Chapter 3: The Room at the End of the Hall
Harold's business partner excused himself without a word.
The guests nearby drifted away slowly, the way people do when they sense something private is about to become ugly.
Harold looked down at Mia.
"Is there someone who can sit with her?"
"My colleague Janet is here." My voice was flat.
"I'll ask her."
I found Janet by the drinks table, handed Mia over with a smile I didn't feel, and followed Harold through the sliding glass doors into the house.
He led me down a hallway lined with framed photographs.
I had walked this hall before, at Christmas dinners, at birthday gatherings.
I had never looked closely at the photos.
I looked now.
Mike was in several of them.
Standing beside Harold.
Younger, laughing, his arm thrown over Harold's shoulder.
Photos I had never seen.
Moments I had never heard about.
Harold opened a door at the end of the hall.
A study.
Dark wood, two chairs, a desk.
He closed the door behind us.
"Sit down," he said.
"I'll stand."
He nodded once.
He sat.
"Mike and I grew up together," he said.
"Before your family.
Before the company.
We were seventeen when we met."
"I know that.
He told me you were college friends."
"We were more than that." Harold's hands were flat on his knees.
"For about three years, before he met you, we were — we were very close.
In a way he was never comfortable talking about."
The room was very quiet.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying Mike loved you completely.
What he felt for you was real.
But there was a part of his life he kept separate.
He kept it from you because he was ashamed of it.
Not of me — of himself.
Of the fact that he hadn't told you."
"The tattoo," I said.
"We got them together.
Same night.
Same design.
His idea." Harold touched the spot behind his ear without thinking.
"He said it was a private mark.
He was right about that.
It just wasn't only private to the two of you."
My throat tightened.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because Mia recognized it." His voice broke slightly on her name.
"Because she's four years old and she pointed at me and said her father was there, and I realized — I realized she deserved better than a secret."
"She's four.
She recognized a tattoo she must have seen when Mike held her."
"Yes."
I sat down then.
Not because I wanted to.
My legs made the decision.
"How long were you going to keep this from me?"
Harold looked at the window.
"I told myself it didn't matter anymore.
He was gone.
You were grieving.
What good would it do?"
"It would have let me grieve the right person."
He turned back.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I spent a year mourning a man I thought I completely knew." My voice stayed even.
I was surprised by that.
"And now I find out there was a version of him that existed before me — that existed alongside me, maybe — that you knew and I didn't."
"It wasn't alongside you.
I promise you that.
When Mike married you, that chapter was closed."
"But you stayed in our lives."
"As his friend.
Only as his friend."
"And the tattoo."
Harold was quiet for a moment.
"He never removed it.
I never removed mine.
We agreed we wouldn't.
It was the only thing left of something that had mattered to both of us." He looked at me steadily.
"I'm not asking you to be comfortable with this.
I'm asking you to believe that he loved you.
Fully.
And that he was afraid — not of you, but of losing you."
I stared at the framed photo on Harold's desk.
Mike at what looked like a hiking trail, laughing at whoever was holding the camera.
"Is there anything else?" I asked.
Harold hesitated.
One second too long.
"Harold.
Is there anything else?"
He reached into the desk drawer and set an envelope on the surface between us.
My name was written on the front in Mike's handwriting.
"He gave me this two weeks before he d*ed," Harold said.
"He asked me to use my judgment about when to give it to you."
I didn't touch it.
"You've had this for a year."
"Yes."
"A whole year."
"I wasn't sure you were ready."
I looked at the envelope.
Then at Harold.
"And now?"
May you like
"Mia pointed at me in front of forty people," he said quietly.
"I think Mike would say the time is now."
