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“A counselor?” I start to open the paper bag that contains a muffin I’ve brought for breakfast, then decide against it. I’m not hungry.
“Or even me. As a start. Maybe they’re afraid to talk to you.”
I scoff. “Why would they be afraid?”
“A lot has happened. Maybe they’d feel more comfortable talking to someone who isn’t so close to the situation.”
I’ve tried to reach my girls over the past few days. The morning after I found Greg murdered, I sat on the couch with them, cradling their bodies. Itriedto say things to make them feel better, safe. But I’d been in shock, too. All of my swirling emotions of horror and loss and anger stewed close to the surface. Perhaps I was more concerned about my own self-preservation right then, but can you blame me? I basically bathed in a pool of my husband’s blood. I was also the one who’d had those violent, angry thoughts about him just hours before he was stabbed.
I figured I’d just let them grieve on their own and then, in a few days, we’d talk. I also need to get that awkwardness out of my head first, so that I don’t tarnish their opinions of Greg now that he’s gone.
Unbidden, the image of Sienna and Greg sitting at his old kitchen table in Shadyside flashes back to me. How happy they were. How tickled I’d felt when I watched Sienna laughing for what seemed like the first time since Martin died. I flash on another memory, too: Aurora, at fourteen, rushing home from school so she could log into a website at precisely 3:00P.M., when Beyoncé tickets went on sale. But the bus had been late; by the time she logged in, the tickets were gone. Greg and I watched as she bit back tears. Fast-forward to the next night: Greg slyly sitting down to dinner and, with a twist of his mouth, pushing an envelope across the table to Aurora. She opened it, and her eyes popped wide. “How did youfindthem?” she screeched, and got up and threw her arms around Greg... just as one would a father.
Willa clears her throat. “There are a few other things I want toask you. Stuff I meant to ask yesterday... but things were so crazy...”
I swivel away from my computer to the window. Down on the street, the student bus, which takes kids to dorms all over campus, huffs past, kicking up a plume of black exhaust.
There’s a long pause. “Who was that guy you were talking to after the funeral?”
I curl my toes. I had a feeling Willa might ask. “Just a friend.”
“You looked... uncomfortable.”
I peer nervously into the hall, fearful that Lynn Godfrey is lurking around a corner somewhere, listening in. “I’m not particularly good at accepting people’s sympathy, that’s all. I haven’t exactly processed that Greg’s dead.”
“Okay,” Willa says. And then, after a pause: “Also, this other thing. Maybe I have my information wrong, but was Greg Martin’s surgeon?”
I roll a few inches back, my chair hitting the radiator behind my desk. The heat is on, and my spine is instantly too warm. “Yes. Yes, he was.”
“Is there a reason you never told me this?”
“I... don’t know. I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“You said Greg was part of the team that diagnosed him. Not that he’d been the guy who actuallyoperated on Martin’s heart.”
“You mean the guy who let him die,” I say stonily. “You mean the guy who deliberately killed him so we could be together.”
Now it’s Willa who’s silent. “Wait.” Her voice is small. “You mean... it’s true?”
“Of course not! But I know people talked. Of course they speculated about it after we got together. I guessthat’swhy I didn’t tell you what his role was. I didn’t want you to judge him.”
“Oh.” Willa sounds both relieved and sheepish. “Okay. I mean, it sounded a little far-fetched to me, too.” There’s an awkward pause.
I stare at the family photo in a silver frame on my desk. It’s of me,Greg, and Sienna and Aurora on that disappointing Barbados trip, though we’re smiling cheerfully for the camera. In my desk drawer is another family photo—of me, Sienna, and Aurora... and Martin. Not in Barbados—we never could have afforded Barbados—but at Ocean City, New Jersey. There’s significance to why I saved that photo and why, sometimes, I pull the drawer open and look at it. Maybe Idofeel guilty. Iwasunfaithful, in a way.
“I will say this,” I tell Willa. “Greg did sweep me off my feet the moment I met him. He was just so vibrant. Larger-than-life, the doctor who could save anyone. And he was... complimentary.”
“How so?”
“He kept saying how caring I was as a wife. He recognized that I had a lot on my plate and was impressed with how together I seemed.” I sigh. “Martin hadn’t recognized any of that in a long time. Which, I mean—it makes sense. He was so sick.Scared.But I’m still human. Greg’s attention felt good. And also...” I trail off, not wanting to tell her the rest.
“Also what?” Willa asks.
I lace my fingers around my coffee mug. There are certain limits to what I’ll admit. What will Willa think if I tell her that, when my eyes drifted to Greg’s expensive shoes and slick watch, I felt a deep, envious desire? And when the appointment was over and Martin’s surgery was set, when we were walking through the parking garage to find our car, I saw a beautiful Porsche parked in theRESERVED FOR DOCTORspot and almost blushed with lust? I’d fetishized Greg’s wealth and possessions. I’d become ravenously material.
“Greg called quite a bit, but we always talked about Martin,” I say instead. “Or, well,mostlyall about Martin.”
“What’s that mean?”
