The hand on my shoulder felt heavy. It had to be a man’s hand. Was it Tom? Had he finally found me? Maybe Stella’s call wasn’t innocent after all, and he had planned it with her. I girded myself, thinking the person behind me was going to make a move, but then a familiar voice said, “Elodie?”

     I turned around and sighed. The muscles in my hands relaxed. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that. You scared the crap out of me.” I stared daggers at Alec.

     He had a mischievous smile on his face. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

     “What are you doing here? Are you following me?” I asked. I knew that was unlikely. Why would Alec suddenly start following me?

     His eyes narrowed. “Oh, no.” He shrugged. “Why would I be following you?”

     “I have no idea unless you tell me,” I said sternly. I didn’t completely trust Alec. It was difficult to read him now, which was worrisome because I could easily read people.

     “I wasn’t following you. I came into town. I wanted to get some work done. I couldn’t get a signal in the farmhouse.”

     He sounded genuine, and I believed him, not because I thought he wasn’t lying to me. He was telling the truth. The farmhouse didn’t have a very good connection. I experienced my share of this problem a while ago.

     He fingered the car park outside the small restaurant. “My car is over there. I saw you from the glass panel. I wasn’t sure it was you.” He glanced down at the polythene bag. “You lost your phone?”

     “No,” I said and threw the bag into the driver’s seat. “I came to get a charger and earpiece.”

     He nodded. “Okay.”

     When I glanced up, he was smiling at me. In the glint of the morning sun, he looked different. His stubbles were gone, and so were the straying strands of dark hair I saw earlier. He’d shaved. I gave him a once-over. He wore a V-necked shirt and a gray blazer with a pair of matching jeans.

       “I’m glad I bumped into you, Elodie. I need a big favor.”

     “What kind?”

     “Amy’s birthday is around the corner,” he said, grinning. “I want you to help me get something for her. Maybe a woman’s perspective might help.”

     I wasn’t in the mood to help Alec choose a present for his wife, but I couldn’t simply say no when he looked so enthusiastic about it. “All right.”

     “Great. Let’s head down to the restaurant. My things are over there,” he said.

     “After you.”

     I followed Alec down the pavement leading to the small restaurant. We crossed the road and walked to the entrance. Occasionally, he glanced back at me with a smile, and I couldn’t stop wondering if he was okay. Maybe he was in a good mood in contrast to me.

     The phone call with Stella still hung around in my head. I could hear her voice when she asked me to come back. For the first time in a while, I had made the right decision. I imagined the look of horror on her face when I told her she made me sick. She must be awestruck. I had kept this to myself for a very long time, and I had finally let it out. I couldn’t stop the feeling that I was almost coming close to being free. If I could face Stella and tell her the truth, then it was a good step. My next move would be to call my husband and break the news that was surely going to give him a hard time.

     Alec occupied a booth by the window. When I sat across from him, my eyes immediately fell on my car. If he had been sitting here, then he surely saw me park my car and step out. Did he notice my apprehension?

      “Coffee?” he asked, jarring me to the present.

     “No, I’m fine.” I looked at his table which was cluttered with a laptop, notepads, his phone, pen, clips, and of course the cup of steaming coffee. My eyes lingered around his messy workplace till they fell on his phone screen which displayed a photo of Amy in her wedding gown. This man had an agenda.

     I was sure he noticed me staring. He glanced at me, giggled and said, arranging his things, “Work stuff. Can’t even have a decent vacation nowadays. Amy would get angry if she saw me.” He looked up at me. “That’s another reason I came into town.”

     A workaholic, I reasoned. So far I got the impression Amy was a housewife. He almost sounded as if they didn’t have quality time at home, the reason behind their vacation.

     Amy would get angry if she saw me. She knew his addiction to his work. How did she feel about that? My eyes glimpsed the document splayed in front of him. I was about to read off the first line when he picked it up and tossed it into the brown folder. I really should mind my business.

     “So... I’m curious. What do you do?” I asked

     He curled his fingers around the handle and sipped. Replacing it on the saucer, he said, “I’m a lawyer.”

     My brows arched. Somehow I wished he was a businessman. “What’s your specialty?”
    
     “Family law.”

     “Nice,” I said. “For a moment, I expected you to say criminal law. You look like a defense attorney now that you’ve mentioned you’re a lawyer.”

      “I get that a lot. I wanted to do criminal law at some point.” He sipped again.

     “What stopped you?”

     “My Mom,” he said, the corners of his mouth curving into a rueful smile. “I studied family law to protect her from my Dad. He wasn’t a very nice guy.”

     His enthusiasm was gone by the time he ended. I sensed this wasn’t easy for him. To be frank, I didn’t think he’d even tell me about his past. Knowing he might have had a traumatic past, I suddenly felt drawn to him. Alec had a story just like me.

