Where We Went Wrong

by Andi Holloway

  “So you’re in touch?” The faint hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. He’s tricky, this one, and dangerous. “You’ve spoken with Hannah’s mother?”

  “Not in some time.” You correct course, avoiding—as with how long it’s been since you’ve seen Matthew—exactly how long it’s been since you’ve last spoken to Marjorie.

  Vern has no way of knowing this, but vagueness is entirely unlike you. You commit to the details as any good writer does, which is to say even the minutiae isn’t left open for interpretation.

  I wonder why this particular subject is.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  VERN IS AWARE OF THE presence, if not the extent, of our family dysfunction, and rather than explain it, you answer your ringing cell phone at the worst possible moment, leaving the room without even excusing yourself.

  We sit in silence, Vern and I, and when it’s clear you aren’t coming back, he forces a smile. He’s attempting to be gentler with me, the fragile woman—wife of a potential murderer—but he’s more uncomfortable now than ever.

  “You and Bert have been married for some time,” he says.

  I’m careful not to let my guard down. “Thirteen years.” Unlucky thirteen.

  The accusations against Matthew came within our first year of marriage, during what should have been, and was anything but, a honeymoon period.

  “This must be difficult for you as well, then.”

  I wasn’t aware that I had crossed some sort of grief threshold, but I nod and say, “It is.”

  If Vern detects doubt, it doesn’t show.

  “You and Bert never had children?” While Vern probably doesn’t mean it, the implication is that because I’m a stepparent, Matthew was never really my child.

  “We had Matthew.”

  “I mean together.”

  “We had Matthew,” I repeat, because biology doesn’t factor into reality, into the parental responsibility I bore for so many years alone. “He was as much mine as Bert’s.”

  “Then it must have been hard on you when he left.” Vern circles back to the two-year estrangement you and I haven’t discussed in the better part of eighteen months. One of several marriage-saving tactics over the years, avoidance has become our go-to.

  “Of course, we’ve missed him.”

  “Of course.” Vern dares me to falter.

  Truth be told, things have been easier with Matthew gone, all but financially, which is to say that this investigation is the last thing we need when you should be working on the manuscript that is months overdue. The royalties from your past successes no longer support our cost of living. Everything in this business has a shelf life, including us.

  “Then why haven’t you reached out to him?” Vern asks, as if the answer is so easy.

  “It’s complicated.” Anyone with firsthand experience parenting a teenager would attest to this. For as difficult as Matthew’s childhood was, nothing could prepare us for puberty, for the raw power of adult strength and hormones, and for the split-second impulses that drove Matthew to wield his physical advantages regardless of consequences. “I’m not sure he would have been receptive.” In fact, I’m sure he wouldn’t have been. “I kept an eye on him from a distance.”

  Social media allowed me a temporary connection until Matthew deactivated his accounts, effectively locking me out of a life I’d for so long been a part of. To this day, you have no idea the adjustment period I suffered or the ways in which I worried about Matthew’s whereabouts when he left, after years of having been the one to look after him.

  “Then were you aware of Matthew having trouble with anyone besides his father?”

  “He and Bert weren’t having trouble.”

  I am clear on this point.

  I need Vern to be clear too.

  There wasn’t a problem, only distance.

  A door opens upstairs, and your irritated tone breaks our awkward silence.

  Vern looks up.

  I do, too, but catch myself almost immediately, resuming conversation to prevent Vern from focusing on your being engaged in what is obviously an argument.

  “We’ll have to agree to disagree on the terminology,” I say, “regardless if someone’s told you otherwise.”

  “Someone like Bert’s ex.”

  Fucking Ella.

  Vern’s baiting me, testing my character to see if I’m willing to slander this woman I hate. I could say friction is the normal state of things between ex and current wives, but there’s nothing normal about what exists between us and Ella, and there’s nothing flattering in admitting this, so I don’t.

  “There shouldn’t be hard feelings between us,” I lie.

  For years I’ve pretended to tolerate this woman to keep the peace, so why not now? It would surprise you to know that I can take the high road.

  Vern tilts his head. “Us? As in you and Ella? How about between she and Bert?”

  Between you and Ella and Ella and me, the friction between she and I is definitely worse. You’re more laid back when it comes to confrontation. Even-keeled until something gets up your explosive temper, which appears to be happening right now, at the worst possible moment.

  You return from your call, red-faced and impatient, in time to hear your name but not the question. You stand directly behind Vern’s chair, and for a second, I think you might lift him up and put him out of it. That you want him gone became obvious the minute you answered your phone.

  “Everything okay?” I attempt to soothe you, or at least make you aware of how you’re coming across, but your hostile demeanor remains fixed.

  Vern thwarts my effort to calm you. “I was asking Harper about the relationship between you and your ex-wife.”

  “Our relationship is divorced.” The mention of Ella incites new rage. You are failing character test number two big time.

  “Have you spoken with her about Matthew?” Vern asks.

  “If I never have contact with that woman the rest of my life it’ll be too soon.”

