Part 3
“The house.”
“She was talking about leaving.”
Patricia closed her eyes.
Owen stared at Evan. “Leaving where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“She did not tell me everything.”
“That would be a first,” Patricia said.
Evan’s head turned toward her. “This is not helping.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
Owen felt the cold thing inside him move again.
Clare had wanted to leave.
Not leave him. Maybe not. Evan had not said that. But the word sat there anyway, ugly and impossible. The mansion had belonged to Clare’s father before it belonged to them, though Owen had paid to restore it after the roof damage two winters ago. The house had become a compromise neither of them spoke about honestly. Patricia said it kept Clare close to family. Owen said it gave them space. Clare called it “the museum” when she was angry.
He had thought she was joking.
He thought of her standing in the kitchen one morning, barefoot, eating cereal out of a mug because all the bowls were in the dishwasher. She had looked at the open doorway to the foyer and said, “Do you ever feel like this place is watching us?”
He had kissed the top of her head and said, “That’s just the security system.”
She had smiled, but not really.
Now Owen looked around at the foyer, at the towering staircase and gold trim and dark wood railings. It seemed less like a home than a stage built for people who had nowhere to hide.
“You were here when she died,” he said to Evan.
“Yes.”
“And you let everyone believe she fell?”
“I told the truth as I understood it.”
“What does that mean?”
Evan’s eyes moved toward Clare and back. “It means I found her at the bottom of the stairs.”
Owen looked up the broad staircase. The polished railing gleamed beneath chandelier light. There was no blood. No damaged wood. No broken glass. Nothing to tell him how a life had ended.
“She fell down those stairs?” he asked.
“I don’t know if she fell.”
Patricia laughed, a thin sound of disbelief. “Listen to him.”
Evan’s voice sharpened. “I said I found her.”
“And what did you do before you found her?” she asked.
He did not answer.
Owen felt his pulse begin to beat in his throat.
Patricia turned toward the coffin. Her face collapsed for one brief second. She looked at Clare’s stomach, at the white fabric stretching gently over the child they had all been waiting for in different ways. Her mouth trembled.
“She called me three nights ago,” Patricia said. “She said she was tired.”
Owen looked at her.
“I asked tired of what. She said she was tired of being handled.”
Evan’s gaze fixed on the floor.
“Who was handling her?” Owen asked.
Patricia pressed her lips together.
“Owen,” Evan said, “there are things you don’t understand about her situation.”
The sentence was so controlled that Owen nearly missed what was wrong with it.
Her situation.
Not her death. Not her fear. Not her child.
Her situation.
Owen stepped away from the coffin.
“Do not talk about my wife like she was a file on your desk.”
Evan lifted both hands slightly. “I’m not.”
“You just did.”
“I’m trying to explain why she was upset.”
“Then explain it.”
Evan looked at Patricia. “This is not the time.”
Patricia’s eyes filled again, but now the tears were not grief alone. There was something harder beneath them. “When is the time, Evan?”
He looked at her with a warning in his face.
She took a breath so sharp it seemed to hurt. “When my daughter is buried? When you have made sure no one asks what happened in this house?”
Owen’s chest tightened.
Evan’s expression went flat. “Be careful.”
Patricia stared at him. “You think I’m afraid of you?”
“No,” he said. “I think you’re hurting.”
“I am hurting.”
“I know.”
“No.” Her voice rose, and the sound struck the marble walls. “You do not know.”
Owen watched them, understanding just enough to become terrified of the rest. The three of them had been in this house for less than an hour since the coffin arrived. No guests had come. No relatives waited in side rooms. No priest or director or neighbor stood nearby to soften the sharp edges of what was happening. The wake was private because Patricia had insisted that Clare needed peace before people began touching her with their sorrow.
Owen had agreed because he could not bear strangers looking at her.
Now he wondered whether Patricia had needed privacy for another reason.
Evan had come because he said he wanted to pay respects.
Owen had let him in.
May you like
The thought made his stomach turn.
He walked toward the stairs, stopping at the first step. The dark wood was polished so thoroughly he could see the blurred reflection of his own shoes. He had carried Clare up these stairs when they moved in, laughing because she had insisted she was perfectly capable of walking but had wrapped both arms around his neck anyway. He had taken the stairs two at a time when she called for him from the nursery after feeling the baby kick for the first time. He had once stood on the landing with a glass of wine while she below pretended to auction off old furniture she wanted to throw away.
