“I’m so sorry,” Bechdel said, reaching her hand out to pat Laura on the forearm. Laura was surprised by how good it felt to be touched in a kind way by a stranger.
“They wouldn’t tell me what happened,” Laura said. She’d been at Rosie’s, trying to process everything she’d learned at Dermot’s apartment. Rosie made scrambled eggs, even though it was dinnertime. She said her grandmother always made scrambled eggs when someone needed comforting. Extra butter, a dash of salt, and you don’t break the yolks until the whites are slightly cooked.
Laura had been surprisingly hungry, eating the entire plate before Rosie could sit down and join her. Then Laura’s phone rang, and even though she should have just let it go to voicemail she picked it up, thinking it might be Trina or Addy, calling to confirm they had her number entered right into their phones. She hadn’t had a chance to put them into her contacts yet, although she’d do it as soon as she could.
But it wasn’t one of them. It was the police, calling to say her brother was dead. That he had been shot, in a violent exchange he started. Just like when she found out about Dermot, Laura promptly threw up.
It was such a shame, Laura thought now as she looked across the table at the two detectives. She’d never want to eat scrambled eggs again.
The male detective was saying something, but Laura felt like she was underwater. She couldn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth. She reached underneath the table and pinched her thigh, but she couldn’t feel anything.
“Are you okay?” Kirkpatrick asked, waving his hand in front of Laura and snapping his fingers. He still had that kind look on his face, but Laura realized it was more like he was talking to a dog than a person. She tried to picture herself from the outside and see what the detectives saw.
Her hair was shoved into a low ponytail, and the shirt she’d worn to Rosie’s had speckles of vomit down the front. She couldn’t remember putting makeup on this afternoon, but she must have because when she wiped her hand over her face her fingers came back streaked with gooey black from her mascara.
“Tell me what happened, please,” she managed to say. Getting the words out winded her, like she’d just run a few miles. She tried to take a deep breath, but the pressure on her head clamped down on her throat, cutting it off.
“Your brother tried to rob a convenience store. He had a knife.” Bechdel gave her a steady look, as if she were trying to will Laura to just hang on.
“And he’s dead now?” That same fatigue settled into Laura’s chest as she breathed the words out.
“Yes.” Kirkpatrick cleared his throat. “There are witnesses to the entire incident. Your brother tried to take one hostage.”
“Oh,” was all Laura had to say to that. Sharp edges tore at her brain. She was totally alone in this world now. Her family was gone. Dermot was gone.
She touched her belly, like she had a stomachache. Not totally alone, she reminded herself. At least not for now.
Laura didn’t know what she was going to do about the baby.
“Do you know why your brother was robbing a store?” Kirkpatrick asked.
“No.”
“Did he need money?” Bechdel gave her a searching look. “Drugs. Booze. Maybe he got caught up in something he shouldn’t have?”
“We all need money,” Laura told them, which was true. “And Terry had been sober for six months. He was going to meetings, talking to his sponsor.”
“It sounds like he was getting his life on track.” Kirkpatrick leaned back in his chair and then seemed to realize he was being insensitive and pushed himself forward, elbows on the table.
“Yeah, he was.” Laura didn’t want to be here anymore. “Look, I really just want to go home. I can’t really handle much more today.”
“What else happened today?” Bechdel asked. She tried to hide it, but the detective’s voice had perked up.
Laura fought the urge to scream. Her throat burned from the eggs mixing with her stomach acid.
“Nothing.” Laura slouched in her chair. As far as Laura was concerned, this conversation was over.
“Do you think this is connected to what happened to Dermot?” Kirkpatrick asked Laura, which sparked a flame of anger to replace her weariness.
“Do I think my brother getting shot trying to rob a grubby corner store has anything to do with the love of my life being murdered in his hotel room while he was cheating on me?” She sucked in a breath of air. “No, I don’t.”
There’s a subtle shift in the atmosphere of the room, and the two detectives sat up taller and leaned in towards each other slightly.
