Chapter 3: Widower
I got through the morning rush on muscle memory. Croissants, sourdough, the regular who wants his scone warmed but not hot. I smiled at everyone. I cut Caleb’s waffle into strips when my mom dropped him off at the bakery before school, and I kissed his sticky forehead and said, “Have a good day, buddy,” in my normal voice.
Then I closed early, which I have done exactly twice in six years, and went home and opened my laptop at the kitchen table.
Maya had sent me the link. The Seattle group had eleven thousand members. The post was from July. Ethan’s face filled half the screen: a selfie in the cockpit, the photo he uses everywhere, the one I took on his first day as captain.
Does anyone know this man? He told me he’s a widower. Something feels off.
There were forty-two comments. Most were women saying following or sending love. Two said he looked familiar. One said, Girl, run.
The woman who posted it was named Jess. Her profile said she taught second grade in Tacoma.
I sent her a message. I didn’t think about it long enough to stop myself.
Hi Jess. I’m Lauren. I think the man in your post is my husband. I’m very much alive. Could we talk?
Then I called my mother, because I needed someone to tell me I wasn’t losing my mind.
She listened to the whole thing. Then she was quiet for a long time.
“Lauren,” she said finally. “I’m not saying Ethan isn’t a liar. But that girl in Denver had no business contacting you. She should have dumped him and minded her own business. She didn’t have to blow up your family. You have a son.”
“She didn’t know I existed until last week, Mom.”
“Then she should’ve let you keep not knowing about her.”
I hung up a little harder than I meant to. I stood at the sink and looked at Caleb’s dinosaur drawings on the fridge, and I thought about what my mother wanted. Not for me to be happy. For me to be undisturbed. For the house to look the same from the street.
And I thought about Maya on her kitchen floor at four in the morning, deciding whether to ruin a stranger’s day. She had nothing to gain. She’d already lost him. She told me anyway, because she thought I’d want to know.
I did want to know. That was the part my mother couldn’t understand. I would rather have a terrible truth than a comfortable life built on top of one.
At 8:47 that night, my laptop pinged.
Jess: Can I call you?
I said yes. My phone rang ten seconds later.
She sounded older than Maya, steadier. A teacher’s voice. She told me she’d met Ethan on a dating app two years earlier. He’d told her he was based in Sacramento and spent his layovers in Seattle. He’d told her he had a son.
“And he told me about you,” she said.
I gripped the edge of the table. “About me?”
“Not your name. He called you his late wife. He said you died of cancer three years ago. He cried about it on our second date.” Her voice wavered. “Lauren, he showed me a picture.”
“What picture?”
“You. At a beach, holding a little boy on your hip. Red hair, a yellow sundress. He said, This was our last good summer.“
I knew the photo. Half Moon Bay, two years ago. It was the lock screen on Ethan’s phone.
“He told me his wife died,” Jess said softly. “He showed me your photo.”
