The Things We Don't See

by Jessi Brazzell

  “Mila!”

  I followed his frantic eyes to see Detective Burns leading her across the grass with her hands cuffed behind her back. “Oh, my God,” I let out when I watched her put Mila into the backseat of the car.

  “Mila! What is going on?” Brian yelled. Mila turned to look at him. Her face was in absolute panic and I could see the tears staining it even from a distance. Detective Burns looked over to us and slammed the door shut before Mila could respond to Brian. She walked over and we both waited anxiously for her.

  “What is happening?” Brian pled.

  “Mila is being charged with first degree murder.”

  I felt my knees buckle beneath me and I reached to grab Brian’s arm to keep myself from falling. “No…” I said. I looked at Brian’s face, full of shock, and desperately tried to grasp what was happening.

  “Why?” he asked, staring at her in the backseat of the car.

  “There is substantial evidence against her,” Detective Burns said firmly.

  “Bullshit! That is what you said about me just hours ago!” Brian yelled.

  “The pinned GPS location for Mr. Damichi’s cell phone, that was because it was hidden away in Mila’s car, Brian. With blood on it. There are also trace amounts of blood in her car interior.”

  As she kept talking, I stared ahead at Mila. Her head was laid back on the seat and her face shined from the wetness of her tears. I grabbed my stomach and fought getting sick again.

  “How could you?!” I burst out, pushing passed the detective and running to the car.

  Her eyes filled with fear as she scooted further into the backseat and another officer intercepted me just before I made it to her. I fell to the ground crying as I pictured my own best friend sleeping with my husband and then viciously murdering him.

  “Don’t touch me!” I yelled when Detective Burns tried to pull me to my feet.

  I pushed her away from me and tried desperately to gain my composure as I stood on my own. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like there was a rage inside me that needed to be let out, but couldn’t. I felt like I was suffocating and completely helpless to the entire situation, because I was. The only thing I could do was get away. I turned and walked down the street, fighting for air that seemed nearly impossible to draw.

  “Chloe!” Brian yelled after me and I stopped to turn around.

  “Brian, how could she do this?” I burst out and he pulled me into his chest.

  “Chloe,” he said, slowly pulling me away to look into my eyes. “There has to be some mistake. Mila didn’t do this. This is a mistake just like they made with me earlier.”

  He has to be right. There is no way Mila would murder him, why would she? What reasoning would she possibly have?

  “You are right. You have to be right. What are we going to do?” I asked him when my own civility returned.

  “I am going to call the best defense attorney I know,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Come on, I will drive you home.”

  We walked back to his car while he talked into his cell phone. His voice was pressing and his posture was tight with having to explain the situation to the lawyer. I am sure he was just as embarrassed to have to admit his wife was having an affair as I was to admit the same of my husband.

  “No murder weapon.”

  I looked over to him when he said it and my breath caught as I imagined the knife that took my husband’s life being hidden away somewhere. Something about it seemed intimate in a strange way, like it was a part of him now and it being in the hands of some monster was sickening. Brian believes Mila didn’t do this, but why would she have Carson’s cell phone? Carson would not have left that phone anywhere. Denial or not, her having his phone was proof that she was with him sometime before or during the time of his murder. I stood staring off thinking of it when Brian softly touched my arm. I looked back to him and apologized when I realized he had been waiting for me to get into the car.

  I looked ahead at their house and then over to the park where I had seen Carson’s body lying. It was so close, it was too close. I jumped, startled back to the present, when Brian’s door slammed shut and he exhaled, letting his head fall hard against the leather headrest.

  “Brian?” He slowly turned to look at me and I was careful to keep my voice speculative rather than accusatory. “What if she did do it?”

  He looked then at the park and I knew he was also gauging the proximity to their house. He shook his head in denial, remaining silent, and sped away. I watched their house fade in the distance while we drove away, and of all the thoughts that came to my mind, the one I focused on the most was how much of a change a jail cell would be from that three-story Victorian for Mila.

  “I will check in on you tonight,” Brian said as he had walked me to my door without me even realizing it.

  I smiled halfheartedly at him. “Thank you for everything, Brian. If you need anything, call me. This has become more of a nightmare for you than me.”

  Thinking of what he must be feeling, my heart hurt for him more than it did for myself. He awkwardly stepped in and gave me a quick hug before he turned back to his car. I watched him drive away, the drowning feeling of my own loneliness flooding through me almost instantly.

  I grabbed the trash bag out of the can and watched the cake disappear with the string closing around it. Normally Rosalie would be taking care of the housework, but I wanted it gone. On the way to the curb, I heard someone calling out to me.

  “Mrs. Damichi,” a young woman said, running closer to me.

  “Yes?”

  She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a voice recorder and smiled nervously. “Can I ask you some questions?”

  “No,” I said flatly, turning back to my house.

  “Mrs. Damichi, did you know that your husband was having an affair?”

