Page 115 of You Know Why

I had kissed, and been kissed, plenty of times. I’d even been in love before. Serious love, do-anything-for-you love.

But no one had ever kissed me like that. An elemental kiss. A kiss that changed everything.

We didn’t leave my room for three days. And then we moved to a smaller, more intimate space—the place with the rainbow blanket—and made Four.

God, we were so happy. Love happens fast sometimes. You just know that you’ve found your person, and your life before peels away, and your life ahead becomes the only thing that matters.

The day I realized I was pregnant, we were shopping for dinner. We’d fallen into a groove—wake, make love, walk the city, explore, have coffee, shop, cook food. Trey was watching me from across the orange stall. “We should stop at the farmacia.”

“Not feeling well?” I asked.

“Not me. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Why? I feel fine.” I stopped to think about that. I was a little tired, but I didn’t feel ill. But looking at him, that fabulous grin he had now sparkling with anticipation, I started counting. We’d been careful, but it had been six weeks since my last period—not unusual for me, I’d always been irregular. The second I allowed myself to think about it, though, I knew. I dropped the basket I was carrying with all the food and juice and marched directly across the plaza to the farmacia. Trey danced around the living room while I went to the bathroom. A second line turned pink before the control line was even reached.

The emotions coursing through me were overwhelming, but Trey assuaged all my fears. “I told you it was meant to be. Marry me. Let’s have a bebé. We’ll go back to Nashville, I’ll find a job, get us a sweet little house, and we can have a life together. I love you, Brooklyn Thomas.”

As proposals went, it was not a bad one. I accepted with alacrity, and that was it. We were bound together, forever.

Instead of going home immediately, though, we toured around Mexico and South America for the first several months of my pregnancy. Only then, when it was clear I needed to set up a nest, did we rent a place in Nashville. My aunt and uncle hired him because I asked them to. Just before I had Four, we found the house in Franklin.

I took his love at face value. Trey worshipped me. He was mad for his son. When Neve came along, he was over the moon. He worked hard, we had a good life, a nice life. We were happy.

Now

I open my eyes. These details are great, and I’ve enjoyed the stroll down memory lane. Glad that I’m able to, really. But none of it tells me what he said in Argentina that was relevant to him going missing now. He said a thousand things. New love does that. We talked constantly, all day, every day. From the moment he said “I was meant to find you,” our paths were cemented together.

“Meant to find you.”

Wait a minute. Was that what he said? I jam my eyes closed, try to bring back the soft air and unspoken promises of the rooftop. It’s wavering, though, the scents and sounds disappearing. And my own memory, faulty as it is, is screaming at me. I’ve misremembered something.

He said it differently. He said “I was sent to find you.”

Sent to find you.

And I said, “Sent? By whom?” And he’d shaken his head. “Meant to find you.”

I am sure, now, that he said he was sent to find me first.

Meant to find me—fate put our paths together, which is what I’d always believed.

Sent to find me is something altogether different.

Sent to find me means he wasn’t there by accident.

Sent to find me—by whom?

And it hits me. Everything—Trey leaving, the accident, the threats, the stolen money, the dead wife—ties back to San Miguel. There is a pattern to it all that I can finally see.

And I remember. I remember it all.

No More Lies

Ten Years Ago

It was our last night in Argentina. We’d decided it was time to go back to the US and make it official before the baby was born. We’d made it all the way to the tip of Patagonia, exploring everything we could find, but I was very pregnant, and now it was time to go home. I missed Margot, and I had a job offer from a friend I’d previously worked with, who had taken over a food magazine. She wanted me to run their specialty-food section, which meant I could work from home.

Trey could get work anywhere, but given his financial acumen, I’d introduced him to my aunt and uncle over FaceTime. They’d all hit it off, and I knew a job would be waiting for him upon our return. We could get married, have our baby, and be a little more settled for a while. It was not something I ever thought I wanted, until Trey. Until the creature we made that kicked my bladder all day and night, turning somersaults in my stomach. Until I fell in love with the idea of permanence. Until I was tamed by a beautiful man who adored me completely.