“You and Dermot Carine were romantically involved?” Kirkpatrick asked.
“I told you that already,” Laura replied.
Bechdel shifted closer to Laura. “We’re just trying to get everything straight. Can you tell us again, about you and Dermot?”
“Can I get a glass of water?” Laura wanted to focus on Bechdel’s face, but things blurred in front of her.
“Sure, no problem.” Something silent passed between Kirkpatrick and Bechdel, and he eventually got up and left the room. There was a couch over in the corner.
“Can I lie down?” she asked, already moving towards the soft cushions. If she could just lie down, maybe all of this would be over. She’d wake up, and everyone would be alive again.
Dermot. Terry.
Her parents.
“Tell me more about Dermot,” Bechdel said, helping to pick Laura’s feet up and resting them on the other end of the sofa.
And so Laura did, until she drifted off, dark and dreamless.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE JOYCE
Joyce had spent too much time in hospitals over the last twenty years. Surgeon’s wife. Fundraising guru. More recently she’d been the supportive spouse to a broken man, and potential criminal, while Simon sat covered in blood that wasn’t his own, not a scratch on him. And now, victim’s spouse, but with the same touchstone of a stranger’s blood marking her husband’s features.
Simon called her from the back of the ambulance. He’d sounded fractured, like he was drunk but without the ease that smoothed his edges when he drank. He explained there had been a crime, and a killing. He’d been taken hostage. A man, almost a boy, Simon said, had died.
The words tumbled into Joyce’s ear, and she couldn’t stop the first response that came out of her mouth. “Did you do it again?”
She always knew there was a vile streak in her, but she was usually so good at hiding it from the important people in her life. Especially her husband. But this was too much. It felt as though they’d just finished hobbling through the past year. And just when she thought she’d ensured Trina would finally be out of their life, here came another disaster Simon was in the center of, one that Joyce needed to clean up—literally and figuratively.
Perhaps she should have left him, back when he was in medical school and he had his breakdown. She knew he was weak, but she stayed with him anyway. Because the poor, bald fact was that she loved her husband, however pitiable and problematic joining her life to his might have been.
She dabbed a damp piece of gauze on Simon’s forehead now, wiping away the other man’s blood. Simon stared off, seemingly focused on a yellowed stain in the middle of the linoleum floor. Nurses and doctors in their various scrubs passed by the window of their room, but for now Joyce and Simon were alone.
“I’m sorry,” she said, moving the cloth down to his temple and wiping as gently as possible. She reached to grip Simon’s hands, which sat in his lap, but he held them firmly together and wouldn’t let her pull one of them free. Always his hands, she thought. They could bring her back to him or push her away. Or kill them both.
Joyce went back to cleaning up his face, moving gradually down his neck. She’d thought to bring a clean shirt for him from home, and like a mother caring for a young child she undid the buttons of his shirt and helped him slip off the bloody one, wiping away at any gore that made it through the fabric of his shirt, and then eased his arms through each of the shirtsleeves. She felt the tremor in Simon’s hand as she helped him dress, and wondered if he was going to cry, or apologize for not letting her touch him a moment ago.
Joyce could always count on Simon to do the right thing, in the end, and she preferred to think of that as his ultimate strength. In their marriage, she was the one who brought the other forms of strength to their life together. She took care of the problems Simon couldn’t.
“I wasn’t going to let it happen again,” Simon said. He wouldn’t look at Joyce. She sat on the hospital bed next to him and wordlessly pulled his left and then his right wrist into her lap, buttoning his cuffs. He didn’t resist, and when she was finished he leaned into her just the slightest bit, and Joyce felt a rush of compassion for Simon that threatened to overwhelm her.
Where would he be without her? She didn’t dare to consider.
“Will the police be interviewing you again?” Joyce asked. Joyce had a full morning to coordinate tomorrow. She’d texted earlier to confirm plans, but hadn’t yet received a reply. She had to consider whether spending the morning at the police station would be helpful or a hindrance.
