*****
“I have a date tonight,” Brian said.
We had just gotten out of the pool and were both laying on our towels, soaking up the sun. This was the first time I had ever shared the pool water with another person, pathetic really. This was also the first time I had ever even been on this pool deck with anyone else. Which meant that Brian was the first man to see me in a bikini since college. And the greasy pizzas were definitely being generous on my bust line, which I saw him appreciate several times.
I turned on my side to see if he was joking and laughed when I saw how serious he was.
“What? Is it too soon? Do you think it is too soon?” he asked.
“Brian, it has been long enough. Go, have fun!”
“Yeah, I just don’t know how to bring up my failed marriage to someone, you know? I mean, am I supposed to say my ex-wife is in prison for murder before or after the main course?”
“Yeah, I don’t know how to bring that one up. You don’t even have to bring it up. That isn’t your story, Brian. It is Mila’s. But do tell! Who is the mystery woman?” I asked, realizing I could vicariously have a dating life through Brian’s experiences.
“She is actually an intern…”
I threw my head back laughing, “Whoa, an intern? How old is she?”
“Oh man, it really is a bad idea, isn’t it?”
“Brian, you are only thirty, as long as she can drink with us legally then I don’t see any harm in it,” I offered, feeling bad for laughing at him.
He deserved to move on from Mila. He needed a distraction and if a twenty-two-year-old intern was going to be that for him, then I wanted him to have it.
“Maybe I should cancel,” he said to himself.
“No, I don’t think you should. When are you going out?”
“Tonight…” He rubbed his hand against his forehead, a thing he does when he is stressed. “When do you plan on dating again?” he asked.
“Uh, well, I hadn’t considered it. I just don’t really see the point in it. Look how the last attempt ended,” I told him without considering the same view would be applicable to him as well.
“Chloe, you had a bad run with Carson, but you are an amazing woman. You shouldn’t keep that from some lucky guy,” he smiled at me.
I laughed again and laid back on my towel, “You really are too sweet, are you sure you aren’t gay?”
He pushed himself up and hit me with his towel as soon as I said it but I laughed even harder when he strutted along the pool. His tanned abs tightened while he flexed his perfectly sculpted muscles playfully at me and I couldn’t help but think, what a lucky intern!
“What is this?” he asked. I sat up on the towel and shielded the glare from my eyes to look at him kneeling beside a pool chair.
“I can’t see…” He held up an ink pen and I laughed. “Why is there an ink pen out here?”
“But it is a ball point,” he said, smiling and waving it around like he had just found the golden egg in an Easter egg hunt.
“Well maybe it was a gift from above, just waiting for you.”
“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t even work,” he said, attempting circles in his palm.
“Well, it is hard telling how long that thing has been out here.”
“Well, wish me luck. I have to go,” he said.
“Good luck!”
When he left, I couldn’t stop dwelling on the thought of him being out with another woman. I knew him as my best and only friend, but I really wanted to know what he would be like on a date. A gentleman I’m sure. I hoped the date would go well for him. But more so, I hoped that when he did find someone new, they could understand our friendship and not frown upon it, or even worse, try to forbid it. Men and woman are rarely just friends like Brian and I are and I don’t know that all women would be so sold on the idea. I am a living testament that you really cannot trust anyone, so why would a woman trust me with her man? And that is assuming she even trusted him to begin with, which is unlikely because women are naturally insecure, me included.
But laying on the pool deck, realizing how nice it was having Brian around, I did start to consider my own dating life. Even though it was obviously nonexistent, it could exist. But would I even want it to exist? And when is dating even acceptable after your husband has been murdered? I assume no grace period actually applies and even if it did, there would most likely be under the breath comments made about me whenever I did decide to be with someone else. So, assuming the same return on investment analysis of my last relationship, I would be better off just staying alone.
I laid on the pool deck until the sun set, feeling lonely without Brian. We hadn’t been apart for this long since the night we found out about Carson and Mila’s affair and being without him let me realize for the first time just how much I actually miss him when he isn’t around.
I nearly fell off the sofa when a knock came on the door. I stumbled through the dark, rubbing my eyes to look at the clock. Three in the morning, who is knocking on my door at three in the morning? I exhaled when I seen Brian through the peep hole and opened the door to him leaning against the brick. There is always something so innocently seductive about the way his eyes hold mine.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was out and just thought I would stop by…” he said, leaning in to kiss my cheek on his way through the door.
I stepped aside to let him walk in, “Well?”
“What?”
“Well how did your date go?” I asked him impatiently.
“Oh, that. Yeah, it went good enough.”
I fell down beside him and pulled my feet onto the couch, “Brian! I need details.”
“We had dinner and wine…” he told me and his face started to blush.
I hit him with the throw pillow, “Oh, you did not?!”
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders as he studied my face for judgement but I had none. Of course they slept together. He is intoxicatingly attractive and charming and I hurried to block out where my mind was starting to wander.
“So, you like her then?”
“Actually, that is the bad part…the really bad part. I don’t like her!” he admitted, letting his head fall.
“Brian! You liked her enough to sleep with her. What is wrong with her? Oh no! The sex was bad?”