  Vern makes an entry in his notebook. Your display of hostility supports that there’s another, more volatile, side to you—one that Matthew inherited. On average, four hundred-fifty children are killed by a parent each year, the majority by their fathers. If Vern’s hanging this case on statistics and logic, you’re an obvious prime suspect. He continues writing far longer than a simple outburst dictates should be necessary.

  “It’s not uncommon for former spouses to harbor grudges,” you say. “Be sure to make note of that.”

  “Bert!” Your inability to think before you speak never fails to surprise me. That you’re baiting a homicide detective, however, is an all-time low.

  “I lost my son,” you growl at me. Then you turn to Vern, looming over him, finger to his chest. “I lost my son.” You poke him as if your grief warrants an assault on law enforcement. “And what the hell are you doing about that, anyway, besides upsetting the last two people who should be further upset?”

  I all but launch myself out of my chair to get between the two of you.

  “I’m sorry.” I apologize on your behalf, shutting the interview down before you make this situation any worse. “My husband’s clearly upset, and I’m not sure what else either of us can say that will help you.” While not exactly true, it’s important that we give ourselves time to privately discuss this.

  “I only have a few more questions.”

  I should have spoken up sooner, but it’s not too late, and I say, “I think we’re done.”

  Since ours is voluntary questioning, Vern and I both know it stops here.

  “I realize this is a lot at once.” Vern buttons his jacket and extends his hand in an olive-branch gesture that falls short of its mark. “I am sorry for your loss.” He waits longer than he probably should for reciprocation, and it ultimately ends in a stalemate.

  “I appreciate that.” I accept his condolences on both of our behalves. “If there’s anything we can do, anything specific”—by which I mean to imply
that we no longer intend to be baited—“please don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Thank you,” Vern says. “I’ll do that.”

  I’m sure he will.

  Vern’s not finished here, and he won’t be until he makes an arrest.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  YOUR OUTBURST FORMS an unflattering picture of you as a person and a father. You’re a suspect, if not the prime suspect, in your son’s murder, and while I know you’re innocent, innocent men are sometimes convicted.

  In the absence of conflicting forensics, all Vern has to solve this case is gut instinct and skewed statistics. That you’ve lied more than once will play against you in the long run. In a court of law, should it come to that.

  You’ve portrayed things as being too normal, too easily explained away, and yet I can’t imagine how they will be. Matthew wasn’t beloved. He wasn’t perfect, and yet your go-to description of him is as a straight-A student, an aspiring psychologist. Someone who helps others.

  I’d remind you about the tough times—the seventy-two-hour psych holds, the explosive violence and alternating silence that made Matthew challenging—but you don’t need me to. Right now, sitting across the dinner table, I’m not sure you need anything from me other than for me to remain silent about how wrong this is all about to go.

  Matthew’s body hasn’t even been released by the medical examiner, and Ella’s called twice about you paying for services she doesn’t mean for us to attend.

  Your cell phone vibrates against the dinner table, sending ripples through my glass of wine. I can’t see the number, but there are letters, a name attached to the incoming call. Whoever is urgently trying to reach you is programmed into the phone’s memory, yet you refuse to answer. Voicemails roll in as you keep hitting ignore, leaving me to wonder why you don’t let the mailbox fill rather than continuing to clear it—unless there’s someone you want to hear from. That someone isn’t me, and you scroll the missed-call log with the intensity of someone willing a number to be there.

  My hand shakes as I lower my knife, my patience wearing thin at a time I know it shouldn’t.

  “Can you believe she expects me to stay away from my own son’s funeral?” you ask.

  “She,” not “Ella,” because her name is verboten.

  I nod. Of course, I believe it. You turning up at Matthew’s funeral would be viewed as an unbearable inconvenience, something more for Ella to endure as if she’s the only one who’s lost someone.

  “You’ll go, though, won’t you?” I ask.

  Whether Ella wants you there or not, you need the closure. I do, too, but I’ve learned that my place to be is anywhere she isn’t, for her safety as much as my own.

  “What do you mean I’ll go?” You crush an already flattened caper between the tines of your fork, your eyes glued to the white plate as you recognize my intention to let you do this alone. “I won’t, not without you.”

  To others, this would’ve seemed like a declaration of love and solidarity. But the reason you won’t go without me isn’t because you can’t or because I belong there, but because I’d be one of the few people at Matthew’s funeral who doesn’t hate you or blame you for what happened.

  “I don’t know.” Whether or not I should go is irrelevant. I confront the idea of being there with the dread of the condemned facing a firing squad. I’m not sure I can handle seeing Matthew in a coffin. I wouldn’t know how to react, and no matter what I say or do, you’ll think my reaction wrong. Things between us lately have been critical and detached.

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  The adult thing to do under these circumstances is to respectfully attend Matthew’s services, hoping Ella does the same, and maybe I am being ridiculous, but I don’t know how to navigate a situation with this many pitfalls. I don’t know how to face Ella or to make a place in Matthew’s world, where no one else feels that I belong.

  I think back on long nights of recurring fevers and middle-of-the-night emergency surgery, when I paced the halls until daybreak, waiting to hear that he was okay. Back-to-school shopping, theme park rides, and family vacations. Times weren’t always bad, and unlike Ella, I had been there for all of them.

