the pines start.

She left it to me when she died, and I had not slept there in two years.

Anders had said it needed a new roof and a new septic tank and was no place for a wife.

The key was still under the third flowerpot.

I got a fire going in the woodstove with my jacket on.

Then I sat on the bare mattress with the Lie Ledger on my knees and read it from the start.

I was still on the second page when a flashlight swung across the window.

"Cora Lindahl, if you're burning the place down, I'm obligated to write it up," Cliff called through the door.

Cliff Carrow had been my best friend since the seventh grade.

He was a county deputy now, and he lived three cabins down.

He came in smelling of cold air and coffee, took one look at my face and shut the door behind him.

"What happened?"

I held out the notebook.

He read the cover, then looked at me.

"Is this a joke?"

"It was an anniversary present."

"From who?"

"Anders."

He sat down on the one chair.

"Okay," he said slowly. "I'm making cocoa. Then you're going to tell me everything, and I'm going to stay calm."

He made it on the woodstove in a dented pan, and he did not stay calm for long.

I told him about the dinner, the doctor's nod and Monday's medication.

When I got to Signe's hand over mine, Cliff put the mug down hard.

"She asked you to read it out loud?"

"She said it would help."

"Cora."

"I know how it sounds."

"Let me see it."

He read the entries aloud in the flat voice he used on traffic stops.

"November second, year one. Told Anders she was visiting her grandmother. She was at a bar."

"I was visiting my grandmother," I said. "She had pneumonia. I slept in a chair for three days."

"Right. I brought you soup." He turned the page. "Year two. Told Anders she had no idea who left the gate open at the yard. She had left it open."

"I have never once been to the yard without him."

"Year two again. Said she was at work. She was at a restaurant with a man."

"That man was a patient's son. He was crying. I bought him a coffee."

Cliff looked up.

"That's three you can answer."

"Yes."

"Then they're wrong, and the whole book is wrong."

He turned a few more pages and stopped.

His voice dropped.

"June fourth, year three. Told Anders she had not been drinking at his cousin's wedding. She was drunk and crying in the parking lot."

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came.

I remembered the wedding.

I remembered the cake, the band, and a long drive home with the window down.

I did not remember the parking lot.

"Cora?"

"I don't drink much," I said.

"You don't drink at all. You hate it."

"I know."

"So say it didn't happen."

I looked at the fire.

"I can't," I said. "I don't remember that night after ten o'clock."

Cliff didn't speak for a moment.

Then he closed the notebook very carefully and set it on the floor, away from both of us.

"Okay," he said. "That's one."

We stayed up another hour.

He found the stack of old quilts in the closet, and I made the bed.

At midnight I went to the window to draw the curtain.

At the far end of the road, where it met the highway, a pair of headlights sat in the dark with the engine running.

I knew the truck.

Anders had parked it there, under the one streetlight, and he was not getting out.

"Want me to go down there?" Cliff said behind me.

"No."

"He's been sitting there an hour, Cor."

"Then let him sit."

I drew the curtain.

I did not sleep.

Every time I looked, the headlights were still there, and they stayed until the sky went gray.

At six my phone buzzed.

It was Signe.

"I left your sleeping pills on the porch rail, honey. You forgot them. Don't skip tonight, you know how you get."

I stood in the middle of the cabin with the phone in my hand.

I had not told her where I was.

Cliff had found me by the smoke from the chimney.

The only other person who could have told her was the man in the truck.

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