  My shoulders fell as the pure mortification of being the pathetic widow set in on me. I fought back my tears and turned back to her. “No, I did not know. Perhaps you should have spent some time studying tact while you were earning your journalism degree.”

  Her passive personality shined through while she tried to come up with an apology. But I didn’t wait for it. I turned back to my house and slammed the door shut behind me. I felt bad for being so hateful with her, but I couldn’t help the way the question hurt. This entire situation was making me harsh to the world around me and I hated that, I had never been that way before. Granted, I didn’t go overboard with trying to smile wide enough to show my top gums every time I talked with someone the way Mila did, but I had always been a sweet person from what I could judge. But even looking at the house, everything in it made me angry. This ruse of wealth and a perfectly structured home made my stomach turn as I thought of how desperate the attempt really was. I tried to close my eyes and picture what Carson must have been thinking when he would walk through this door to see me after just leaving Mila. I tried to imagine what he told himself to be able to justify his actions but I all I could muster was absolute disgust for the kind of person he had become. He and I may have grown apart, but not him and Brian. Him being deceitful enough to lead a separate life from his wife was one thing, but to stab your best friend in the back like he did to Brian…well that is an uncomfortable simile.

  The red flashing light on the answering machine was casting a blurred beam from the ceiling and I hesitantly pressed play. “Chloe, it is Janet. I landed but I am going to stay in a hotel. I think time alone would be best for each of us. I am going to check on the arrangements at the funeral home. I will be in touch.”

  So much for having someone. I had never had a family, not a real one. I was just another kid in the system my entire childhood, changing foster homes regularly. A ward of the state, that’s what I was. I wish I had some great story about how my parents were these heroic people who done right by leaving me, or any story really. But all I know is the basic birds and bees aspect. An unknown man and an unknown woman created a child, me, and that’s the end of the fa
mily history. I was the product of the safe haven law in Connecticut. At two days old, I was left in the Saint Francis emergency room with no paper trail and no way of ever knowing why or who even gave me up. I cannot deny that I have always wanted someone to call Mom, but I grew to accept the fact that I would never have that a long time ago. But right now, I would give anything to just have someone to tell me that everything was going to be alright, and from what I have seen in the movies, that is what moms do.

  I walked into our bedroom and looked at the Rococo style California king bed in front of me. The deep red silk duvet was perfectly straightened underneath a mountain of sequined decorative pillows that piled nearly half way up the leather upholstered headboard and I fell into the middle of them. Looking up at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but wonder if Mila had ever laid in this bed with my husband. I hadn’t worked since Carson and I moved in together, but I always kept a schedule to try and make my useless contribution to our marriage seem more meaningful, so it was possible that they had spent time in my bed.

  I graduated with a Master’s in psychology. I planned on only taking a year off to overload on work and build enough savings so I could focus more on school while earning my PhD. I was going to have my own practice as a clinical psychologist, I was going to make the world a better place, but then I met Carson. He wanted me available for all his business events and I let myself get drawn into the role of being his arm piece. Growing up, I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, go from being a foster kid to a doctor but I let that go when I met Carson. Now that I really know what I gave up my own dreams for, I regret it even more.

  Mila had met Brian in college so she never planned on having her own career. Which would explain why she graduated Brown with a General Studies degree. She was perfectly content with being his wife, or so she had told me. Although, now that claim seems rather inappropriate. I have always been so good at reading people, I studied it for crying out loud. At one point in my life, I planned out my entire future around that fact. So how I let something like this happen without noticing it was driving me more crazy than the fact that it had even happened.

  But I do know my impression of Mila. And she has always had such a gentle presence. I would never have imagined that she would be capable of murder. But I also never imagined her capable of having a lengthy affair with my husband. People do surprise us. She was able to change my entire world without me even knowing what was coming.

  It is terrifying how easily a life can be shattered. Our entire world can shift in just a few moments. Those few moments are all it takes for a lasting and unbearable reality. The pain will follow us around like an unwanted shadow the rest of our lives and the devastation will in turn, define our very being.

  Chapter Seven

  “Hello?”

  “Chloe, it is Brian. I need to talk to you,” he said anxiously.

  “Yeah, are you okay?”

  “I will be there in five minutes.” He ended the call without waiting for a response.

  I grabbed a hooded sweatshirt from my closet and pulled it over my head as I walked down the hallway. My stomach was uneasy at the thought of such urgency in his tone. But I pushed that anxiety away with a sarcastic chuckle to myself as I questioned what really could get any worse?

  I opened the door while he knocked loudly and his face was filled with something that I couldn’t place. “Brian? What is it?” I asked.

  He walked passed me and I watched him fall onto the sofa. His shoulders were raising rapidly. He was fighting to control them and I felt my own hands start shaking as I watched his bouncing off each other between his knees.

  “Brian?”

  He looked up at me, his eyes were filled with tears and I rushed over to sit with him.

  “Mila is pregnant,” he breathed out before he cradled his head into his hands.

  Pregnant. Mila is pregnant. “Oh, my God,” I breathed, slouching beside him.