“Actually, I didn’t sleep with her. I snuck out for that part,” he fell back into the couch. “Chloe, I feel terrible. I am not that kind of guy! But I couldn’t make myself stay. It was a mistake. The whole night was a mistake.”
I knew he wasn’t that kind of guy and the guilt for it was written all over his face. “It is okay, Brian. That was your first time trying to get back in the game. You were due to have at least one rebound, right?”
“Still a mistake, sorry I woke you up. I just didn’t know where else to go. I feel so bad.”
I smiled at him and covered us both with the blanket. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was jealous of the thought of Brian with another woman. I was jealous that another woman was getting his time and I was jealous that another woman was able to have him intimately. But I knew that getting romantically involved with him could put what we have at risk, and honestly, I couldn’t imagine being without him.
I cuddled up to him and laid my head on his chest to let his heartbeat put me to sleep.
Glass shattered and busted against the wood floor and before I was fully awake and aware of what was going on, Brian was running to the patio.
“Shit!” He said, hopping on one foot.
“Brian? What is going on?” I asked. The entire patio door had been busted and the pool chair was laying in the floor covered in shards of glass. Brian held his hand up for me to stay inside and he stepped over the glass and out onto the patio.
“Who is there?” he called out.
My whole body was tingling with fear of what might happen. Brian is built extremely well but I don’t know if that means he can protect himself in a fig
ht and if someone was trying to break in, they would most likely attack him. I ran into the kitchen and pulled a knife from the drawer. Slowly walking back to the patio, I realize how much my hand is shaking holding the knife. Flashes of the black handled knife in that plastic evidence bag started flashing through my mind. The dried blood was so clear in my memory and the knife landed hard against the floor causing Brian to come running back inside.
“Chloe, are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m sorry. I dropped the…” I said, staring at the knife in the floor and Brian quickly picked it up and walked it to the kitchen.
“Get some clothes. We are not staying here.”
I couldn’t argue it. The patio was wide open now and the door would have to be replaced before I could comfortably sleep or even be in this place.
Brian sighed heavily at each stop light on the way to the hotel. “Chloe, I think this has something to do with the roses. There was no wind, nothing to knock that chair into the glass. Someone physically threw it and didn’t even attempt to come inside. They were gone within seconds.”
“Brian,” I said, turning in my seat to face him. “I saw someone on the patio. It has been weeks, but someone was there. I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. But now, I know that I really saw someone.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am now.”
“Has anything else strange happened?” he asked.
“You mean other than my husband being murdered?”
“Chloe, do you think this has something to do with Carson’s murder?”
“I don’t know. There was a man that called in the body. And that shoe print…”
“What if Mila didn’t do this?” he asked.
“But if this person had something to do with the murder, wouldn’t they be stalking your house? The murder weapon was in your house, Brian. Are you saying you think someone other than Mila put it there?”
“You are right. I don’t think anyone was in my house, but maybe this person was an accomplice like Detective Burns said. Maybe we need to call her, or even the police.”
“Yeah. I will call tomorrow.”
“Well, you are stuck with me every night until this is settled,” he said protectively.
“Okay.”
We made the extra drive to avoid the hotel Carson and Mila frequented and we each fell onto our separate beds, quickly passing out. The next morning, he had brought me breakfast before I even woke up. Coffee and donuts, a perfect choice.
“I hope you don’t mind, I called our handy man for the firm about your patio door. He said he will fix it today. Two-hour job, if you want.”
“That would be great! What do I need to do?” I asked, feeling relieved from the stress being taken care of for me. Being a widow now, these are things I would eventually have to learn to take care of on my own. But I am grateful for Brian, especially today. I wouldn’t even have known where to begin with getting it fixed.
“I can meet him there this morning if you have things you need to do.”
“Actually, I was hoping to visit the cemetery. But I can meet him so you don’t have to deal with it.”
“Well, I don’t know how to put this politely. Bernie isn’t exactly respectful of women and I would not be comfortable with you being alone with him. Why don’t you just let me take care of it and you go to the cemetery.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” he said, smiling an adorable smile that made me blush even in the midst of the stress.
“Well, should we call Detective Burns first?” I asked.
“Yeah, that is a good idea.”
Detective Burns dismissed my worry pretty quickly but offered to send Detective Pete over. I wasn’t sure who Detective Pete was, but I really hoped it wasn’t red haired basement man who, for my own amusement, I had named Detective Creep.
Brian opened the front door to my house and walked in first. I followed him inside and nearly jumped out of my heels when he suddenly dropped in front of me. A cuckoo flew passed my head and circled around the cathedral ceilings long enough for Brian and me to erupt into laughter. “We should have tried to block that off,” I said, wiping the smearing mascara from my eyes.
“I am going to check the rest of the house,” he said and I looked back to the bird.
“I am coming with you,” I told him, weighing the possibility that the bird could attack me in his absence.
I held my breath when he pushed the bedroom door open, praying there wouldn’t be another rose in there but half expecting there to be one. But when the door opened, I would have rather seen a rose than what I saw. The bed was unmade, only on Carson’s side, where someone had been lying and one of my black dresses was laid out neatly on top of the duvet where I used to sleep.
