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The longer the soul-sucking streak continued, the more aterrifying thought haunted her. Maybe the years where she functioned and slept and didn’t feel crushed into the ground by questions and problems were a fantasy. A period of aberration. It could be moments of lucidity—now rare—were the outliers before the final blow.
She was just so sick of feelingnot right. Off. Hazy and alone. She missed Abby. She wanted to know who Concerned was so they could talk and figure out what happened.
She really wanted to think of something other than dead wives and conflicting stories. Harris and Josh laughed and joked and played with Nathan. Watching those moments used to bring her so much joy but now left her feeling hollowed out and flat.
She’d taken a break from therapy because she’d been convinced that reliving the shooting over and over made everything worse. That therapy trapped her in a death spiral. But losing her family and her footing was the ultimate hit. Therapy, the one thing she’d insisted she didn’t need, might actually be what could save her... or maybe the therapist would tell her to leave the Abby issue alone. That was something Elisa couldn’t do.
She went into the house. She’d barely shut the front door behind her before she saw him. Josh stood in the middle of the family room. Staring at her.
She backed right into the closed door. “What are you doing here?”
His gaze bounced down to her hands. That’s when she realized she had wrapped her fingers around the house key and held it out like a weapon.
He lifted both palms, but his blank expression didn’t change. “I was trying not to scare you.”
He certainly failed on that. “By coming in while I wasn’t here?”
“Sorry. It seemed like an emergency.”
Yeah, he was always sorry. “I’m getting tired of people sneaking up on me in my own house.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You and your girlfriend need to text first.”
“Since when?”
Elisa forced her muscles to relax and eased away from the door. A lecture on the appropriate times to use the spare key could wait. She needed both Rachel and Josh to hear that one, but she still didn’t get his unexplained appearance. Even if Rachel called to tell him about the storage unit, he couldn’t have gotten here from Center City in time to beat her home.
“Always. Why aren’t you at the office?” Suddenly everyone shared her flexible hours, and she didn’t like that one bit. People dropping in unannounced was one of her least favorite things, regardless if she was working.
“I needed to talk with you,” he said.
About Abby? About the empty storage locker? About dead wives and someone going by the name Concerned who knew secret details about his past? Elisa needed answers to all of that and knew she wouldn’t get them from him.
A tiny voice told her to hold on to the keys just in case, but she dropped them in the bowl by the door anyway. Next came her coat. She hung it in the hall closet, trying to keep up the pretense of this all being normal.
By the time she stepped into the family room her control had returned . . . what little she had these days. Panic no longer clogged her throat and the trembling in her hands was no longer obvious and visible. It continued to run through her, but she vowed not to let it show.
She sat on the armrest of the couch and stared at him. Those limited movements took so much out of her. Energy drained away and her mind clouded. She couldn’t remember where they were in the conversation. Did he owe an explanation or had she not asked the right question?
He sat in the chair right across from her. He wrung his hands together and looked at the floor. When he finally glanced up, it was to stare at the family portrait hanging above the fireplace. The photo where they had to bribe a then-four-year-old Nathan with the promise of a trip to the park to get him to look at the camera.
As if he read her mind, Josh nodded toward the portrait. “I can’t believe how young he is there. Sometimes I wonder if he even remembers Candace.”
Dead wife number two. At this rate, Nathan would have memories of a lot of missing or dead women in Uncle Josh’s life and no explanation about why they were gone. “We look through photos sometimes, and I tell him about Candace,” Elisa said.
“He never asks me about her.” Josh shrugged. “Like, when we’re driving or eating or anything.”
She didn’t understand the strange walk down memory lane. Especially from a guy who liked to pretend the past didn’t exist.
“Josh, why are you here? I don’t think a visit in the middle of the workday has anything to do with your nephew.” It felt extreme, as if he knew he had to get to her quickly.
“Lauren. My actual first wife.”
So, not the storage unit. She guessed he didn’t know she’d been there. Rachel hadn’t gotten to him yet.
“Ah, yes. The big lie.” In a regular week it would be the only thing on her mind. This week it counted as only one horror of many.
