The Dead Husband

by Carter Wilson

  “Can’t I just stay here?”

  “No,” I say, using a tone that’s firm but calm. “You guys can maybe watch a movie. Stay up a little later than usual. Could be another snow day tomorrow.”

  He studies my face, knowing something’s wrong, something’s different, but he can’t figure out what. Normally this is the point where he’d start whining about having to do something he doesn’t want, and maybe that’s coming, but in the moment, he’s silent and observational.

  I decide to tell him more. Not about tonight but about the future beyond that.

  “I’m thinking maybe we should go back to Wisconsin.”

  Max’s eyes grow wide. “To visit?”

  “No, to live. Move back there. Back home.”

  “Really?” He smiles but holds something back, as if I might tell him I’m just kidding. The thought of doing something like that breaks my heart.

  “Yeah, really. Would you like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not the same place,” I say. “Not the apartment. But back to the same area. To your regular school.”

  He leaps out of his chair and starts jumping around like a cartoon character. There’s not much subtlety about Max. When he’s sad, he’ll sometimes throw himself on the floor in despair. Often when he’s happy, he’ll literally jump up and down for joy.

  He stops for a moment. “When? When can we go?”

  “Soon. Real soon.”

  Another Snoopy happy dance and I’m smiling, my cheeks stretching. A sensation I’ve grown too accustomed to living without.

  I reach out and pull him in toward me. In my ear, he says, “Just you and me. Back home. That’s all I wanted.”

  That’s enough for the tears to start spilling. Silent tears he can’t see. In this moment, I see a future. A life beyond tomorrow. Even happiness.

  I found out Riley was cheating on me in January, and thoughts of a happy future have eluded me until now. What a long and wearisome abstinence.

  Max gives me an extra squeeze, one so hard it hurts, but I don’t complain.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are we going back?”

  I pull back and look at him. He sees my tears now. “Because we’re not happy here. That’s all that matters.”

  He thinks about this, then a cloud passes over his face. “Are you still in trouble? Like about the stuff Willow said. The stuff with…Daddy?”

  I shake my head. “There might be a few more questions I have to answer, but that’s it.”

  The cloud becomes a thunderstorm. “What if they don’t believe you? What if they take you away?” He looks at the ground, his default position.

  “Max, look at me.” He doesn’t. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s you and me from here on out. We have to take care of each other, and the best way I can take care of you is for you to listen to me. Really listen to me, Max, and do what I say, okay?”

  He mumbles.

  “Max, look at me.”

  It takes a moment, but he does.

  “This is really important. Just because we’re going back doesn’t mean life will suddenly be easy. There’ll be some tough times ahead, and that’s why I need you to always listen to me. More than ever, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says.

  “Good. Now, I need you to have a sleepover tonight with Micah with no complaining. Got it?”

  His face scrunches in the way it always does before an argument, but then he relaxes it again. “Got it.”

  I want to bottle this moment up in a leakproof container, because there’s magic here. There’s hope, which I’ve all but abandoned since a detective from Milwaukee sat down in my father’s living room and asked me if I loved my husband.

  But I can’t bottle this. Can’t cage it. Can’t contain it in any fashion. Because hope, like everything that lives in the wild, dies if it’s not given the space to thrive.

  Fifty

  2:47 p.m.

  I’m the only one on the road, driving inside a snow globe. The second round of flurries promised by the late afternoon has arrived early, coming down in large, puffy flakes that pile on top of those already fallen. Alec’s house is only a mile away but the going is slow.

  Everything looks gentle in Bury. A few houses already have Christmas decorations up, the owners not even bothering to wait for Thanksgiving to pass. Bury has always been a festive town. I’ve always struggled to appreciate Bury’s superficial beauty because I know the ugliness beneath.

  We pull into Alec’s driveway, freshly plowed but already collecting a new layer of snow. It’s coming down harder now, and as much as I want to stay with Alec for a little while, I don’t think the storm has my schedule preferences in mind.

  I ring the bell, Max a foot behind me. He was quiet on the way over, but he wasn’t complaining, so I’m counting that as a success.

  Alec opens the door, wrapped in a cashmere sweater and a smile, and at the sight of him, I think he’s the only thing genuinely beautiful in this town. I want to disappear into his chest and shut the rest of the world away.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi, there. Hey, Max. Micah’s excited for the sleepover.”

  Max’s voice is cotton soft. “Hi.”

  Alec ushers us into the house, and I tell Max to take off his boots.

  “Thanks again,” I tell Alec. “And sorry this was so…last minute.”

  “No problem. It’ll be good for the boys to have some time together. Micah’s got a movie or two in mind. Popcorn. Hot chocolate, of course. Assuming that’s okay with you.”

  “That sounds great. I wish I could be here, too.”

  “Yeah, so do I,” he says. Alec looks down at Max. “Hey, buddy, feel free to head into the living room. Micah’s putting together a LEGO set. You like LEGOs?”

  Max shrugs. “I guess.”

  “Give me a hug,” I say to Max. “Then go play with Micah.”