     I wanted to ask him about the complexity of divorce if the other partner didn’t consent to it, but there was no way I could bring that up without giving him a hint of its relatedness to me.

     He’d said he studied family law to protect his mother from his father. He wasn’t a very nice guy. For a moment, I wondered what his father was like. God being so good, I never had to grow up with an abusive parent. My father died when I was young. He was a great man. A family man.

     Alec’s father wasn’t so great. Just how great wasn’t he? Could he have physically abused his mother? Then the bruises I saw on Amy’s neck flashed in my mind. Abusive behaviors sometimes had childhood root causes. If Alec’s father abused his mother and he had been a witness to it, what did he do about it? Did he seek help? Or did he just let it slide till he was old enough to protect his mother?

     I didn’t know why I was thinking from this angle, but something didn’t sit right with me. Amy’s words rang in my ear. You came here all alone. I wish I could be more like...

     Finally, it dawned on me. This was the first time I had seen the Bergers not together. Was it weird? Possibly. I had wrapped my head around Amy’s incomplete statement and decided after a long consideration that she wanted to say: I wish I could be more like YOU. Then I remembered what she’d said before that. You came here all alone.

     I connected the jigsaw and couldn’t believe the picture. From experience, I knew people said their innermost thoughts when they couldn’t take it anymore. What if Amy wanted to be more like me because I wasn’t under the captivity of a man which in reality wasn’t true? Was Alec keeping a close eye on his wife? I recalled when Amy visited me and I thought I saw a frown on Alec’s face after I had escorted her out. It didn’t make sense for Alec to watch his wife unless of course, he was keeping her—

     “You’re quiet all of a sudden,” Alec said.

     I sighed and glanced at his table. I imagined him holding his wife’s neck and choking her hard. I pictured Amy grappling for a weapon. I could almost hear her soft voice. The scene was easy to create now that I had a hunch he was abusing his wife. I suddenly wanted to know more about his past.

     “I was thinking about the present you asked me to come up with,” I said.

     “Great. Have you got any so far?” he closed the laptop, and then set it aside.

     “Not yet. Still thinking. Where’s Amy?” I asked, then placed my best guess. “At the farmhouse?”

     “Nope,” he said.

     I didn’t like the petulant sound of his voice. It gave me a different impression. Not a good one. “Where’s she?”

     “I dropped her off at the supermarket. She went to get some ingredients for dinner. I’ll pick her up in...” He peered at his Rolex. “Ten minutes.”

     They came together. She wasn’t alone after all, which confirmed my suspicion. I felt an urge to press on about his past, but that would be out of line. Besides, he probably didn’t want to share more.

     “You know something? I’ve been thinking about getting her gold necklace and matching earrings.” His face beamed.

     I cringed. That was too elaborate for Amy who wouldn’t even wear any color apart from black, white, and gray. She didn’t like garish things. Even I knew that when I first met her. How come Alec didn’t know when they had been married for five months?

     “No,” I said sharply, “she’ll only wear it on special occasions. Get something that she’d always have around her.”

     “Like a souvenir?”

     I bobbed my head. “Right. A souvenir.”

     “When we got married, she used to wear a locket. She wouldn’t wear anything apart from that around her neck. She wore it even on our wedding day. She lost it when we went on our honeymoon,” he said.

     “Sounds like we’ve got something to buy for her then,” I said, smiling.

     He smiled back. “Yeah, but the only problem is, I have no idea what was in the locket.”

     “Don’t worry about that. Place a photograph of the two of you in it when you buy it. She’ll wear it close to her heart.” I fixed my shawl and rose.

     “I’ve got to go, Alec. I’ll see you later.”

     He surged to his feet and before I knew it, he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a hug. “You’re the best! I wished I had met you sooner.”

     I froze. What did he do that for? Was it his way of saying thank you? I stood still, my hands hanging beside me. I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t been hugged like that in a while. His cologne hit my nostrils. I inhaled, praying he’d let go of me. He finally did, and as I moved away, I spotted a scar on his neck. A very long stretching scar. How did he get that?

     I didn’t move.

     He just stared at him. “What? You don’t hug?”

     I shook my head. “No. Goodbye. I’ll see you later.”

     I waved to him and hurried off to the entrance. Through the glass panel, I saw him sitting on the sofa and scrolling down his phone. From afar he didn’t look dangerous—just another lone man you saw every day in a restaurant on your way to work. But who knew what happened behind closed doors? I didn’t trust Alec. He was hiding something about himself. I should just stick to myself and my marriage. I looked away and walked down the pavement to my car, the morning sun illuminating the town.