Saved From Suicide, Sold Into a Lie novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Drawer
Connor finds a marriage certificate in Leanne's drawer and learns his dead wife is alive; Leanne lies to his face and says she is going to a sick friend's son.
Five years ago, a police captain folded a flag into a triangle and put it in my hands at my wife's funeral.
The casket under it was empty.
I had never asked why, and I learned today that I should have.
It was a Thursday, and I was looking for a stapler.
Leanne kept the study locked on days I was home alone, but she had left the key in the bowl by the door.
My doctor had called an hour earlier with the good news, and I wanted to tell her in person.
The bottom drawer of her desk stuck, so I pulled harder.
On top of a stack of folders lay a marriage certificate.
The bride was my wife, who had been dead for five years.
The groom was my older brother, who told every woman he dated that he would never marry.
It was registered in a city overseas, on the same date I swallowed a full bottle of sleeping pills.
I read the date three times.
Under the certificate were pediatric bills and receipts for formula and diapers.
There were bank transfers to an overseas account, and a handful of photographs.
In the top photograph, my wife, Joanna, sat on a couch with a baby boy on her lap.
My brother Dorian sat beside her with one arm along the back of the cushion and the other hand on the baby's foot.
He was smiling down at the child.
My wife was alive, she had a son, and my brother was in the picture.
Beside the folders lay an old phone, plugged into the wall, the battery at one hundred percent.
I woke the screen with my thumb, and no passcode asked for anything.
The last message was from Dorian, sent the day before.
"Thank you for looking after Connor all these years, Leanne. Joanna and I are very happy, and the boy asks about you."
I set the phone down exactly where it had been.
I put the photographs back in the order I had found them.
Then I took the crumpled paper out of my pocket, the doctor's report that said my stomach was healing and my bloodwork was clean.
I dropped it in the kitchen trash on my way past.
An hour ago it had been the best news I'd had in five years.
The front door opened.
"Connor?" Leanne called.
Leanne was my wife's younger sister, and she had spent years telling me I wasn't good enough for Joanna.
She was also the one who had kicked in my door the night I took the pills and held my head until the ambulance came.
After that she stopped fighting with me and started moving into my life one habit at a time.
She came into the kitchen holding a bakery bag and bent to take off her shoes.
When she looked up and saw my face, she put the bag down and reached for my forehead.
I stepped back.
Her hand stayed in the air for a moment.
"You're white as paper," she said. "Sit down."
"I'm fine."
She watched me for a long moment, then set a pair of slippers by my feet.
"You're barefoot again. Put these on."
She had said that to me a thousand times.
Today it made my skin crawl.
"I got the chestnut pastries you wanted," she said, and went to warm milk on the stove.
I had mentioned them once, in passing, a week ago.
She remembered everything I said and everything I did not say.
She counted out my pills and held them out in her palm.
"Did you take these today?"
"No."
"Take them now, please."
I looked at the pills in her palm.
For five years this woman had known when my bad nights came before I did.
She knew every weak place I had, and she had never once used it against me.
That was what I couldn't put together.
"Leanne," I said.
"Mm?"
"If Joanna was alive, would you think I was an idiot for burying her?"
The spoon stopped against the pot.
She did not turn around.
"You went in my study," she said.
I said nothing.
She walked out of the kitchen, and I heard the drawer slide open and shut.
When she came back, her face was smooth and her voice was steady.
"They're old papers. Please don't go through my things."
She pressed her lips together and added, "You've been under strain. I'll take you to your appointment in the morning."
I almost laughed at how calm she was.
"I'm not going."
"Connor."
"There's no point. I'm not going to get better."
"Don't say that," she said, sharper than she meant to.
"I said I'm not going."
We stood there with the milk going cold.
At last she nodded. "Fine. Eat something."
Halfway through dinner her phone rang.
She looked at the screen, stood up, and carried it out to the balcony.
She slid the glass door shut behind her.
In five years, I had never wondered who was calling her.
When she came back, she smoothed her hair and sat down.
"I have to go out tomorrow night," she said. "A friend's little boy is sick. I'm going to sit with him."
I held my fork tight.
She said it lightly, and her eyes stayed on her plate.
But I had seen the pediatric bills, and the clinic's address was in my phone now.
I had photographed it before I put the folders back.
"Sure," I said.
She smiled at me, and I smiled back.
I was going to see that child's door before she did.
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