Most kids, as Julia has been told over and over by various people, would only be too happy to announce to everyone they come across how old they are. But not Emma. Emma buries her face in Julia’s shoulder and refuses to look at the officers, who in turn give awkward smiles to Julia. Marshall’s words echo in Julia’s head: It’s fucking embarrassing, the way she behaves. Why can’t she be a normal kid?
Julia swallows and gestures at the officers to sit down on the couch. Their couch is much nicer than it has any right to be, its base made of solid wood, the seats covered with real leather. It’s one of Marshall’s picks, of course. He always goes for the most expensive options, charging everything to his credit cards and assuring her that money will be coming in, so why not invest in their future comfort? He loves this word, “invest,” uses it for every frivolous purchase he makes.
She herself sinks onto an armchair next to the sofa and shifts Emma from her hip to her lap. Belatedly, Julia realizes that she should offer the officers a drink, some water at least. But Emma is heavy on her lap, and she doesn’t want these officers to stay any longer than they have to. She hardly slept at all last night; how could she, after everything that happened? And she’s tired now, so tired.
As though sensing her eagerness to get this done and over with, Officer Ha clears his throat and leans forward a little. “Is your husband Marshall Chen?”
“Is there a playroom we can play in?” Officer Gray cuts in, smiling at Emma, who’s peeking at her.
At the thought of being separated from Julia, Emma closes up, smushing her little face into Julia’s chest and shaking her head fiercely. Julia holds her tight. “It’s okay, she can stay.”
“Are you sure? We’re here with ah, sensitive information.”
Julia nods and clasps her hands tightly behind Emma’s back to keep them from trembling. She inhales the scent of Emma’s hair, that sweet smell of clean childish sweat and warm sugar. Her breath goes in shaky, rattling all the way to her lungs, and she has to hold back a sob. Here it comes.
Both officers nod, clearly disapproving of her choice. That’s okay, Julia’s used to disapproval. And just because Officer Gray thinks Emma is cute or whatever doesn’t mean she knows Emma. Nobody knows Emma. They use words like “painfully shy” and “very quiet.” Julia can’t imagine leaving Emma alone in a room with anyone else. She would freak the hell out and then Officer Gray would probably panic and think something’s wrong with her child. She’s so sick of people thinking there’s something wrong with Emma.
“Okay, well.” Officer Ha clears his throat again. “Ah, we’re sorry to inform you that this morning, your husband was found dead at a teahouse in Chinatown.”
The words are so foreign to Julia that her brain fails to compute what he’s saying. And when it does start digesting the information, it latches on to the strangest part of the sentence. “A teahouse?”
Officer Ha nods. “Yes.” He consults his notepad. “Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse.”
“Why would a dress designer have a teahouse?” Then again, Eva Longoria owns a bunch of restaurants, so maybe that was a stupid question to ask.
Officer Gray shakes her head. “No, it’s owned by someone named Vera Wong, actually.”
And something about the way she says it reaches deep into the dark coils of Julia’s brain and tickles it. Julia does the worst thing she can possibly do in this moment. She laughs. It lasts less than a second, but she sees the officers’ eyes sharpening in that instant, and she wants to slap herself. God knows, Marshall wanted to on many occasions, and can anyone blame him? This is just the stupid crap that Julia does that he has to put up with every day. Had to put up with. Because he’s dead now, isn’t he? He doesn’t have to put up with her anymore. She almost laughs again but manages to wrestle the traitorous sensation down.
“I don’t understand,” she manages to croak.
Officer Gray’s expression is still cold and mistrusting. “He was found by the owner of the teahouse, Ms. Vera Wong, at around five a.m. this morning. It seems he had broken into her teahouse sometime in the night before dying.”
It’s a struggle to make sense of the words. “How did—uh, what caused the death?”
“We’re still waiting for the autopsy results, but he had a bag of MDMA in his bag, so it might have been an overdose,” Officer Ha says.
“MDMA?” Is he even still speaking English?
“You might know it as ecstasy, or Molly, or E?”
Julia’s brain refuses to process the words.
“Do you know if your husband regularly used MDMA?” Officer Ha says. But from his tone of voice, it’s clear that what he means is: How can you not know that your husband regularly used MDMA?
“There were also some wounds on his body,” Officer Gray says. “A bruise on his cheek and scratches on the other. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
She shakes her head numbly, and her head throbs with the movement. Unbidden, she gets a flash of Marshall shoving her away as he leaves and the back of her head cracking against the wall. She bites her lip, forcing herself to focus in this moment. Do not show them that she’s hurting. Do not show them that he wounded her.
Do they believe her? Julia can’t tell. Does it matter if they believe her? He’s dead. Marshall is dead.
As though the thought seeps into Emma’s head through osmosis, the toddler starts fussing in Julia’s lap, her little chubby hands pawing at Julia’s breasts. “Boop,” she demands.
Julia’s cheeks burn and she finds it hard to meet the officers’ eyes; then she berates herself. How stupid to be concerned about them judging her for having a two-year-old who still nurses. Who the hell cares about breastfeeding when she’s just been told that her husband of ten years just died? And yet, here she is, clasping Emma’s arms firmly but gently and pulling them away from her chest. “Later,” she says softly, even though she knows this is futile.
As expected, Emma gets louder. “Boop!” she demands. “Boop!” Julia’s embarrassment sharpens into shame. It’s bad enough that Emma still demands the breast, but can’t she at least say it in a complete sentence? She’s able to; when it’s just the two of them, Emma speaks in long, adult sentences. “Can I have milk, please, Mommy?” “Mommy, look at the ladybug, why does it have black spots?” “I love the swings, push me higher, Mommy!” Well-formed sentences that disappear the moment they have company. Then, of course, as usual, Julia feels ashamed that she feels ashamed of her own child. What a terrible mother she is. And what a terrible wife. Look at her, judging her toddler’s speech when her husband literally just died.
“Boop!” It’s a full-on shout now, right next to Julia’s ear, shatteringly loud. Julia jerks physically and the suddenness of the movement shocks Emma. For a second, she blinks up at Julia, wide-eyed; then the corners of her mouth screw down.