  That I have to defend my role to anyone angers and saddens me.

  I reach to clear your half-full plate, and you attempt to take my hand.

  I swat you away, because you’re no longer someone I take comfort from.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” You’re not big on apologies, and this is as close to one as I may ever get. “I want you to come with me. You belong there.”

  “Do I?” Everything I ever did for Matthew felt like me standing in for someone who refused to put in the work.

  “As much, if not more so, than anyone.”

  Your acknowledgement softens my resolve, and I force a smile.

  “Then I’ll go,” I say, unsure how to make this situation—us and her under the same roof—work, but we have to because now, more than ever, we need to present a unified front.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT’S ALMOST TOO EASY to start an argument with you, as distraught as you are. You’re probably nervous, too, and I can’t blame you. But I can’t talk to you, either, and the remainder of the night passes excruciatingly slowly, with both of us on eggshells. I go to bed around nine, set the timer on the television, and expect you to join me before it shuts off.

  Clearly, you didn’t.

  I startle awake to the nagging chirp of the cordless phone and turn over to see your side of the bed untouched, the sheet tightly tucked in. I wonder where you are. I must have been exhausted, because I don’t remember falling asleep. Only that I was alone.

  I answer the phone, praying it’s not you on the other end calling from some undisclosed location, where you’re undoubtedly holed up with “her,” whichever girl she might be.

  “I need to talk to Bert,” a man says. No “good morning” or “sorry to wake you.” It takes less than a second for me to identify the caller as your agent, Tim Kern, and from his clipped tone, I’m sure his reason for calling is the last thing we need right now.

  I stagger down the hallway, knees and back stiff from a restless night’s sleep. “Bert?” No answer. “Bert, where are you?” I call out, sounding more panicked than intended.

  Tim, apparently sensing my distress, asks, “Is everything all right?”

  I don’t respond. You’re a private person, especially where Matthew is concerned. If Tim hasn’t heard the news, it isn’t mine to tell.

  I head downstairs and find you in your office, staring blankly at the chair Vern sat in only yesterday. A cordless handset rests on the desk next to your cell. I wonder who you’ve been talking to, and why, with two phones within reach, you didn’t answer this call.

  “Bert, it’s Tim.” You’re unreachable. Distant. Grieving, or perhaps remembering. Maybe those are one and the same. “Bert?” You pick up the phone without looking at me, but I see what you’re trying to hide.

  You’ve been crying, maybe for the first time ever.

  “Hello?” you say, low and even.

  “We need to talk.” The volume is turned up loud enough for me to hear Tim. Four words in, it’s obvious this isn’t a social call.

  “Now’s not a good time.” That I can hear everything isn’t the only reason you’re unwilling to talk. The discourse between you and Tim causes a visible shift in your demeanor. Sadness turns to frustration and, if I’m not misreading you, to worry.

  Tim, however, remains curt and angrier than I’ve ever heard him be with you. It’s apparent that he has no idea what happened to Matthew. “I don’t care if it’s a good time or not,” he says. “This manuscript is six months overdue! Six months!” He repeats himself as if you hadn’t heard him, but if I did, you did.

  “Four, and it can’t be helped.” You remind Tim of a two-month extension—perhaps the only thing you’ve been honest about—and swear you’ve been working, though I could not corroborate this as fact. You’ve
been uninspired. Floundering even before Matthew’s death. You’re blocked, but you won’t say it. Not to me, and certainly not to Tim.

  “Your contract is about to be cancelled,” he says. “The advance money will become due and owing.”

  While I knew returning the advance was a remote possibility, hearing that it is imminent makes me wonder if I should tell you how far in the red we really are.

  “Please,” you say, “give me a couple of days to get my head together, will you? My son was murdered, for Christ’s sake.” Your nostrils flare, and your voice cracks. You can’t hold yourself together, which is a side of you I’ve never seen.

  If anything can sway Tim, it is this.

  Tragedy puts your missed deadline into perspective.

  My chest tightens.

  Your sobering admission pulls me from the wishful-but-delusional thinking that the past twenty-four hours were a literal nightmare. That I might wake up to find there is no body, certainly not Matthew’s, decomposing God knows where.

  “What? When? How?” Tim asks with the morbid curiosity that makes him a good crime writer’s agent but a lousy friend.

  “I can’t”—you pull the phone from your ear—“I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  “Bert! Bert! Don’t hang up on me! I need to know the release is signed at least.”

  As far as I knew, you were writing fiction, nothing anyone would need to sign off on.

  “Bert! I have to get Legal on this.”

  Legal means more hassles.

  Apparently, your failure to deliver the finished manuscript isn’t the only issue.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about this right now. Goodbye.” You hang up, your eyes wet with tears.

  I want to ask about this book, about the advance repayment and talk of some signed release, but to do so would be cruel. You’re mourning, and the last thing you need to worry about is business. I should have told Tim you were out or ill, anything so you didn’t have to say what you did about Matthew being killed. If you said it a hundred times, I’m not sure you’d accept that he’s gone.