“Do you remember what time you went to sleep?”
“Not for a while. I couldn’t sleep. I tried to, but I couldn’t. My nose was all stuffy, so I went downstairs and told my mom and she gave me medicine.”
“What kind of medicine?”
“Allergy medicine I guess.”
“Do you know what kind?”
He shrugs. “It was pink.”
“Was it Benadryl?”
“Maybe.”
Detective Evans looks up. Our eyes meet.
Benadryl. Emily gave him Benadryl, which has a sedative effect. It would have made Wyatt sleepy, which explains things, like how he slept through the night, through everything that happened and why he didn’t wake up this morning until the police woke him.
“Okay. Good. That’s helpful, Wyatt. Do you know what time it was when you came downstairs for the Benadryl?” Wyatt shakes his head. “That’s alright. When you came downstairs, you said your mom was there. Was she alone or was someone with her?”
“She was alone.” I picture that: Emily staying up later than the rest, cleaning the cottage from our night, and I regret that Elliott and I went home when we did, that we didn’t stay to keep her company or help clean.
“She was sad,” Wyatt offers all on his own, his voice flat. He sits on his chair, gazing down at his hands, picking now at a black woven bracelet on his thin wrist.
I have trouble breathing because of his words. Emily was sad. It hits a nerve, though I knew that, didn’t I? When Elliott and I left last night, waving to Emily on the deck until we couldn’t see her anymore, I knew that she was sad.
Emily was my best friend. I’ve known Nolan my whole life, but I knew her better. She and I were friends since we were Cass’s and Mae’s age. We met the first day of fifth grade, when I was new to the school and Emily took notice. She saw me sitting on the playground alone and was the only one in the whole fifth grade who came over and talked to me. From that moment on, we were inseparable. At first, Nolan was just my big brother to her, someone we both thought was annoying and gross. Until, all of a sudden, Emily didn’t think he was either of those things anymore. I caught her staring at him in my kitchen once, gazing at him over her Oreos and milk. She liked him.
I pretended to vomit when she confessed to me that she thought he was cute.
Are you mad?she asked.
I didn’t see the appeal, but I told her no. Of course not. I don’t think there is anything Emily could have ever done to make me mad.
That said, I knew as well as anyone that Nolan could be ajerk, that, even as a grown adult, it was as if he sometimes had the emotional intelligence of someone who’s eighteen. He made her sad, and though I loved him, there were times, in hindsight, that I wish I would have talked her out of marrying him. They weren’t compatible. They had almost nothing in common, not when we were kids and not as adults.
I regret that last night I didn’t stay and talk to her, that I just left with Elliott.
“How do you know that she was sad?” Detective Evans asks. “Did she tell you?”
“She didn’t have to. She was crying.” As he says it, my hand goes to my mouth and tears fill my eyes. It breaks my heart, thinking of Emily alone and upset after we left. She’d had that argument with Reese. All week, her and Nolan had been fighting. Of course she was upset. I should have made more of an effort to be there for her, to comfort her. I shouldn’t have left when I did. I should have sent Elliott home alone to check on Cass and Mae, and I should have stayed with Emily.
The detective asks, “Did she tell you why she was upset?”
Wyatt says, “She tried to hide it, to pretend she wasn’t, you know?”
“To pretend she wasn’t crying?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ask her what was wrong?”
“They’d been going through hard times,” I offer when Wyatt shakes his head—tightening my hold on Mae, who I don’t realize is crying until she wipes her nose with a sleeve—because I don’t want the detective to make him feel bad for not asking Emily what was wrong. Emily is strong; she’s stoic. It would have killed her for Wyatt to see her upset, and if he had asked, she would have told him that nothing was wrong. “My brother has been out of work. Money is tight and it’s caused tension in their marriage.”
“Were they fighting?”
“Not around us. Not where we could see. But yes,” I say, “they were fighting.”
