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“I just don’t understand.” I have to calm down but I can’t breathe properly. Thoughts are stumbling over each other and I can’t think straight. Is this a panic attack? Is this how they start?
“Babe, I have to tell you something—”
The beep, again, intense and relentless.Just go away, whoever you are.
“No, you don’t,” I interrupt. “We can talk later.”
“Anna, wait. I—”
“Please, Luis!” I don’t want to do this, why doesn’t he understand? “I have to go, I have to go to class.”
Then he says something so low I can barely make out what it is. Barely, but it sounds like, “I’m scared.”
I want to say, just tell them the truth and everything will be okay. But that’s not true. Nothing can be possibly okay after this. And I don’t want him to tell them the truth because then they’ll know. And everybody will know, and I’ll know for sure, that my husband didn’t love me anymore. That he loved her instead, and that she was carrying his child. And now she’s dead.
This is so bad. And yet I am numb. I have to pull myself together. People will be asking soon,Did you know her?I must say the right thing, think of her parents, her boyfriend, her colleagues, words of sorrow. But all I can think is,Will they do some kind of DNA analysis on the unborn child? And what did I do with my gloves again?
I have to think. There is no room for error now. “You still there?” he asks. I want to scream into the phone,This is all your fault! Why did you have to do this, Luis? Why did you want to leave me? We could have worked it out. You could have talked to me.
“I have to go, honey. I love you,” I say instead.
“Anna, listen—”
Tell me you love me. Say the words, Luis, say, ‘I love you too, I love you more than ever.’ Because whatever I did, babe, I did it for you. And that’s the whole truth.
But June walks in without knocking, and she’s about to say something but she sees my face.
“It’s going to be okay. I have to go.” And I hang up.
She comes over, sits down. “Everything all right? What’s happened?”
“I—just got really bad news.” I don’t say anymore, and she doesn’t pry.
“Anything I can do?”
I shake my head, gnaw at a fingernail. “No, I don’t think so. Did you want to talk to me about something?”
“I came to say a detective just called. He’s been trying to reach you.”
“A detective?”
“Yes, Detective Jones. He’s going to be here in fifteen minutes to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, he didn’t say.”
“But he can’t! I have a class in fifteen minutes!”
She checks her watch. “It’s okay. I’ll catch Rohan and get him to take it for you.” She stands up but I grab her arm, making her wince.
“June, wait a second, please. I need to talk to you. I won’t take long.”
She sits down again, this time on the very edge of the seat. I drag over my own chair so our knees are almost touching. “What’s up?”
“You know how you said to Luis that I was with you, around…” I look up, try to think, still gnawing at my fingernail.
“Around eleven?” she says.
