Chương 5
"What does that have to do with my tea?"
"It doesn't."
"Then why are you telling me?"
"Because you're going to hear things."
"What things?"
"I made mistakes."
"Did you poison me?"
"No."
The answer came too fast.
Then he added, "Not the way they're saying."
My body went cold above the waist.
"What does that mean?"
"Jude, I love you."
I closed my eyes.
"Don't."
"I do."
"Then tell me what you put in my tea."
He stopped talking.
That silence was the first confession he ever gave me.
I kept the phone pressed to my ear until the silence became louder than his breathing.
"Say it," I said.
"I didn't mean for this to happen."
My hand began to shake.
"That isn't an answer."
"It was supposed to make you tired."
The hospital room seemed to contract around me.
"Why?"
"So you'd slow down."
I laughed once because the alternative was making a sound I could not control.
"Slow down from what?"
"Everything."
"Everything isn't an answer either."
"Work."
"I work from home."
"Exactly."
I stared at the IV tubing taped to my wrist.
Leo kept talking now, the way he always did when he believed momentum could replace truth.
"You were constantly checking accounts, scheduling things, making plans, asking questions, wanting to go places, wanting people over."
"Wanting people over."
"You know what I mean."
"No."
"I was under pressure."
"So you drugged me."
"I did not drug you."
"What word would you prefer?"
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Turn every sentence into the worst possible version."
My mouth went dry.
Even then, even with police around him and poison in my blood, he wanted custody of the language.
"Tell me what you put in the tea."
"I don't know the scientific name."
"But you bought it."
Another pause.
"I bought something."
"Why?"
"I told you."
"To make me tired?"
"It was supposed to be mild."
"How did you know that?"
"Someone online said—"
He stopped.
That was the first useful thing he had said.
"Someone online said what?"
"Forget it."
"No."
"It doesn't matter."
"You poisoned me based on something you read online?"
"It wasn't poison."
"My doctor disagrees."
"He doesn't know the context."
I shut my eyes.
There it was again.
The private universe Leo lived in, where context could turn cruelty into misunderstanding and evidence into persecution.
"What context makes this okay?"
"I was trying to keep our life from blowing up."
"You made my legs stop working."
"I didn't know that could happen."
"That isn't the same as not doing it."
His breathing changed.
For a moment I thought he might cry.
Part of me still recognized that sound and wanted to comfort him.
I hated that part.
"We were drowning," he said.
"In what?"
"Debt."
I opened my eyes.
"What debt?"
"Jude."
"What debt?"
He swore under his breath.
"I made some investments."
The word investments came out with the embarrassed defensiveness of someone describing a parking ticket.
"What kind?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters if you poisoned me over it."
"I didn't poison you over money."
"Then why are you telling me about money?"
"Because you kept looking at the accounts."
"I look at our accounts because they're our accounts."
"You were going to see."
"See what?"
"Transfers."
"I already saw three."
Silence.
The knowledge gave me a small, ugly satisfaction.
"Nine hundred, twelve hundred, eighteen hundred," I said.
"Where did it go?"
"That isn't all of it."
The satisfaction vanished.
"How much?"
"I don't know exactly."
"You know exactly."
"Not off the top of my head."
"How much, Leo?"
"About forty."
"Forty what?"
He did not answer.
"Forty thousand?"
"Maybe a little more."
The room stayed perfectly still.
I thought of our mortgage.
My emergency fund.
The canceled bathroom repair.
The way he had insisted we could not afford to replace my laptop when it failed.
"From where?"
"Cards."
"What cards?"
"Some in my name."
"Some?"
"And one home equity line."
My stomach folded in on itself.
"You borrowed against the house?"
"I was going to replace it."
"With what?"
"The returns."
"What returns?"
"I had a system."
The phrase was so ridiculous that for one second I expected him to laugh.
He did not.
"What did you invest in?"
"Crypto mostly."
I covered my eyes with my free hand.
"Jesus Christ."
"Don't start."
"I can't walk."
"Why do you keep saying that like I don't know?"
I dropped my hand.
"Because you keep talking like we are having an argument about a bad stock pick."
"I know it's serious."
"Do you?"
"Of course I do."
"Then why did you leave me at the hospital and go change your shirt?"
He said nothing.
The blue polo had bothered me because it was stupid.
Now I understood why.
It was proof that while my life changed shape, he had still been managing appearances.
"Was the shirt evidence?" I asked.
"What?"
"The one you changed out of."
"No."
"Did you spill something on it?"
"No."
"Did you handle the chemical before the party?"
"No."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Then why did Eastman say possible intentional exposure and your face went white?"
"I was shocked."
"You were scared."
"Same thing."
"No."
"Judith, you are not a detective."
"No, apparently I was just the experiment."
He made a sound of disgust.
That familiar sound hurt more than his anger.
It belonged to grocery-store arguments, missed exits, towels folded wrong.
He was still using it on me.
"I can't talk to you when you're like this."
"When I'm paralyzed?"
"When you're trying to punish me."
I almost hung up.
Then I thought of Ruiz telling me to remember accurately.
"How long did you give it to me?"
"I don't know."
"February?"
"I don't remember."
"You remember."
"I said I don't."
"Did you start before or after Valentine's Day?"
He was quiet.
I pictured the restaurant where we had eaten that night.
May you like
Leo sent back his steak because it was medium instead of medium-rare.
I had gone home with tingling feet and blamed the shoes.
