I draw back slightly, as if Becky just swung a punch at me.
“She hadn’t made any firm decisions,” Becky explains, “but you know that she was tired of your father’s promises about spending less time at the restaurant. He kept saying he’d do better, be more attentive, but nothing ever changed. On top of that, the restaurant was struggling financially, and he was asking her for money, but she didn’t want him to touch the trust fund that was intended for your education. That’s why she talked to a lawyer. She wanted to know what would happen to her savings if she ...”
“Got a divorce,” I finish for her.
I realize my heart is pummeling my rib cage, and I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach.
“I think,” Becky says, “at the end of the day, what she really wanted was to give him a wake-up call.”
“And what did he say when she told him?” I ask with bated breath.
“I don’t know,” she replies. “Only your mom knows the answer to that.”
I back up against the wall and slide down to a squat, where I gather my hair in my fists and squeeze. “So theywerearguing on the rocks.”
“Probably,” she replies.
“And there were witnesses.”
“Yes, and I suspect the police are contacting those people as well, to confirm what they saw.”
My eyes sting with tears as I look up at her. “Do you think he pushed her? And that someone actually saw him do it?”
Becky shakes her head and speaks with desperation. “Honestly ... I have no idea what happened.”
My throat constricts, and I swallow hard. This isn’t real. There’s no way Dad would push Mom off the rocks. They love each other. And Dad loves Connor and me. We were a close family once, and I genuinely, deep down in my bones, believe that he wants us to be close again. I heard him crying in his room last night, and he remembered the cinnamon toast. He apologized for not being around more. And he hasn’t been to the restaurant since any of this started. Although maybe he’s been texting Martina all this time. God knows what’s going on there.
Slowly I try to rise, but I’m unsteady. Becky offers her hand and pulls me to my feet.
“You don’t think they’re going to arrest him, do you?” I ask. “Will they put him in jail?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what happened, what he says about it, and what the witnesses say.”
Feeling dazed, I walk slowly back to the ICU. A fog rolls into my head. It’s cold and numbing, but I fear hysteria is just beyond it.
“Amanda!” It’s Connor, calling to me from the end of the corridor. “Mom’s out of surgery! She’s back in her room, and we can see her!”
With relief, I exhale. “Maybe she’ll wake up.” I turn expectantly to Becky. “Then she can tell the police it’s not true.”
“That would be wonderful,” Becky replies, but I sense a pessimism in her.
I understand it, but I don’t want to be infected by it. I want to manifest a positive outcome, so I shake off the fog and run down the hall.
Chapter Nineteen
Nate
The drive to the police station feels like a slow ride to hell.
All the comments on social media have pushed me over the edge, into a dark pit of terror. I shouldn’t have stayed up so late scrolling. Every comment was like a knife blade against my throat. I felt sick reading it, but I couldn’t stop. I kept scrolling and scrolling ...
Now I’m convinced that the entire world has turned against me. My wife is in a coma, and there’s no one to blame but me.
It’s always the husband.
He’s one of those heartless celebrity chefs. Too ambitious, probably a sociopath.
My cousin knows one of the servers at his restaurant. Apparently, they’ve been struggling financially so he was probably after the insurance money.
