Before Ever After Read Online Free

“Please, call me Shelley.”
    “Uh, okay. Shelley. I have to warn you that what I’m about to show you will be a … well, a bit of a shock.”
    She doubted him. Sanity was overrated. Going mad was surprisingly refreshing. In fact, she should have done this earlier.
    Paolo clicked on an archived entry. “I also have to tell you now that I can give you no explanation for what you are about to see.”
    Shelley liked what she had seen so far and grinned even wider. She wandered through the familiar sun-kissed landscape of Paolo’s face, pausing to admire the flawed perfection of his slightly hooked nose. She sighed, wondering why she couldn’t be hallucinating about her husband and not just his facsimile.
    “Shelley? Did you hear what I said?”
    “What? A shock? Oh, yes.” She turned to the computer screen. A picture of baked eggs and cheese appeared in front of her. There was a caption beneath the familiar dish:
    “Sundays with Shell,” an unforgettable masterpiece I found on my recent trip to Boracay Island
.
    Shelley frowned, trying to comprehend what she was seeing.
    “Go on. Read the rest of it.” Paolo let Shelley take the seat in front of the desk. She was going to need it soon enough.
    She skimmed over the article that praised the dish as the surprising find on the anonymous blogger’s backpacking trip to Boracay, a resort island in the Philippines. The dish was served at The Shell, a rustic café perched on a limestone cove overlooking the sea.
    I was lucky enough to find an old friend in Boracay, which brought back all of the memories of my very first backpacking adventure. And then there were the eggs. Be warned: The Shell is only open on Sunday mornings and only serves eggs, so don’t make the mistake of dropping in at any other time, because my friend has made itclear that he will not throw the rope ladder down even if you are drowning or being feasted on by sharks. Check out the gallery to see the pictures from my trip.
    “I don’t understand. Why did you show me this?” Shelley asked. True, the baked eggs looked uncannily similar to what Max used to make. True, it was an odd coincidence that the dish shared her name—then again, shells weren’t exactly unheard-of on tropical beaches. But what did a café halfway around the world have to do with Paolo’s preposterous claims about Max? It began to dawn on her that perhaps she was not experiencing a mad delusion after all, and that she had just let a very strange man into her home.
    “Go to the gallery and take a look at photo number three,” Paolo said.
    “All right. But after that you’ll have to go. I mean it.”
    Shelley clicked on the gallery button. A dozen thumbnail pictures appeared on the page. She double-clicked on the third picture in the series.
    An uncropped photo of the baked eggs and cheese dish filled the screen. In the background was a shirtless man sipping a mug of coffee. His face was turned sideways to the camera, the profile of his slightly hooked nose distinct against the sunlight. Catching the sun on his tan chest was the chain and Scrabble pendant she had given Max. The date printed at the bottom of the picture showed that it had been taken less than two months ago.
    It was an hour before Shelley spoke again. There was a bitterness in her voice that hadn’t been there before. “How is this possible? Max is dead. He’s been dead for three years.”
    “That’s why I came looking for you, Shelley,” Paolo said. “To find answers.”
    “Answers? You came to me for answers? Jesus, I don’t even know what damned questions to ask. How? What? Why?”
    “Actually, ‘who’ might be a good place to start.”
    Shelley looked out the window. The row of brick town houses across the street looked exactly as it always did. And so did the parked cars and the people walking past them. This was odd, she thought, considering how her world had just turned upside down. She had half expected to see at least one goldfish fly