“You have it all wrong,” I insisted.
“Do I? Well, I guess we’ll see about that. I gave Detective Bushing the clothes you were wearing when you came back on Thursday. I told him to get your DNA and test it. If you killed Betsy Kern, they’ll find out.”
“I don’t care what the test shows. I didn’t kill anyone.”
“In other words, you already know the DNA will match.”
“I’m telling you, this is not what it looks like.”
She started packing again. “Go away, Dylan. Leave me alone. I don’t want to be in the same apartment with you.”
“Tai, please—”
“Go!” she screamed at me. “Get out! If you don’t go, I’ll call 911 and have them drag you out.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay. Whatever you want. I’ll go.”
I left the apartment, because I didn’t want her to get any more upset. She was wrong about me, wrong about who I was and what I’d done, but then again, she wasn’t wrong. No, I wasn’t a killer, but the DNA would probably say that I was. No, I wasn’t having an affair, but I was in love with Karly and would take her back in my arms if I could. I’d been cruel to Tai in this world, but it’s not like I’d been a saint to her in my own world. I’d led her on and told myself it was innocent, because I had no bad intentions. But it wasn’t innocent at all.
After I left the apartment, I took the stairs to Edgar’s place. My grandfather and I didn’t have a great relationship in any world, but I was running out of people to talk to. Roscoe and Tai had both thrown me out. I was feeling increasingly isolated by my mistakes.
Through the door, I heard the blare of a game show on his television. I had a key, so I let myself in. He was asleep in a recliner, his snores blowing like a trumpet. Seeing him like that, alone, gave me a shiver. Despite the six decades between us, I can always see the family resemblance. It’s not just him and me. I can see my father in both of our faces, too. His ghost is never far away.
When I shut off the television, the sudden silence jarred Edgar awake. He blinked with surprise, seeing me sitting on the sofa opposite him.
“You’re up here?” he growled. “Am I dying or something?”
I gave a sad smile. “No.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“I just wanted to see how you were.”
Edgar reached for a warm open can of Budweiser. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Okay. Well, if you want the truth, Tai is downstairs packing. She didn’t want me around.”
“She leaving you?”
“Yes.”
“You cheat on her?”
“It’s complicated. Mostly, I think she just figured out that I wasn’t in love with her.”
Edgar snorted. “I’m pretty sure she knew that from the beginning.”
I thought about the Dylan whose life I’d taken over and the choice he’d made to be with Tai. I still didn’t understand it. “She said you told her not to marry me.”
“That’s right.”
“Sounds like everybody told her the same thing.”
“Yeah, so? Were we wrong?”
“I guess not.”
“So what are you going to do?” Edgar asked.
“What is there to do? She’s leaving.”
“Yeah. Give up. That sounds like you.”
“I don’t love her, Edgar. According to you and Roscoe, I never did. The best thing I can do is let her find someone who really does love her.”
Edgar laughed so hard he nearly spat out his beer. “That’s the best thing? For who, you or her? Aren’t you forgetting something? That girl was nuts about you from the beginning, and I assume she still is. Everyone told her you were damaged goods and she should run away, but she didn’t. That takes some balls, I’ll tell you. It’s not like she didn’t know what she was getting, but she saw something in you that you didn’t see in yourself. I gave her a lot of credit for that. Honestly, I gave you credit, too. I expected you to bail on her, but you stuck it out, at least until now. You worked your butt off to make a life with her, and it seemed to me like it was paying off. This past year, you were as happy as I’d ever seen you.”
I hadn’t heard that word very often in my life. “Happy? Tai made me happy?”
“Sure looked that way to me. I was beginning to think the two of you would go the distance. That would be a first in our family. I screwed things up, and your father — well, we both know about him. But you and Tai seemed to click. Made me glad to see it. I don’t know what the hell happened to ruin that, and I’m not judging anything you did, because I’m sure no angel myself. But it’s a shame. That’s all I’ll say. It’s a shame.”
Edgar’s admonition hit me like a punch to the gut.
Since I’d been here, the only thing I’d processed was the idea that the Dylan Moran who was married to Tai didn’t really love her. Not the way I loved Karly. That was all I needed to know. I saw a man who was nothing like me in any way other than our bodies. He was without fire, without passion, without a wife who was his soul mate. I looked into his closet and saw clothes that I hated and cuff links and cologne I’d never wear. It had literally never occurred to me that he was actually satisfied with his life. That he was wearing that cologne because his wife picked it out for him. That he went to Disney World and Hawaii because it made him happy to be with her. That he was trying hard to rise above his past and build a marriage that worked.
He was not me, and their relationship was not mine. But I’d taken that away from them. I’d destroyed their lives by coming here. Tai was about to walk away with her dreams shattered and her faith gone, and she had no idea why. She’d question herself and find it impossible to trust again. The man she’d loved had proven himself to be a total stranger, someone she didn’t know at all.
Because of me. Because I was a stranger.
Son of a bitch. What had I done?
“I have to go,” I told Edgar.
I knew what to do. Whether it was crazy or not, whether she believed me or not, I finally had to tell Tai the truth. I couldn’t let her walk away thinking that her Dylan had changed. The mistake wasn’t hers. I had to lay it all out and explain why her life had been turned upside down in a few short days. I also had to give her the hard truth that her real husband wasn’t coming back.
I left Edgar. I ran back downstairs and let myself inside our place.
“Tai!” I shouted.
She didn’t answer.
“Tai, I need to tell you something!”
And still there was only hurt silence.
“Please. Listen to me.”
I glanced out the windows. Her car was still at the curb; she hadn’t left. I went into the bedroom and saw her pink suitcase still on the bed, half-packed. The bathroom door was half-shut. The light was on inside. I went over and tapped my knuckles against the door.
“Tai? I’m sorry — I know you told me to go, but I really need to explain. It’s important.”
Still she ignored me.
I listened at the door, expecting to hear quiet tears, but all I heard from the other side was the noise of water running. When I looked down at my feet, I saw a stream of water creeping under the crack beneath the door, growing and spreading across the bedroom floor. My heartbeat took off with fear. I pushed the door open and went inside. Water flooded around my feet. When I glanced to my left, I saw the tub overflowing, cold water running down the fiberglass wall like a river overflowing its banks.
I took two steps and looked into the tub, and I wailed in disbelief. From under the crystal-clear water, Tai stared back at me, eyes wide open, mouth wide open. She wore the yellow dress she’d been wearing a few minutes ago, its sunny fabric now pasted to her skin. I knew she was dead, but I turned off the water and grabbed her torso and pulled it toward me. Her body was a limp weight, unmoving, her skin already frigid. Her face never changed; her fixed eyes stared at me with the same terrified expression.