The resort wristband included the name of an event called the Azure Coast Wellness Retreat.
I searched public photographs from the event.
There were images of yoga classes, sunset dinners, couples drinking from coconuts, and guests posing beside a seashell-covered sign.
After nearly two hours, I found Grant.
He stood beside a woman with auburn hair and a yellow sundress.
His arm was around her waist.
She was leaning against him.
The caption read:
Best surprise vacation ever. Five days with my favorite person.
The photograph had been uploaded on the first morning of the trip.
Tessa had not met him at the resort.
Grant had planned the vacation with her.
I opened her public profile.
She worked at a bookstore.
She volunteered at an animal shelter.
She had a teenage son.
There were no older photographs of Grant, but one post from six weeks earlier caught my attention.
Some people enter your life when you least expect it.
Grant had responded with a heart.
I took screenshots of everything.
Then I sent Tessa a message from my real account.
My name is Rachel. Grant is my husband.
I found the note you left in his suitcase.
I am not angry with you, but I need to understand what happened.
She read it twenty minutes later.
No reply came.
By lunchtime, I assumed she would block me.
Then my phone rang from an unknown number.
“Is this Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“This is Tessa.”
I stepped into the backyard and closed the door behind me.
“Thank you for calling.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I believe you.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think you understand. He told me you were his sister.”
For a moment, I thought I had misheard her.
“His sister?”
“He showed me a photograph of you both at a barbecue. He said you were his older sister and that he had been staying with you after his divorce.”
“We have been married for eleven years.”
Tessa made a broken sound on the other end of the line.
“He told me his ex-wife left him for another man. He said she emptied their savings and that he had not trusted anyone since.”
