The following morning I rose before sunrise, dressed in a simple gray outfit, and went downstairs where Vanessa was already in the kitchen preparing chamomile tea.
“You woke up early, so I made you tea to help you relax,” she said while sliding a cup toward me.
The familiar scent that once calmed me now turned my stomach, and I lifted the cup to my lips without drinking before setting it down and saying, “It is too hot, I will let it cool.”
She smiled, yet I noticed her shoulders tense for a brief second, which was a detail so small that I might have ignored it if not for the phone calls.
I told her I had a book club meeting and left in a taxi, clutching my purse tightly as if it held all that remained of my life.
Harbor Light Café sat tucked into a narrow side street near the marina, and inside it smelled of roasted coffee and old wood.
In the back corner near a window covered in ivy, I saw a thin man sitting with his back to me, and when he turned around my breath stopped.
He was thinner than before, with dark circles under his eyes and a faint scar across his forehead, yet his eyes were unmistakably my son’s.
“Mom,” he said softly as he stood.
I rushed into his arms and felt solid warmth, not air, and I cried harder than I had even at his memorial service.
“Where have you been, and why did you let me believe you were gone,” I asked between sobs.
He closed his eyes briefly and said, “I could not come back sooner, and I need you to tell me exactly what Vanessa said about the night I died.”
I repeated the story Vanessa had told me for two years about a party on a yacht, too much alcohol, and Logan slipping overboard while she screamed for help.
He clenched his fists and said, “That is not what happened.”
He leaned closer and whispered, “I overheard her on the phone that night talking about an insurance policy and about how your heart was weak enough that no one would question a sudden heart attack.”
I felt the room tilt and asked, “You think she planned to kill me.”
He nodded and continued, “When I confronted her and said I would divorce her and protect you, she pushed me over the railing.”
I covered my mouth while he explained that he had struck rocks and lost consciousness, and that a retired fishing couple named Walter and Judith Hayes had found him and taken him in.