“Oh my God!” I gasped, stepping back. The temperature in my face rising as rapidly as my breath.
Brian’s arm locked around me and he turned me to walk down the hall. “Chloe, it is going to be okay.” My breathing had turned into a complete panic attack and he sat me down at the kitchen table. Who would be doing this? Why would someone be doing this?
He rubbed my back until I had calmed down enough to try and make sense of the situation. The knocking on the door caused both of us to jump and Brian hurried to open it to Detective Pete. Son of a bitch, it is the red-haired basement man. The last person I want in my home right now. His eyes locked with mine before he even noticed the vandalized wall of glass in the living room. There was a smile on his lips, the kind that made you think he was thinking something sexual that would without a doubt make you sick to your stomach. Only one side of his lips curled up and there was no sign of teeth, if he even had any.
“This way,” Brian said.
“Chloe, do you have any enemies?” Detective Pete asked. He walked back into the kitchen and scooted a chair even closer to me than it already was and sat down, making sure his crotch was pushed out to me and his boots were planted a good three feet apart.
I rolled my eyes and looked to Brian. He noticed my discomfort and stood at my side, causing Detective Pete to lighten up on his peacock approach. “Not that I am aware of.”
“Did you get a big insurance policy? The kind that would tempt someone to rob your home?” he asked.
I had not considered that possibility, but it was actually very logical. Except one thing. Why would someone lay in my bed next to a dress of mine? “I did. But they were in my bed, with my dress, that isn’t typical for a robbery, is it?”
“If the perpetrator has seen you before,” he said, winking at Brian.
“Okay, thank you Detective Pete. I just wanted to file a report. We are expecting someone, if you don’t mind,” I said. My obvious irritation filled my voice and my blatant disgust was enough to give him the hint.
“You call me if you think of anything else, Mrs. Damichi.”
I shuttered when the door shut behind and looked to see Brian staring at the door, the same disgust in his face that I was feeling. “Chloe, I don’t think you going to the cemetery alone is a good idea.”
“Brian, I will be fine. I am not going to live my life in fear. I will keep my cell phone with me in case I see any red flags.”
He didn’t want to let me go alone but he knew he had no choice. I hugged him before the handy man got there and drove to the market to buy flowers for Carson. But standing in the floral department, I couldn’t bring myself to buy any roses. They were symbolic to something unpleasant to me now, even though I wasn’t completely sure what it was. I grabbed a bouquet of daisies instead and walked to the checkout.
There was a man, a familiar man. He was standing on the other side of floral display, behind large bundles of balloons. I couldn’t see his face but something about his stature was recognizable. The way his shoulders formed almost a perfect line across and how every move he made seemed so calculated, so precise. I knew this man.
“Lady, it’s twelve dollars and eighty cents,” the young cashier said impa
tiently.
“Yes, I am so sorry. Here.” I hurried to pay because my curiosity was getting the best of me and I needed peace of mind on who that man was. But when she handed me my receipt, he had already gone.
I made a lap through the cemetery, making sure there were no other cars. I had played it off with Brian, but truthfully, I was terrified being here alone. I had seen someone the day of Carson’s funeral. What if it was the same person that was laying in our bed?
My visits to Carson were usually quiet and brief, more of an obligation than an actual visit. But today, I laid down on the ground above him and told him that I needed to move on. My words were carried away with the wind, but somehow, I felt like he was listening. But that was probably me wanting it so badly that I had convinced myself of the possibility. But either way, laying on that ground, the wind whistling around me and softly disturbing the red leaves of the maple tree, I felt him there. And I talked to him like he really was. Brian was moving on from Mila and I knew that I needed to do the same with Carson. Although, I don’t know why I felt like I needed to tell Carson that I planned to move on from him considering he had moved on from me while we were still married, but I did. I left the daisies laying beneath the stone and told him goodbye.
The house seemed completely untouched when I walked in. All evidence of any broken glass and an intruder was gone. Brian was sitting at the kitchen table when I walked in and I buckled over laughing when I looked at the red hand print on the right side of his face. Apparently, he had gone to make amends with the intern and his apologies hadn’t gone so well. Brian’s actual description of the attempt began with, I should have never gone. Apparently, the girl had a pretty nice backhand from her tennis scholarship and being left like a call girl in the middle of the night was a situation to earn Brian the brunt of that. I wiped the tears from my eyes and grabbed a bottle of chardonnay before sitting next to him.
The day had been one of those days of clarity for me. I was scared in my own home. I couldn’t lie in that bed knowing that a stranger had laid there with my clothes like Norman Bates. But it was more than just fear. Lying on that ground with Carson beneath me, I realized that this was not where I wanted to be. I was wasting time that I wasn’t guaranteed in a house that didn’t make me happy. I was settling for each day like it was a chore instead of a blessing and I knew that I needed to change something. I knew that my life was not going to make itself what I wanted it to be. I had to do it and that is exactly what I planned on doing.
The Things We Don't See Page 12