Then he speaks to the two of them in Italian, which they both understand but I do not. I don’t know what he says, but whatever it is, he manages to coax a small smile out of Ada. Nico, on the other hand, just has a troubled look on his face.
“All right!” I clap my hands together. “Who wants to go out for chocolate chip pancakes?”
There was a point in time when Nico would have sold his Nintendo for chocolate chip pancakes. But now they just stare at me, utterly unenthusiastic about the possibility of eating chocolate for breakfast.
Before I can get them out of the house, Enzo grabs me. He leans in close to me and whispers in my ear, “Do not worry. This will all be over soon.”
I wish I could believe him.
The kids barely talk on the way to the diner, and even though we do get the obligatory chocolate chip pancakes, they both just stare at the little brown circles and push them listlessly around their plates. Ada has bags under her eyes, and Nico has some dried drool in the corner of his lips.
“Do you want more syrup?” I ask them.
I lift up the container of maple syrup, ready to douse both of their plates in it if that’s what it will take to get them to eat.
“Mom,” Ada says, “do the police think Dad killed Mr. Lowell?”
“No,” I say quickly.
“Then why are they searching our house?” Nico asks.
“Well,” I say, “they are searching to prove that he didn’t kill Mr. Lowell.”
“That makes no sense,” Ada says. Nico nods in agreement.
“Okay, fine.” It was so much easier when they were little and accepted everything I said. Oh wait, that never used to happen. “Here’s the thing. We all know that your dad would never hurt anyone. Not unless he had to to protect us, right?”
I’m proud of how quickly they both nod their heads.
“So it doesn’t matter if they’re searching our house,” I say. “Because your dad didn’t do anything wrong, so there’s no way they’re going to find anything.”
As I say the words, I try my hardest to believe them. If I let my doubts seep into my voice, the children will hear it. And I need them to believe that their father is innocent right now.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I tell them.
But even as the words leave my mouth, I know that they are not true. And that things are about to get much worse.
FIFTY-FIVE
After I drop the kids off at school, I make a stop on the way home.
Partly because I don’t want to come home in the middle of the search. And partly because there is something I need to know. Something that is tugging at me, and I won’t be able to stop thinking about it until I make this pit stop.
I find the address I’m looking for in my inbox. It’s located about two towns over, in a neighborhood where Enzo and I looked at houses. We found a beautiful house that was closer to being within our price range than where we ended up, but the neighborhood was terrible. At least it’s safe here during the day. Mostly.
I park in front of a weather-worn white house that looks like it is badly in need of a paint job. I climb out of my car, debating if it’s safe to leave it on the street. It’s okay though. I won’t be long.
I walk toward the front steps of the house, looking around for some sort of guard dog racing out at me. This somehow looks like the sort of house that would have a terrifying dog guarding it. And possibly a man with a sawed-off shotgun.
Well, I would still rather be here than back at my house with the police.
I march up the steps to the front door. I press my finger against the doorbell, but I’m fairly sure it’s broken. So instead, I rap my fist against the door. When there’s no answer, I knock harder. There’s a Pinto in the driveway, so I assume somebody is home.
Finally, I hear footsteps growing louder behind the door. A scratchy voice calls out, “Okay, okay, hold your horses.”
A second later, the door is yanked open by a man in his sixties. He’s got sparse white hair and veins of spider webbing around his bulbous nose. Even though it’s early in the morning, he stinks of whiskey.
“Um, hello.” I offer a smile. “I’m looking for… Is Martha here?”
The man narrows his bloodshot eyes at me. “How do you know my wife?”
For a moment, I allow myself to imagine the proper, efficient woman I came to know in my house being married to this man. It doesn’t seem like a good fit, but I’ve learned that people change a lot after they say “I do.” What was it like for her to go home to this man every night?
I can’t help but feel a rush of sympathy for the woman I accused of stealing from me. Although to be fair, she did steal from me.
“She, uh, she used to clean my house.” I silently curse myself for not having a story ready. “She left her coat behind, and I wanted to return it to her.”
Never mind that I’m not actually carrying a coat. I’m counting on the fact that this guy is too blitzed to notice. I just want to talk to Martha so I can confirm Enzo’s story. I need to know if he was telling the truth.
“You may as well keep the coat,” the man says. “Because that bitch took off on me earlier this week. After all I did for her…”
He lets out a hacking cough, and I take a step back. “You mean she moved out?”
“Well, do you see her anywhere?” he grunts. “If you see her, you tell her she’s got some groveling to do when she drags herself back here.”
For Martha’s sake, wherever Enzo took her, I hope she never does drag herself back here. I hope she’s gone for good.
The man slams the door in my face, and I walk back to my car, which miraculously has not been stolen in the two minutes I was away from it. But this time, my step is a little lighter. I hadn’t been entirely convinced of Enzo’s story about Martha, but now it looks like it all checks out. If he showed up here, he would have been concerned. And if she answered the door with bruises on her face, he would not have been able to walk away without trying to help her. Because he couldn’t help his sister in time, and it’s eaten at him for the last two decades. His desire to help women in danger is something I always loved about him and a passion I shared.
