“Sure, why?”
“You just seem a long way away.”
“Sorry. Just tired.”
“You look tired. You’re not upset about the promotion, are you?” And it occurs to me then that he didn’t even bother to tell me himself. Nobody told me, except for Mila, and that doesn’t count. She was just gloating.
“No, I’m not upset about the promotion.”
I wait until I am back in my car to have a cry. Then I drive home, and when I walk in the door, into the noise of my kids preparing Carla’s play, there’s a moment where I almost convince myself it never happened.
“Hello?” I say, as I move towards the living room.
“No!” they shout. “Don’t come in!”
“Okay! Sorry! Where’s your dad?”
“In the shed!” they shout.
I stride across the garden to the shed and stand in the doorway. Luis is bent over his bicycle and for a moment I’m almost tempted to blurt it out. Something horrible happened today.
“Hey, babe, how was your day?” he says, without looking up.
It occurs to me, not for the first time, that a certain distance has crept between us recently. It’s the way he says, How was your day? like he’s not actually interested, or he’s too distracted to really listen. But maybe I’m over-thinking it. Maybe it’s because he’s been so busy. And yet, right now, as I stare at him in silence, I’d give anything for him to look up, to see me, to ask me what is wrong even though I can’t tell him. Just so I know he sees me.
But he doesn’t.
“Good,” I say, finally. “I’ll see you inside.”
The laundry is still sitting in the washing machine. I could call out Carla on it, but I don’t have the energy and I just shove it in the dryer, then proceed to make dinner.
Luis returns, opens a bottle of wine and gets plates out. Normally—a word that right now makes me want to hoot with laughter—we eat together at the table. I always insist on that. But because of the kids’ play, which luckily is only twenty minutes or so, we’re eating at the coffee table in the lounge.
I go through the motions. I laugh when Luis laughs, clap when Luis claps. I’m unable to comprehend what’s happening but I do my darnedest to hide it, and I’m grateful that I have something to look at other than the images in my own mind. When the performance is over, we give feedback, which in my case consists of repeating everything Luis says, but with different words, and telling them how wonderful they both were. Afterwards, they go to their room to finish homework and Luis says he has to go back to the studio to work.
“I have so much to do,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “I understand.” But deep down I wish he would stay. We could sit on the couch and he would put his arm around me, and we could talk of other things, simple things, family things, and I could forget about Alex and maybe even pretend it never happened.
Then it hits me, the enormity of what I’ve done, and for a moment I can’t catch my breath. I mumble something about going to the bathroom and I sit there on the edge of the bathtub, my head in my hands. What have I done? What’s the matter with me? I should never have bolted like this. I should have called an ambulance, explained what happened. I bet his system is full of drugs. I didn’t need to tell them about the letter but I didn’t think. I panicked, and now it’s too late, because there’s no way I can tell anyone now. What would I say? I forgot? I prevaricated? Then changed my mind?
When I get back to the living room, Luis is shrugging his jacket on.
“I’ll be at the studio till late. Don’t wait up,” he says, then takes off on his bicycle. Later, after the kids go to bed, I watch an episode of Martha’s Vineyard Mysteries. I can’t concentrate on the plot—I just watch the scenery, the boats, the sea, the pretty houses—and by the time Luis comes home, I’ve worked myself into such a state of anxiety that I have to pretend to be asleep so he can’t see the fear in my eyes.
Seven
The next day, and I’m doing it all over again. Except that I have not slept, so my brain is frazzled. Sometimes it zaps, literally zaps, with a sharp noise like someone has cracked a whip inside my skull.
I’ve carefully made up my face, and put on my colorful Mona print shirtdress. I even made pancakes for breakfast. Matti shrieked with excitement and Carla gave me her brightest smile. I love seeing them happy. I love it so much I almost cried.
“Knock, knock! Ready for the staff meeting?”
Rohan stands in the doorway. I stare at him for a second too long and he lifts an eyebrow. Still no news about Alex. “Oh, staff meeting. Right.” I’d completely forgotten. I make a show of checking my watch. “Wow, ten o’clock already. Be right there.” I expect him to leave but he doesn’t, so I get to my feet and I do what I always do, which is to reach for my laptop. But then I think, You know what? Forget it. Let someone else take minutes for a change. But I change my mind back because I need to act normal. I grab it and carry it under my arm.
“Sorry about the professorship,” Rohan says. I turn to look at him, unexpected tears nipping at the back of my eyes; partly because I know he means it, partly because I’ve been holding back tears for hours now, and they’re threatening to be set off at the smallest display of emotion. I rest my hand on his arm.
“Forget it. The extra work isn’t worth the money, anyway.”
He laughs. “You have a point.”
“But, thank you, it’s all good.” Let’s face it, the professorship is the least of my problems.
I get through the rest of the day with no news, and by this point I’m seriously considering calling the police myself. I’m marking papers with the overhead light on. It’s raining outside and it’s getting cool, so I have an old Locke Weidman sweatshirt on because my office has a thin, horizontal window below the ceiling—more like a vent, really, the type that you tilt open by turning a crank—but it’s been stuck for ages now so I can’t close it.
The door is open, as it usually is, and June appears. She holds on to the handle and something in her demeanor makes me sure that finally, this is it. I hope I am ready. I don’t feel ready.
“Have you heard?” she asks softly.
“Heard what?”
A beat. “About Alex?”
She’s unusually pale and when she purses her lips together the corners of her mouth pull down like she’s going to cry. I sit back in my chair and put the pen down on the desk. “Is something wrong?”
She takes one step closer and quickly glances behind her down the corridor before closing the door.
“He… Alex… he’s dead. I’m so sorry.”
I flinch. “Alex? My Alex?” I ask this with a hand on my chest and my eyes opened wide. Carla did that last night as part of her scene and I made a mental note of it, then rehearsed it myself in front of the bathroom mirror this morning.
June nods. “Yes.”
I cock my head at her. “No, he’s not. I spoke to him just yesterday.” This was true, of course. There would be a record of that and I have just put it on the record that I am probably the last person to speak to him and I’m not hiding anything.