  “It is not mine.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Mila and I tried to have a baby years ago, after six months of marking ovulation cycles on the calendar with no baby, we went to a fertility clinic. She wasn’t the problem. I am sterile, Chloe. It cannot be mine.”

  I thought back on a conversation Mila and I had about Brian not being able to have children several years back. She had told me how upset Brian was that he couldn’t have children. She said it changed something in their marriage, that it robbed them of all their possibilities. I remember this conversation specifically because my inner friend was listening while my psych major was aching to come out and tell her that she needed to support Brian, not address it like something out of his control had ruined her life. That was the way she talked, to me anyway. And I hoped for Brian’s sake, even back then, that she hadn’t told him what she had told me.

  “Brian, I am so sorry,” I said through my own tears.

  My mind quickly numbed when the realization that my husband was going to be a father beyond the grave settled in on me.

  “She wouldn’t kill the father of her child,” he said, staring off to our pictures on the mantle.

  My eyes followed his and all I could think was how much I wanted them gone. I wanted all evidence of his deceit gone. The pictures brought a pain to me now when I looked at the man in them who had so carelessly ruined my life. I didn’t want to be reminded of the vows we had taken, and he had broken. I didn’t want to see our faces smiling in those pictures because whatever happiness we felt at the time, it was gone. The guilt of being angry at him was quickly vanishing as I was learning more about his lies. But Brian does have a point. Why would a woman kill the father of her unborn child? She surely wouldn’t. Unless her plan all along was to raise the child with Brian…

  “Mila is being released on bail in the morning,” he said.

  “And you really believe she is innocent?” I asked.

  “I do not think Mila is innocent of a lot of things. But I know that she didn’t kill Carson.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus on his faith in her while he went to the bar to get the scotch again. “I had sworn this stuff off this morning…” I started, but gave up on talking and indulged in the warm comfort of a liquid numbing. “Do you think they wanted to have a baby together?” I finally asked.

  He shook his head and I could tell the question pained him. “I think Mila always wanted to be a mother and I couldn’t give her that.”

  “But do you think they had planned for it?”

  “No.”

  I really didn’t think so either. She really couldn’t have planned on raising the baby with Brian knowing that he would have to know she had had an affair after the fertility clinic. And that explains the pregnancy. Of course, she wouldn’t be on any contraceptives when pregnancy shouldn’t have even been a concern for her anyway.

  We didn’t laugh the way we had the night before which was most likely due to the fact that the room was filled with an uncomfortable reminder that our spouses were having a child together right under our noses. Either way, we were both pathetically leaning on each other because we had no one else. We had been nothing more than two acquaintances for the past five years and now, we finally have something in common. A shared past that neither of us could, or would want to find with anyone else. But at least he couldn’t judge me for it.

  I showed him to the guest room and found my way back to the sofa. Thinking of Mila and Brian in our bed was bad enough, but thinking about them possibly creating life in that bed was too much. I couldn’t bring myself to even look at it right now even though the acts were probably exclusive to the hotel room Detective Burns had talked about.

  I turned the TV on and let the noise play in the background as I laid looking out at the pool. The water was so still, peaceful even. The lighting made the water glow a beautiful shade of blue and I closed my eyes, trying to focus on that and only that.

  I dozed off a couple times briefly but the night was restless. My mind was torm
ented with thoughts of Mila carrying Carson’s baby and I felt like I was going to lose it, whatever it even is.

  When the sun was starting to rise I finally got off the couch and went to make coffee. The smell must have woken Brian because I heard him coming down the hall as I filled my cup.

  “Good morning.”

  “Is it?” he asked and I knew that he too was worried about what the day would bring.

  “When are you picking up Mila?”

  He groaned at the thought of it and shrugged his shoulders. “She can find her own ride home. She is getting released at eight.”

  “So, what happens next?” I asked.

  “They will keep trying to find evidence against her. If they do, she will be taken into custody again without bond.”

  The detective had said they found blood in her car. If the blood was a positive match to Carson’s, there would most likely be a strong case against her. Brian wasn’t prepared to handle that.

  His cell phone rang and his eyes were worrisome when the call ended.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. They want me to come to the station for more questioning.”

  I thought about how they must have questions about Mila’s whereabouts that night when my phone also rang. “Me too,” I said when I hung up.

  “Ride together?”

  “Sure,” I said unenthusiastically. Spending time with Detective Burns ranked about as high as teeth extractions on my list of things I enjoyed.

  The drive was quiet apart from the resounding question I debated asking. I didn’t want to bring up uncomfortable topics for Brian because I knew his plate was filled with too many things he would like to ignore just as much as I would. After several miles of watching different homes pass behind us and a losing battle to my curiosity, I finally asked. “Were you with Mila Saturday night?”

  “She wasn’t home when I got there, but she was just out for a run.” I couldn’t bring myself to be the one to point out to him how that was even more suspicious than before. Was she running through the park?