“You,” I say, pointing a finger at her, thinking how worried I’d been about my parents’ finances and my father’s state of mind. “You.” And at that I raise the bat to strike her in the chest, or maybe the head, and Izzy pushes me in return, her face turning florid, a frightening contrast to the white of her bleached hair. I stumble awkwardly into the hand tools that line the garage wall and at once a wheal begins to form on my shoulder, fiercely red and rising from the surface of the skin. I stare at Izzy in dismay; this can’t possibly be the same woman who trails on the heels of my mother, predicting her every move. Gently, lovingly catering to her. Caring for her.
“Why would you tell me this? Why in the world did you confess?” I ask, though of course I know why she confessed. She confessed because I left her no choice. Because I threatened to beat the life out of her if she didn’t confess, and now I’ll do it regardless, confession or not.
“Because stealing, Clara, is a far cry from murder. I might be a thief, but I’m no murderer. I never killed Nick,” she says defensively this time, and for once I can’t tell if she’s lying or not. “You have to believe me,” she begs, her voice suddenly desperate and pleading, and I find that in that moment I don’t know what to believe, for it’s happening so fast and I’m so confused, certain that Melinda was to blame, then my mother, then Theo and Emily and Izzy.
If Izzy didn’t kill Nick, then who?
“Why would I believe you?” I ask.
“You said it yourself, Clara,” she says, confusing me. “I had no reason to kill Nick. Nick, who was always so kind to me. I’m just as sad about Nick’s passing as you are,” she claims as a puddle of phony tears fills the basins of her eyes and she begins to cry. It exasperates me, the bogus tears at my dead husband’s expense. It makes me lose control. How vain to think that she is as saddened by Nick’s death as me. He was my husband. He loved me the most.
And that’s when I lose it.
I brace myself to strike. I’m feeling off-kilter, finding it hard to stand, much less think, as I raise the bat up above my head. I haven’t slept in weeks, and the delirium and confusion and sadness chip quickly away at me, a wood carver with chisel, rendering me a skeleton of myself. I come at Izzy with all of my might, flinching as if it hurts me more than it does her.
I’m stricken by a sudden and visceral irascibility, and it hits me then: this is just as she did to Nick, though in my heart of hearts I know it isn’t necessarily true, but I need someone, anyone, to take the blame for Nick’s death. It’s a means to an end, that’s all. Killing Izzy because I so desperately need someone to blame so this can be over and done with. I need closure. Acceptance.
Self-defense, I’ll later allege, though I’m not thinking about that right now.
Right now I’m only thinking that I need for this to be through.
NICK
BEFORE
We pick up the Chinese food first and then head home. As expected, traffic is a nightmare, stir-crazed drivers at the helm, ready to be home. They accelerate quickly and then slam on the brake, going nowhere. The sun is bright this evening, the day still hot. The thermometer on my car’s dashboard reads eighty-three degrees. As the sun sinks lower and lower into the evening sky, its glaring light lands in that cavity just beneath the visor’s edge so that there’s nothing there to dull the light. It disorients me as I drive on, having forgotten my sunglasses at home. I find that it’s hard to see. I use the rear tires of the car before me as a guide. I can’t see anything up above—not the houses or the trees—because the sun is there, turning the world into a sea of flames.
I take the back roads to avoid the gridlock of the highway, gliding down Douglas to Wolf Road. The car fills with the scent of ginger and soy sauce, and my stomach growls at the anticipation of food. Maisie sits in her car seat, kicking her little feet against the back of the passenger’s seat, asking, “When will we be home, Daddy?” and I tell her soon. “I want to be home now,” she pouts, and again I tell her, peering over my shoulder to look her in the eye, that we’ll be home soon. Her eyes are sad, pleading, desperate. “I’m hungry,” she complains, and I pat my stomach and say that I am hungry, too.
“I’m starving,” I tell Maisie. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
At this Maisie laughs, a high-pitched squeal, and comes back with, “I’m so hungry I could eat a sheep,” and we both laugh.
“I could eat a pig,” I say, and Maisie says, “I could eat a cow,” as the tires of the car in front of me come to a sudden halt, and I slam on the brakes, the car kicking up rocks as I swerve to the side of the road, missing the bumper by a mere three inches. I inwardly curse the logjam of evening traffic, this stop-and-go for no apparent reason at all. Car horns honk, and slowly, we begin to move.
And then my cell phone begins to ring. My first thought is that it’s Clara asking me to pick up milk on the way home, milk as well as Chinese, but when the Bluetooth display bears the nameKat, my heart skips a beat.
It’s Kat, calling finally to tell me if Gus is my son.
Just like that my hands begin to sweat, and I’m no longer thinking about evening traffic.
“Where are your books?” I ask Maisie before answering the call.
“Right here, Daddy,” she says, motioning to the basket of books by her side. Clara always keeps books inside her car for Maisie to read, something to keep her occupied so that Clara can drive. Maisie’s never-ending questions are often a distraction.
“Can you read your books?” I ask, and she says, “Okay, Daddy,” hoping that if she’s concentrating on the pages of her picture books, she won’t overhear the conversation that’s about to transpire between Kat and me, words likeGusandfatherandpaternitybreathed into the air. Maisie’s little hands reach clumsily into the basket, and she comes up with a red-and-green board book she’s had since she was Felix’s age.Goodnight Moon.She begins to read.
“Kat,” I say into the phone, answering it on the fourth ring. I disable the Bluetooth so I can speak to her through the phone, half the conversation muted so that Maisie can’t hear. “You’ve gotten the results,” I say. My voice is gasping, my heart beating fast.
This is the moment where everything changes.
“I got the results,” Kat begins, but Maisie is whining again from the back seat, claiming she’s so hungry, she’s starving, that she can eat a dog, a cat, a barn owl. She’s trying to sidetrack me, to start up a game that I’ve already put the kibosh on. Usually I’d give in, but not right now. Right now I need to speak to Kat, to find out if Gus is my son, and so I press a finger to my lips to quiet her down. I whisper in an aside, “Daddy’s on a work call,” hoping that it means something to her, whether or not it really is a work call. But no; Maisie continues to plead her case, clutching her stomach as if besieged by hunger pains. I relent only to quiet her down, digging deep into the bag of Chinese food for fortune cookies, and coming up with three in my hand. A bribe. I reach into the back seat and drop them all to her lap, and she smiles mischievously; she got her way.
“What is it, Kat?” I beg. “What did they say?”
She’s quiet.
“The results,” she says, her voice hard to hear as I roll through a stop sign. I think she’s crying.
