AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She felt this hit her in the stomach. Had to force herself to breathe.
“Is that what my father-in-law said?”
“Showed us his call log.”
“He called my husband?”
The sergeant shook his head. “Sometimes. But your husband called him, too.”
She rubbed her temples with her knuckles as if to knead knowledge of this betrayal from her brain. Imagined her husband calling from the tarmac, the car, the poison of her father-in-law’s voice trickling into his ear somewhere far from home so she’d never know. And he must have deleted the call records. There’d been no call with her father-in-law listed when she’d picked up her husband’s phone to take condolences, then absentmindedly scrolled back in time on his call log, mistily picturing him calling this or that friend.
Maybe he called his dad to yell at him. To test him. See if he’d apologize. Guess you’ll never know. Because you certainly can’t believe anything the old man says.
She tried not to cry.
“I wish he’d told me they were talking. His dad’s approval meant a lot to him, you know?”
“Aside from…tension…with your father-in-law, any other issues?”
She shook her head. “That was the big thing. But…you’re married long enough, and some of the things you used to find endearing get to be annoying, you know? He used to like that I was shy. It let him be the outgoing, social one. And I used to like how adventurous he seemed, flying around. But over the years? He wanted me to be more extroverted. Fit in better? I wanted him to be safe, get a different plane. Help with the chores more. With the kids.”
She looked out the kitchen window. Saw a robin on the stone wall, unseasonably fat. Felt the painful roots in her chest where her husband’s voice still whispered, “Was there something you did? Something you maybe said that set him off?” Wished desperately that her husband were there now to explain himself. That he were there not helping with the chores, insisting whatever he had in mind was more important. Capable and interested and trying to lure her into the sun. He’d tell her the truth. He’d extract the painful, spreading growth of this betrayal.
“I just…I miss him. I miss him more than…” She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “We were happy,” she said. “Now that he’s gone, every argument seems so…small.”
“Did you push your husband down the stairs?”
She thought it was important to look the sergeant in the eye when she answered.
“No,” she said quietly. “I didn’t.”
“Well,” the sergeant said, settling back on his stool, “I hope it’s some comfort that we’ve ruled his death an accident.”
“Oh,” she said, taken aback by the unexpected speed of theresolution, that these questions had been the last steps and not the first. “Did you tell my father-in-law that?”
“Yeah.” The sergeant shook his head, edge of a sardonic smile flickering. “He wasn’t too happy. Told us, ‘Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.’ ”
“He was a lawyer, once upon a time.”
“He mentioned that, too.”
“He always does,” she said. “How’d you determine that? That it was an accident?”
“The body. The way he fell. The blood. The way your stairs are laid out, nearly impossible to give someone an effective shove from the top. Especially given how small you are. It’s not a big flight. A fall down your steps wouldn’t normally do that kind of harm. Just a freak thing he hit the table here on the way down.” The sergeant tap-tap-tapped the side of his head to indicate point of impact. “Catching the edge of the table’s what did it. And, of course, because of what your children said.”
She jerked her eyes to his. “You talked to my kids?”
“Sure, day of. You don’t remember that?”
“It’s kind of a blur.”
“Of course.” He nodded, but underneath she sensed a shimmer of judgment, a tremble of “what kind of mother forgets about her children on a day like that?”
“What did—what did they say?”
“Same as you. Their dad was going to leave early. They were asleep. You and your husband got along. Happy family. Then, of course, there was your reaction.” She must have looked confused, because he added, “You were upset. But cooperative.”
She remembered rocking back and forth, covered in blood. She remembered having to strip naked. Remembered their taking photos as she tried to stay standing, the strength all gone from her legs,her spine. And apparently she’d let the police sneak upstairs and speak to her children without her there. She wondered what, exactly, had been so correct, so unsuspicious, in all that.
