Could I have asked him more about his trip to Kansas? Sure. But I wouldn’t have. I had stopped doing that a long time ago. In the beginning of our marriage, I’d pepper him with questions about his job. But he would give me clipped answers, finally admitting he saw his job selling web conferencing software simply as a means to an end—a paycheck. One day, he’d leave and start his own business. He had ideas, ones that didn’t involve the lack of legroom in seat seventeen C or the gate agent who loved to scold you if your carry-on was larger than twenty-two by sixteen by ten inches. He liked his job and was very good at what he did, but he hated all the travel that went along with it. So I learned not to ask about it. And definitely not to bring up his plans to leave.
I never thought he was lying about jaunting off to Sioux Falls or Wichita. I believed he would have much rather been home with me every night. Our marriage was far from perfect, but did I think he was cheating on me? Never. Not even in hindsight. Maybe that made me naive or stupid or a little bit of both, but I was happy I wasn’t one of those wives with trust issues. I’d heard it all from friends whose husbands traveled—that they required their spouses to check in several times a day, to supply them with a full itinerary, to regale them with details about their trips when they returned back home. I didn’t want to be like that. Requiring it. As if he were my employee.
I liked receiving the texts he sent on his own, which came frequently—quips about the sea of Nebraska Cornhusker shirts he saw in Omaha or the endless number of BMWs he spotted in Dallas. He’d text selfies while stuck on the tarmac. I could reach him whenever I needed to. So did I get his travel plans like those controlling wives I know? I didn’t. Clearly, I should have. Those women obviously understand how the world works much better than I do. Their husbands may resent the hell out of them, but they are home safe, while mine has just been delivered to a columbarium at the Good Shepherd Cemetery.
So maybe if I’d been more checked in to my husband’s life, I wouldn’t have been so shocked by what Officer Keoloha told me when I called him the day after the memorial.
It turns out that James hadn’t been alone when he died.
He’d been driving down the Hana Highway in a rented Jeep Wrangler with a twenty-four-year-old woman named Dylan Matthews.
And my first thought? I’d once asked him to rent a cherry-red one when we’d taken a road trip up to Monterey, and he’d scoffed at the price. I think my mind went there because it couldn’t handle the reality of what I was hearing. That he’d been in Hawaii with someone who wasn’t me.
According to the officer, Dylan’s body had washed up on shore two weeks after the crash. At first they didn’t put it together that she could have been with James in the accident. But after investigating, they’d found her name on the same flight manifest as his and at the Westin Ka‘anapali, where they’d stayed; she’d shared the same room number as him and had charged a manicure and pedicure to it. Her signature was also on many of the slips from drinks and food they’d ordered at the hotel. And then there had been the surfers who’d watched James pull Dylan in and kiss her hard on the morning of the accident. Actually, the way they’d described it was “getting up on each other on the side of the Jeep.” That detail stings. A lot. But not as much as imagining this woman getting her nails done on my husband’s dime. Somehow that feels more intimate.
But that wasn’t all. There were other sightings. The day they’d driven the road to Hana, they’d stopped at the Kuau Store, just past the town of Paia, on the Hana Highway. According to the cashier who had worked that shift, James and Dylan had just taken pictures at the famous surfboard fence and were laughing about how Dylan was posing for a selfie and fell back into the boards. And James’s credit card charges confirmed he’d been there. He purchased goat cheese, salami, a bottle of wine, coconut water, banana bread, and a Road to Hana CD guide. As I listened to the officer rattle off the information, I couldn’t decide which detail about their trip bothered me the most: the Jeep James wouldn’t rent for me, the romantic picnic lunch I imagined them enjoying as they sat by a waterfall, or the CD. James and I had always laughed at the people who got all touristy and bought things like that. Had I known my husband at all?
But there was information I still wanted that Officer Keoloha couldn’t uncover from credit card statements or the memories of store clerks. Why had they been in Maui together? How long had they been seeing each other? Did he love her?
Did he love her more than me?
Officer Keoloha tried to be empathetic but still said hugely unhelpful things, like, “I’m sorry,” and, “If there’s anything I can do,” as I’d choked on my sobs, the tears finally falling hard—like the waterfalls I imagined James had hiked to with the woman who ruined my life.
CHAPTER FIVE
JACKS—AFTER
Here are the things I now know about the road to Hana after obsessively Googling it: It’s 52 miles of highway.
It passes over 59 bridges.
There are more than 600 curves.
It carves into the cliffs of one of the most beautiful rain forests in the world.
Because of its many winding roads, blind turns, distracting views, one-lane roads, and tall cliffs, it is considered dangerous. (As one of the websites described: It can bring you to God in more ways than one.) No shit.
Apparently there are multiple fatalities there every year from people falling off the 300-to 1,000-foot cliffs (some in cars, some on foot) and hitting the lava rocks below.
My husband and Dylan Matthews are now on that list.
Here’s what my Google search didn’t provide: Any helpful information about Dylan Matthews.
I learned only that she graduated from a high school in a small town outside of Phoenix. She had no Facebook profile I could locate, no Twitter account. She wasn’t on Instagram. A very poor millennial, if you ask Beth.
I’m pulled out of my thoughts by the doorbell. I squeeze my eyes and mentally will whoever is outside to leave. I can’t face another well-meaning neighbor with a casserole. I’ve started to polish the already-gleaming stovetop when the knocking begins. The longer I ignore it, the more incessant it becomes. Finally I peer through the peephole and see the back of a man’s head, his wavy hair not giving anything away as to who he might be. He turns and cocks his arm to knock again, and I take in his dark eyes and square jaw, not recognizing him. Is he one of James’s friends? I received several emails, phone calls, and cards in the mail from old buddies of his who couldn’t make the service; maybe this guy is one of them, in which case I can’t leave him standing there. I open the door slightly, leaving the chain on.
“Hi,” he starts. “Are you Jacqueline Morales?”
I hesitate, then nod. “Yes. Jacks to most.”
I notice a motorcycle parked next to the curb.
“I’m Nick Ford.”
I look at him as if to say, And?
He steps closer. “You don’t know me, but I need to talk to you.” He pauses as a woman walks by with her golden retriever. “It’s about your husband.”
I glance down at the welcome mat, his worn cowboy boots grazing the edge. “Okay?” I say as I look back up into his dark-gray eyes, which feel familiar to me somehow.
“Can I come in?”
I feel uncomfortable letting a stranger into my house, but there’s something about his demeanor that’s disarming. I remove the chain and step outside, closing the door behind me. “I’d rather talk out here.” I smile slightly to let him know I’m not trying to be rude.
“I don’t know how to say this. I had it all planned out, but now, looking at you, it just seems wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
I stare down at my boyfriend jeans rolled at the ankles, my bare feet, the chipped pale-pink polish on my toes. I smooth my still-unbrushed hair, wondering what he means. Now that he’s looking at me, it seems wrong? “How did you know James?”
“I didn’t.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and takes a deep breath. “But my fiancée, Dylan Matthews, did. And I’m here to find out why she was in Maui with your husband.”
CHAPTER SIX