Page 33 of Call Off the Dark

“Doctors have observed brain activity ten minutes after a person’s heart has stopped beating,” Isaac said.

Helen fixed her vision on the far wall. How nice that Isaac lived in a reality where he could assume that others hadn’t seen a loved one die and that educating them on the science of it would be a welcome intellectual conversation.

He added, “The genes can also keep functioning for days. Apparently.”

She looked at him sharply. “What does that even mean?”

“I’m not a scientist, but there’s been studies that show activity in the cells of dead bodies.”

Helen set her spoon down. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Isaac had only a moment to register surprise before Wade interrupted, his voice cold and hard. “How did you find us, Isaac?”

Isaac’s response came out friendly. “That letter you sent Aunt Sue.”

Wade tilted his head and narrowed his eyes.

“I was proud of you, Brother. Buying up such a large piece of land like you always dreamed. So how is timber management going?”

“Just fine,” Wade said curtly.

When he didn’t elaborate, Helen jumped in. She needed to get her mind into a better place, and she needed to try to salvage this bizarre little dinner party. “Today he was out marking the trees that need to be removed. When the sunlight and rain can’t get in, some of the trees will start to die if you don’t thin them.”

“Ahhh,” Isaac said slowly, as if coming to a realization of great importance. “Sometimes you have to kill one to save the rest. Right, Wade?”

Abruptly, Wade stood, his chair scraping loudly on the floor. “Helen, I need to talk to you. In the bedroom.” He barked it at her as if she were an unruly child.

Helen felt the heat in her face. In the early days of her marriage to Wade, she had told herself that it wasn’t fair for her to compare him to Tyler. All marriages were different, and Tyler had been a special kind of special that most people never find. Comparisons would just make her (and Wade) unhappy. More and more, though, she found herself thinking, Tyler would never do that. Tyler would never talk to me like this. Tyler would never act like that.

She took a moment, then stood and followed Wade out of the room.

Chapter Fourteen

Ten years, one month, and one day ago

The sun was hitting off the bay, casting a golden glow over the entire neighborhood.

As Helen peered out the passenger window of the parked car, she was struck by how enchanting Tyler’s childhood home was. It was a storybook house with three little pointed, gabled roofs. The uneven shingles made her think of straw hatch.

The entire street was charming, each house unique, but all with a front yard facing the bay as the suburban blocks sloped downward toward the water. It was the kind of neighborhood Helen would love to jog in and pick out favorite houses as she ran past.

“You grew up in Hansel and Gretel’s house,” she said.

“Can we please not bring up fairy tales with witches in them?”

Tyler’s eyes were teasing though. That morning, he’d awoken beside her at the bed and breakfast in a lighter mood, no longer as nervous about introducing her to his father, siblings, and not-so-nice stepmother.

Helen asked, “Don’t most fairy tales have witches in them?”

“No, some have wolves that eat grandmothers and little girls.”

“But in the end, a lumberjack cuts the wolf open and saves them.”

“Sorry to break it to you, Helen. That’s the kid-friendly version. In the original version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ the wolf wins. He eats the grandma and then the little girl, and he flees the house, happy and full.”

She gasped, pretend-scandalized. “That’s dark.”

He smiled. “Very.”