It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead (2 page)

She crossed her arms. “You found him. Right?
That’s why the late visit? The quiet voice?”

All the softened edges.

“I’m sorry, Jem.”

She shuffled to the kitchen table and fell
into a chair. An old pack of cigarettes that sat untouched on the sideboard appeared
in her hand. She pulled one out. There wasn’t a lighter in the house. Not even
a match. She hadn’t smoked in seven months. She brought the cigarette up in front
of her eyes and sniffed it. She set her jaw and flicked the cigarette onto the
table. It bounced and rolled off the edge.

Finn pulled out the chair opposite her. Its
wooden legs creaked under his six-three-plus frame. He leaned over and plucked
the cigarette from the floor and returned it to the pack.

She fought back tears. “What happened to
him?”

“We’re not sure of everything yet. Lots of
pieces to put together.”

“Where was he?”

“They found him —” He took a deep breath
and seemed to hold it far too long before letting it go. “Shit, Jem. He was in
a dumpster in an alley. In Montreal.”

She clenched her eyes shut. Tears won the
battle and squeezed out from all sides. “How?”

“He’d been beaten. Shot. Probably robbed.
He had nothing on him, no wallet, no money, no jacket. Not even shoes.”

She opened her eyes. Finn was misty too. Almost
four years had passed since Gerald went missing. With all the updates from Detective
Wight, the phone calls, the meetings, there’d been no sign of chinks in his cop
armor. It was good to know he had some. Good to know he was human.

“Who killed him? Why? How did he get to the
other side of the country? And where the hell has he been for four damn years?”

“All questions I can’t answer today. The
Montreal police are working on it. It’s a murder case now, in their territory.”
He reached across the table and covered her trembling hand with his big paw.
“Jem. I’m going to find out everything. I promise.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“We know where he started. We know where he
ended up. We’ve got some clues to fill the gap, like when you saw him downtown
that time. We’ll figure it out.”

“I have to call his mother. And his research
partner. And. And.” She pulled her hand away and chewed on her thumbnail. “And
a bunch of other people I don’t want to talk to.”

“I’ll get out of your way.” He stood and
turned towards the door.

“Wait.” She pushed herself to her feet,
balanced on her tiptoes, threw her arms around his neck and placed a light kiss
on his cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”

He gave her a gentle squeeze. When she
relaxed her hug he held on for an obvious second before letting her go. “I’ll
keep in touch. We’ll keep up the weekly reports too. This won’t go cold.”

“I appreciate that.”

She walked him to the entryway and watched
him descend the crumbling concrete steps to his unmarked car parked on the
street. The faint scent of cologne sweetened the still air. The detective was a
big man, but she could see no sign of flab. It was obvious from how his clothes
hung that he was muscular, but that hug proved he was solid. He must scare the
shit out of the bad guys.

His car pulled out from the curb and turned
up the street. She put her shoulder to the door and forced it into the jamb.

She passed the table and snapped up the
cigarette pack on the way by. She tapped it once against the heel of her palm and
a cigarette slid out. She lit a burner on the gas stove. Seven months smoke-free.
She’d sworn it was the last time she would quit. Even started exercising to
combat the weight gain. Fat lot of good it did her. Fifteen pounds on and then
off again with each win and eventual loss against the addiction.

Screw it.

She held the tip to the blue flame and sucked
in a long drag. Her lungs filled with glorious poison, nerves relieved and senses
heightened all at once. She let the smoke slip from her lips and pass in front
of her eyes, then tilted her head back and blew the rest straight up to the ceiling.

The stench of stale cigarette smoke had
finally been cleansed from her home, from the drapes and the upholstery. Gerald
would’ve made her take it outside. She glanced at the back door and the chilly,
black night. She pulled a tumbler out of the cupboard and filled it with merlot
from the open bottle that sat at the ready on the faux-granite countertop, then
dragged herself into the living room.

The under-stuffed sofa that Gerald had
picked out the year they moved in together accepted her into its rigid discomfort.
Her forearm landed in its usual spot on the balding armrest. She placed the
tumbler on the coffee table next to a stack of dusty coasters and sucked on her
cigarette until the long ash fell into her lap. She flicked the ash onto the area
rug and wiped it in with her feet. The wine went down in one long gulp. She
pitched the smoldering butt into the glass, its heat hissing in the skiff of
red liquid that remained. She tucked her legs beneath her, dropped her forehead
to her forearms, and sobs overtook her.

Four years. Searching. Hoping. Wondering. Anticipating.
And for nothing. Gerald was gone. More often than not she’d thought they
wouldn’t find him alive. How could they? But she held onto any shred of
optimism she could find. If he’d stayed on his meds maybe he could have gotten
his schizophrenia under control. Or at least been able to manage it. Stay with
her. Marry her. Keep his promises.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. What other
outcome could there have been?

She crossed the room to the bookshelf next
to the television and picked up a pewter frame. In the picture, Gerald shook
the hand of the dean of medicine, accepting an award for excellence in cancer
research. Gerald. Mussed-up sandy hair resting on his shoulders. Ebony eyes.
Jeans and a black tee under that damn lilac corduroy sport coat. Those silly
boat shoes.

How ironic that he published papers on the
dichotomy between theory and practice. He was a walking dichotomy. A living,
breathing contradiction. Or at least he used to be.

When he started hearing voices, letting “the
others” dictate the direction of his research, change the direction of his
theory, it all went to shit. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia a year after
it started. And the year after that he was gone. His mind, his life, his work.
Him. All gone.

