“Was she murdered?” I peer down at Jasper, expecting a worried expression. But he doesn’t know that word. Besides, he’s more interested in his big toe, which he’s managed to unearth from his shoe and sock.His sock rests on the path beside the stroller. I’m not about to squat in front of Officer Gonzales to retrieve it. I have no idea where his shoe is.
Officer Gonzales bends down to collect the sock and hands it to me. “I see the rumor mill has started.”
“A few moms at the playground think it’s more than a rumor.”
He sighs. “Leave it to the PTA to get everyone hysterical.”
Immediately he flinches, realizing that he’s called a bunch of mothershysterical. To a pregnant woman, no less. “Sorry. My wife would slap me for saying that.”
He shoots me a simper. A violent woman isn’t any funnier than a hysterical one. He becomes sheepish. I have to resist the urge to comfort him, to discount my irritation as an overreaction.
“Our presence here can make this seem suspicious, but nothing indicates this was anything other than an accident.” He shakes his head, and the gesture, the evenness of his tone, appears rehearsed. I know nothing about Officer Gonzales, how much death and violence he sees as a police officer in Venice Beach. Suddenly, I’m overwhelmed with empathy for this man who’s ready to put this incident behind him.
“Don’t forget to send the footage,” he says as he waves goodbye to Jasper.
Once he’s out of sight, Jasper starts frantically barking, “Bye. Bye.”
We head inside for Jasper’s morning nap. After I get him down, I call Gabe. It’s not his lunch break, so I don’t expect him to pick up. I leave a message. “I talked to a police officer. It was a woman who drowned. Seems like an accident, but I’m pretty freaked out. Call me back?” I hang up, annoyed, even though I shouldn’t be. Feeling annoyed is easier than feeling afraid. If an adult could drown in that small amount of water, the same could happen to a child.
The hum of Jasper’s sound machine bleeds downstairs. I consider working. There’s an image of an emerald art deco bow ring that’s been needling me. As soon as I plop onto the couch, I’m so tired I can’t find the energy to collect my sketch pad off the bookshelf, let alone summon the concentration to render the piece. Instead, I check the Ring app onmy phone and find the video from last night, fast-forwarding to see if it picked up anything. In the video, Gabe’s car pulls into the garage. A few of our neighbors’ cars pass by. Then, hours later, the patrol car that the association pays to monitor the canals drives down our alley three times. After that, there’s no more activity until the two cop cars park outside our home in the morning.
I text our mom-group message chain to see if anyone else has sent their footage to the police, if their cameras saw something mine didn’t. They send videos back and forth, of the quiet, dark walkways as still and empty as any other night.
Outside, two men stroll by, the leash on a German shepherd dangling from one man’s hand. A family wearing Venice Beach T-shirts twists past them. So quickly, everything has returned to normal. It makes me wonder how often we come this close to tragedy without realizing it, how easily the traces of a woman’s death can be erased. The traces of her life too.
I send the footage to Officer Gonzales, determined to put this event behind me.
Gabe never calls me back, which is unsurprising. Most days he can’t even find a few minutes for lunch, just pounds energy bars when his growling stomach becomes distracting. Yet another reason I like to cook him a real meal at dinner. At three, he texts to tell me he’s too busy to call but wants to make sure we’re okay. This is meant to reassure me. While it’s better than if he’d forgotten about the police outside our house, the too-close tragedy, I don’t like him thinking of me just fretting at home, overly worried—his fragile pregnant wife.
At six, the door from the garage creaks open, and Gabe’s footsteps echo down the short front hall before he appears at the threshold of the kitchen with two bags of takeout and a big smile for Jasper, who runs to him from the living room area. Gabe leans the bags against the wall and swings Jasper into the air. As I watch them twirl, the strain of the day drains away, replaced by the warm flood of gratitude, equallyoverwhelming. This is a life I never expected to have: a husband, a son, a daughter on the way. This is a tranquil life, a security I’ll never quite trust.
“Hey,” Gabe says when he notices me tearing up. “Today must have been really scary. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
He carries Jasper over, and the two men in my life embrace me.
When Jasper gets antsy, Gabe lets him down but continues to hold me.
“It’s over now,” Gabe promises. I press my head against his chest and listen to the steady thump of his heart as our daughter sits heavily between us. Jasper attempts to throw a ball across the room. It slips out of his hands each time he launches it. I try to embrace this calm, but I can’t. I don’t want a woman to be forgotten that easily.
Dan’s voice pierces the moment. Gabe loosens his hold on me as our attention drifts to the Huntsmans’. The canals carry sound in unpredictable ways, particularly when they’re empty. What you think is right next door is actually several doors down, while the conversation next door is lost to distant neighbors. Meanwhile, the shouting match that is so loud it sounds like it’s happening inside your house is really transpiring across the waterway in your best friend’s living room. Dan undoes his tie as he screams at Claire, who clutches Summer.
“Asshole,” Gabe mutters, heading toward the kitchen area, where he’s left the take-out bags resting against the wall. Before I can ask if we should do something, he adds, “Leave it alone.”
Maybe it’s the nature of his work, the air of privacy around his clients. Or maybe it’s his parents, the way they never talked about the dysfunction in their marriage. Gabe’s a firm believer in keeping out of other people’s business. Claire’s never spoken ill of her husband, never expressed fear of his anger, never complained about silently supporting him while he pretends that his career as a producer funds their life. As Gabe unpacks our dinner, I continue to watch them fight, lamenting everything Claire has normalized. As Dan’s body shifts in my direction, I quickly sidle to the floor to play with Jasper, pain rippling up my spine. I can sense Dan’s seething anger directed at me for spying, forwitnessing aspects of their relationship neither of them wants me to know about, even though they do nothing to hide it.
After dinner, while Gabe gives Jasper a bath upstairs, I turn on the TV in the living room, hoping to find a rerun ofFriendsorSeinfeld, something to zone out to until I’m tired enough to collapse into bed and let everything about this day retreat to the past: the police tape, the conspiracies at the park, Dan’s anger, the woman who drowned. When the local news starts, I hesitate, then leave it on. The anchor highlights the tragedies of the day: a hit-and-run, fortunately not a child but an adult who’s still alive; a spate of carjackings. Then a newscaster paces the canals. The camera is careful not to capture the empty basins, the boats capsized against the sides, the sludge that lies at the bottom. The pretty broadcaster relays the facts I already know: The body of a woman was found in Linnie Canal.
“The police have declared it an accidental drowning, something that hasn’t happened in over a decade.” She describes the last time a body surfaced in Grand Canal in 2010: a man’s, after a night at the bars nearby. That was before our time. The woman touches her ear with her index finger, the universal sign for breaking news. “The police have officially identified the woman who died early this morning in the canals.” She pauses, waiting for the name, which sends my pulse racing. “A Regina Geller of Venice Beach.”
Something sour settles in my stomach as I remain glued to the TV screen.
The pretty broadcaster continues, “A part-time tutor and freelance writer, Regina was a quiet and serious woman by all accounts. The community of Venice will mourn the loss of one of its own.”
There’s a ringing in my ears that makes it hard to concentrate. I know, before her picture flashes on the screen and I see her face, her stringy blond hair. It’s the woman Jasper recognized in Café Collage. The one he called Gigi. She drowned outside our home.
Chapter Four
Barb
