Page 69 of Statler

Screw this, and screw their attitudes. Eliza hadn’t done anything wrong except for being born to the wrong man, and that was in no way her fault.

“Fine,” she dipped her chin in a terse nod. “I’ll stay for your interrogation, but then I’m leaving.”

She stared at Statler, daring him to tell her differently, but he didn’t.

Great.

He really didn’t want her here. He just wanted answers.

Blue came back out with Eliza’s orange soda, and thanking her, Eliza reached for it with both hands. She hung onto it like a lifeline; the cold biting into her palms. She welcomed the grounding it gave her.

“I’m ready to answer any questions you have,” Eliza told them. “So ask.”

“Are you married?” Statler queried.

Interesting, that he should lead with that question. Maybe he wasn’t as aloof as he seemed.

“Yes. I mean no,” Eliza amended. “I mean I was. Once.”

“And your last name is Belle?” he continued, ignoring her mixed-bag of words.

“That’s right. It’s my married name. I kept it.”

“You’re divorced?”

The pain always hit her, mid-chest, when she thought of the Holden she’d known at the start, as opposed to the one who’d been ripped from her life after that final, disastrous year.

Eliza rubbed her sternum, almost unconsciously.

“No. My husband died,” she clipped.

Blue’s eyes found Eliza’s.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks. It was…unexpected. He died in a hunting accident a year ago.”

Some kind of inexplicable current swept through the group, and Eliza saw them exchanging side glances.

“What was his name,” Sherbert asked, with what sounded like more than idle curiosity.

“Holden,” Eliza told them, because why wouldn’t she? “We’d been married for just under four years.”

Now, the tension on the porch was downright palpable.

“What?” she asked snippily.

Why would any of these people know or care about Holden?

“He was…new to town when you met him?” Pipes probed, ignoring her effrontery.

Eliza had no idea why that mattered, but she’d give them a thumbnail sketch. After all, Holden was dead.

“He moved to town during my senior year of high school, and I instantly fell in love,” she revealed. “He didn’t.”

Swallowing deeply, Eliza continued.

“He was everyone’s best friend back then; gregarious, outgoing, the captain of the football and baseball teams. I was…just a plain girl with a crush. He was so far out of my league, it wasn’t funny.”