She put the frame down and glanced at the
wall. The hole he’d made when he ripped the old television cable out stared at
her like a one-eyed monster. She’d fixed the cable not long after Gerald disappeared
but had never gotten around to patching the hole. A reminder of one of the
scarier moments. When the characters on the screen started watching him.
Whispering about him. When he’d had enough of their interference and their
spying and he killed them all with one angry yank of the cord. The television
lay dormant those last two weeks. No radio was allowed either. And the phone,
well that was off limits in his presence. The real world was watching. The make
believe world was watching.

No one was watching.

six
bottles of grief

Jem stared at the hairline cracks in the
ceiling and ignored the radio alarm that blared one classic rock tune after
another. She slapped the snooze button for the fifth time. The side of her hand
clipped the tumbler on the night stand, jostling the inch of merlot left behind.
Five-thirty-six.

Damn it.

How do you measure grief? Two sleepless
nights. Six bottles of wine. Four three-hour-long baths. Two tubs of
butterscotch ripple ice cream. Zero phone calls made. Zero visits to the park. Zero
sandwiches delivered. Zero trips to the grocery store. One unanswered knock at
the door.

She couldn’t even face Finn. Couldn’t face
anyone.

Gerald’s funeral had to wait. The medical
examiner wouldn’t release him yet. Evidence could still be gleaned from the
wounds on her fiancé’s dead body, in the folds of his decomposing flesh, from
the long strands of his once beautiful hair.

Was it still long when he died? He wasn’t
recognizable enough for anyone to identify his body. Dental records proved it was
him. She didn’t have to face him. Didn’t have to remember him dead and
mutilated. It was hard enough to shake the imaginary pictures she made up in
her head. How could she have ever gotten past the real thing?

His warm smile, warm body, his patchouli-meets-Old
Spice scent, his dedication and drive and intelligence. That was the Gerald she
would remember. The way he was in the pictures. Before the crazy came.

Even if they did release his body, she couldn't
plan the funeral. She hadn’t even called his mother. And it wasn't going to
happen today. No way could she face that woman yet, even if only on the phone.
What was the rush? Gerald wasn’t going anywhere.

She swung her legs over the side of the
bed. Her feet landed on a pile of clothes. She shoved them aside with her toes
and sighed, then gathered them up and dropped them into a laundry basket already
spilling over with bed sheets. She kicked all the used wet towels out of the
bathroom, through the door, and down the stairs to the hardwood entry below.

The linen closet gave up its last clean
towel. She lingered in the shower, letting the hot water tank drain and the
water run cold against her skin. After towel-drying her hair, she threw on her
morning clothes — denim capris, a black tank over her most comfortable, most
ugly, most full-support bra. She slid the bedroom drapes open. The Rocky
Mountains jutted from the horizon, the rising sun illuminating their
snow-capped peaks. Not a cloud in the western sky. She pulled a light sweater
from her closet.

The aroma of fresh coffee met her halfway
down the stairs. Her heart sank. How many mornings would she greet before the
expectation that he'd be in the kitchen waiting for her would pass? Gerald had bought
that fancy machine. She still made coffee every night before bed and set it to
brew for the same time she still set her alarm to wake her. The same time that
Gerald had always awoken. Same old, same old. But the daily practice of leaning
on the counter across from each other, discussing their plans for each day, his
research, her cases, well — that ended weeks before he disappeared.

Damn, how she hated the others. Had grown so
tired of Gerald telling her their thoughts. She didn’t give a rat’s ass if they
said banana peels and coconut oil was the new cure for cancer.  All that
mattered to her was what Gerald thought. But he didn’t know anything by then,
didn’t have opinions of his own. He only cared about the others. And what they
told him to do.

The signs were there long before she did
something about it. She’d beaten herself up over that for all these years. His
devolution from brilliant to quirky to confounding to bat-shit nuts took a mere
few months. When he refused to take his medication, a psychotic break wasn’t
far behind. Then he was just gone.

She’d given up any semblance of a personal
life since. Her world became cases and clients and coping. Muddling through
each day wondering where he was, why he left. If he was ever coming home.

After a year without him, her legal
assistant, Cecilia, tried to fix her up on a blind date. She couldn’t do it.
Wouldn't do it. Gerald was only missing. And she still loved him, despite the
fact he’d lost his mind. How could she cheat on him? Forget about him? Move on
with her life? And how the hell was she going do that now? Now that she had no
choice.

She pulled open the door to the basement
and shoveled laundry down the steps with the side of one foot. Towels landed on
the concrete and she slid the basket behind them. It caught on one wooden riser
midway and toppled down the stairs, strewing underwear and yoga pants and tank
tops in its wake.

“Shit.” She stared at the mess for a few
seconds then slammed the door closed with a flick of her wrist.

While two sugars dissolved in a travel mug
of black coffee she plucked empty wine bottles that littered the kitchen off the
counter and tucked them in a box under the sink for recycling. She shoved an
empty ice cream carton in the garbage, wiped the counter clean with a wet paper
towel and yanked open the fridge.

She pulled lunch meat from the refrigerator,
peeled the cellophane from a pack of pastrami, sniffed and recoiled. Damn. She
pitched it into the garbage and dug an unopened container from the back of the
meat drawer. Still good for another week. Smoked turkey and black forest ham
were salvaged, but three other opened packs of green-tinged processed lunch
meat were tossed into the bin. Thank goodness for canned tuna. It never went
bad.

She slapped mustard on rye bread to hold
the meat in place, mixed tuna with mayonnaise, bits of green onion and diced
pickles, and spread it between slices of whole wheat. She wrapped each sandwich
in parchment paper. She used to use plastic baggies, but too many of them ended
up in the bushes instead of the garbage cans that dotted the park. At least
parchment was biodegradable.

She slid the knives and cutting board into the
sink already brimming with dirty dishes. Time to get it together Jemima. Life
does go on.

An hour later, she piled a heavy box of sandwiches
and oranges and a flat of juice boxes into her van.