  Max shuffles over and gives me a weak embrace. I bend down and look him in the eyes. “Have a good time, sweetie, okay?”

  His expression is somewhere between apathetic and miserable. “Okay.”

  “And remember what we talked about. We’re a team.”

  “I don’t like this,” he whispers.

  I whisper back, “I know. But you need to do this. I’m sorry.” I rise. “Now, go play.”

  Alec directs him. “Right in there, little man.”

  Max disappears around the corner and Alec steps closer to me. “Can’t you stay for a little while?”

  I shake my head.

  He gives my shoulder a glancing stroke with his fingertips. “You okay?”

  How would I even go about answering this question?

  “No,” I say. “But I’m not going to break down like the last time I saw you.”

  “You can if you want.”

  I nod, knowing the chances of me doing so increase every second I stay. Every extra moment I might have someone to lean on increases my vulnerability, and I don’t want to be vulnerable. Not now, not tonight. I have no idea what’s going to happen over the next few hours, but I need Teflon skin for the occasion.

  “I know,” I tell him. “Thank you.”

  “Do you want Max to call you tonight before he goes to bed?”

  “I’d love that, if he wants to. If he doesn’t, that’s fine, too.”

  “Got it.”

  I point at Max’s backpack on the floor. “He has everything he needs for tonight and for school tomorrow, assuming they don’t cancel again. He’ll eat anything, but don’t be offended if he picks at his food. He just does that. Maybe no soft drinks… A lot of sugar isn’t great for his mood.”

  “Sure.”

  “And speaking of, he might get moody. Ever since his dad… You know. He
might zone out all of a sudden, and he’s not always comfortable around people he doesn’t know that well.”

  “We’ll make sure we give him the space he needs.”

  “And…” Vulnerability leans in again and I push it away. The bitch is heavy, though. “Just…thank you.”

  He leans down to get closer but stops short of contact. “Seriously, Rose. I’m happy to help.”

  I reach up and pull him in to me, not for a kiss but a hug. He wraps his arms around me, and I press my forehead against his chest, hoping to transfer some of his strength to me. I allow myself this moment, five seconds of support, and when I let go, it’s like stepping off the roof of a skyscraper.

  I blink away a blossoming tear and look at the floor. I like picturing us together, but the high likelihood we’ll never end up together keeps me from admitting this to him.

  What a world.

  I don’t look at him as I head to the door. I open it, and the snowy world outside has darkened to a soft gray, promising an early and long night.

  I turn to say goodbye when a thought hits me.

  “Hey,” I say. “I…I heard about Tasha’s dog. That’s just horrible.”

  He nods. “I still can’t believe it.”

  I swallow dry. “Any idea of who did it?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know who’d do something like that,” he says. “I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around it. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, which…hell, Tasha’s not far from that category.” He almost smiles, then pulls back. “Micah. Man, that just about killed him. I mean, how do you explain that to a kid? No child should have to go through a trauma like that.” His expression changes, a flash of nervousness. “I’m sorry, I mean, clearly what Max has gone through—”

  “You’re right,” I say. “No kid should have to go through anything traumatic, whether it’s losing a pet or a parent. And you can’t explain it to them. I’ve tried. The best you can do is love them. Promise them you’ll always be there, whether you can keep that promise or not. It’s all you can do.” I lean toward the open doorway, into the cold and growing dark. “Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry, too.” He slides his hands in his pockets and squares his shoulders. “And whatever you’re going through, whatever you have going on tonight. It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.”

  “Is that a promise you can’t keep?” I ask.

  He thinks about it, sighs, and to my surprise says, “Yeah, maybe it is. I’ve had a few of those in my life.”

  I say nothing else before turning, walking outside, and pulling the door closed behind me.

  I stare out at the car, the roads, the billions of flakes, and I’m swept up in painful desperation. A sudden and insatiable desire for everything to just be…over.

  Before I can put up my defense shield, a dark and hungry thought swoops in.

  How wonderful it would be to drive into a tree. Head-on. Seat belt unfastened. Headfirst, through the windshield, a jagged shard slicing right through my carotid artery. The blood. So much blood, draining in such a hurry from my body I’d feel nothing more than a surge of dizziness, then fatigue, and then a soft and beautiful drifting away. Surrounded by snow, all that blood. Like a piece of performance art.

  I have to shake my head to keep the fantasy from growing.

  “Let go,” I say aloud.

  I trudge to the car, wanting to let go of everything, but still the world clings to my back.

  Fifty-One

  Boston, Massachusetts

  4:15 p.m.

  Colin navigated his rental car out of the facility and did everything the woman inside the Google Maps app told him to do. Turn right, turn left. Merge onto the highway, continue for five miles. He happily relinquished all decision-making to her.

  The last decision Colin had actively made was this morning when he booked a last-minute flight to Boston. After that, the rest of the day he’d spent in a trance.

  He was exhausted and headed directly into a brutal snowstorm, not a good combination. He’d driven through some bad storms in Wisconsin, surely worse than what he’d encounter here, but his fatigue was probably the equivalent of blowing a point-oh-seven on the breathalyzer. Not legally impaired but enough where a responsible citizen wouldn’t have driven.

