Chapter 7 - Travis Gave Me Half a Confession
I confronted Travis alone.
No Natalie.
No Owen.
Just father and son in the workshop where he had hidden the old fragment.
He didn’t deny going onto the lake this time.
He sat on the edge of his workbench, stared at the floor, and finally said:
“I followed her.”
“Why?”
“She was furious.”
“About what?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Our marriage.”
“That tells me nothing.”
He looked up.
“Claire found messages between Natalie and me.”
There it was.
The affair.
Painful.
Ugly.
But almost disappointingly ordinary compared with the terror I had built in my head.
Travis said Claire stormed out.
Took Blue Heron.
He and Natalie followed in the red runabout because Claire was crying and had been drinking earlier.
“We wanted her back on shore.”
“Did you hit her boat?”
“No.”
I put the fragment in front of him.
“Then explain the red paint.”
“Dock bumper.”
“There were no red bumpers.”
His face tightened.
Then he changed the story.
“Maybe we brushed her stern while coming alongside. Barely touched it.”
My stomach turned.
“You just said you never hit her.”
“It wasn’t a collision.”
“Did Claire know you were there?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Travis stood abruptly.
“I told you. We followed. She kept going. We turned around. She crashed later.”
That was his story.
For almost an hour, I wanted to believe it.
Then Owen came into my study that evening carrying his broken boat.
He set it on my desk.
“Grandpa?”
“What is it?”
“Dad said the red boat never hit Mommy’s boat?”
I looked at him sharply.
“Who told you that?”
“Natalie.”
“When?”
Owen looked confused.
“Last Easter.”
A full year before I had ever asked.
May you like
Natalie had been rehearsing the denial long before anyone accused her.
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