I took a screenshot and then hated myself for doing it. I wasn't gathering souvenirs from my wife's vacation; I was documenting whether the story she'd told me was accurate. That was a distinction I'd never wanted to make in our marriage. I set the phone down, stood up, and walked into the kitchen. The apartment seemed unusually warm, though the thermostat displayed the same temperature it always did.
Then I opened Celeste's public social media page. She'd posted a photograph of a swimming pool so blue it looked almost painted, with a line of palm trees beyond it and the ocean filling the background. Two cocktails stood on a small table beside the water. The caption said something about finally learning to relax. There were no faces in the picture, no visible people except a distorted reflection in one of the curved glasses.
I zoomed in because the reflection caught a sliver of sunlight in a way that seemed familiar. It showed the outline of a forearm resting near the table and a large silver watch. I knew it was foolish to identify someone from a reflection in glass, and I told myself as much. But I remembered the summer barbecue, Grant Whitaker's proud display of his watch, and Celeste explaining later that it was a beautiful thing to want. My stomach turned before I found any proof.
I placed the phone facedown on the couch and walked through the apartment for nearly twenty minutes. I went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator without wanting anything, and closed it again. I entered the bedroom, saw the empty space where Celeste's suitcase usually stood, and turned around. Biscuit followed me for several laps, growing increasingly concerned that we were going somewhere without taking his leash. I finally sat on the floor beside him because I didn't trust myself to stop moving any other way.
A year's worth of memories came back with new edges. The late-night team meetings, the weekend client calls, the business dinners where Grant happened to be present, the way Celeste could spend an hour telling me how impressed he was with her work. I remembered the wine tasting she'd attended when I was repairing a hospital cooler overnight and the concert she said Briana had invited her to at the last minute. None of those memories proved what had happened. They did make me understand how much of our recent life I had experienced secondhand, through explanations delivered after the fact.
We had a shared email address for household bills. It was an old account we'd opened when we moved into the rental, and both of us had used it for years to receive utility statements, travel confirmations for joint trips, and notices from the landlord. Over time, Celeste had moved most of her personal business to another address, and I had assumed the old inbox contained nothing but electricity bills and advertisements for insurance. It was an account I was authorized to access, and that mattered to me. I didn't want to break into any private account to find a truth that might not be there.