  One hour, seven minutes to Bury. Eight-minute slowdown twenty miles ahead due to road conditions.

  Colin had slept perhaps an hour after he talked to Rose last night, a conversation he struggled to recall. And sleep wasn’t even the right word for it. It was more like his brain just overloaded and shut off, a circuit breaker flipping. But after that hour of sleep, his brain went straight back into panic-and-desperation mode. He’d lain in bed all night, praying for more rest, finding none.

  Instead, a singular thought had begun looping in his mind.

  Go back to Bury.

  There was no context for the thought. No plan. Nothing other than a sense he had to return and confront Rose. That she wasn’t allowed to get away with what she did, even if Colin didn’t know what exactly that was. But she was guilty of something. Rose. Her sister. Her father.

  Someone had to pay for something. For all the shit in the world. Someone had to pay.

  By four in the morning, Colin gave up, turned on the bedroom light, then downed the first of many cups of black coffee as he searched for flights to Boston. There were a few options, none of them cheap, which was to be expected when booking to leave the same day. Boston had gotten snow last night with more to come later in the day, and while some flights had been canceled, there was one option available. Seven hundred bucks got him a direct flight on one of those little Embraer jets, landing at three in the afternoon. Seven hundred goddamned bucks. That was what tragedy did for you; you lost all perspective.

  He hadn’t known what to put in for the return date, so he just made it for a few days later, giving it little serious thought. Maybe he’d want to come home tomorrow, maybe never. Perhaps Bury was supposed to be his final destination in life. After all, Bury called to him. He cared about nothing else. Not his mother (who’d left him several voicemails), not his job, and certainly not the surprising amount of paperwork generated by the death of a spouse.

  He’d get to those things. Probably. His mom had to be cared for. It was time for a nurse, and Colin would have to be the one to make those arrangements. But she’d have to drink alone and tuck herself in at least another night, because Colin was singularly focused.

  Focused, but with no plan.

  He settled onto I-93 North and eased his back against the car seat, now aware of how much tension he’d been carrying. The snow was already falling and it took only a couple of minutes before it became mesmerizing, wrangling Colin’s overtired brain. At one point, he caught himself drifting into the other lane and corrected, but not before earning a honk from another car. He waved to the offended driver, then powered his window down an inch, letting the cold air whip his senses back to attention.

  Then he thought, what would be so bad if he just ran off the interstate? Maybe veer right into a ditch. Or the concrete support pillars of an underpass. Wouldn’t that just solve everything?

  The thought of it became more hypnotizing than the snow. It was all so simple, as if he’d just made one random move and solved a Rubik’s Cube.

  No more worries. No more pain.

  He knew thoughts of suicide were common for people like him…young widows and widowers. But it was different knowing about these thoughts and having them. Knowing about them was like reading a bland brochure about signs of depression. Having these thoughts… Well, there was just a comfort to them he couldn’t rationalize. It was like winning Powerball. All his problems would be gone.

  All it would take was a flick of the steering wheel. He’d want to take his seat belt off first, of course. The airbags might be meddlesom
e, but if he accelerated to seventy or eighty, they wouldn’t be enough to save him.

  There was an overpass coming up. Maybe a half mile away. Less, even.

  Colin put his foot on the gas, passing the rest of the cars that were taking the snow with caution. Once he had a clear shot, he swerved into the right lane, nearly losing control of the car before he wanted.

  Sweat breached the surface of his forehead, which was strange, because he felt as calm as he’d been in years.

  Sixty-five.

  Seventy.

  Seventy-five.

  The overpass loomed, closing in fast.

  How strange, he thought. That could be the place I die. Right there. Just ahead. Seconds from now. Right there.

  I wonder if someone will put a cross there for me and if there will be flowers?

  Some distant pocket of his brain raised a feeble protest, yanking the luring thoughts away for a split second. Long enough for Colin to force himself into a decision.

  Consider the options. Don’t just kill yourself. You have to choose to kill yourself.

  He didn’t ask God what he should do. He asked the next biggest thing.

  “Okay, Google, what should I do?”

  The app’s answer was immediate and her voice sounded different from before. Lower. Commanding.

  “Fifty-nine minutes to Bury, New Hampshire.”

  Colin laughed. Laughed like a lunatic inadvertently released from forced psychiatric observation. Laughed until it hurt, which was long enough to whiz by the underpass, careening into none of it.

  When his laughing eased and he became more comfortable with the idea that he was likely losing his mind, Colin eased his foot off the gas and drove like everyone else on the road. Cautious and conservative.

  Well, hell, he thought.

  Might as well see this thing through. Got the whole rest of my life to kill myself.

  Fifty-Two

  Bury, New Hampshire

  September 18

  Twenty-Two Years Ago

  Caleb Benner struggles to breathe at the bottom of our staircase, the wheezing wet and muddled, the exhales more successful than the inhales. I’ve made it as far as the third step from the bottom before I’m unable to will myself any closer.