loss,” he continues.
The future life I was going to lead. The photos and personal items that tied me to the past.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re sure you were together all afternoon? Both of you? Right here?”
“Of course!” My mother is outraged.
“The police will be coming,” my lawyer says. Then he takes a seat at the table, and together, we wait.
• • •
THIS TIME, THE knock comes from the front door. But we were already alerted to the detective’s arrival by the sudden spike in noise from across the street—the media spotting the official vehicle and descending with a crescendo of questions. No comment, the police will say. That’s what they always say. After all, it’s not their lives being torn apart.
Mr. Delaney gets up, does the honors. My mother and I don’t look at each other. We can’t. I fix my gaze on my half-finished green smoothie, the piece of uneaten pineapple on my plate. Under the table, my hands are shaking furiously on my lap. Again, I’ve never felt myself such a mess. Shock? Pregnancy hormones? My heart is racing like a hummingbird’s and I suddenly want to blurt out everything, anything. Except I honestly don’t know what to say. I just want whatever magic words will give me my life back.
Dead woman walking. If that’s what I’d felt like twenty-four hours ago, then what am I now? Corpse walking? The ghost of a never-realized dream?
I recognize the first detective who walks into the kitchen. The father figure who attempted to question me last night. He still wears his very stern, yet somehow equally concerned expression. Standing next to Mr. Delaney, who is wearing a thousand-dollar suit, the detective appears both slightly frumpy and more human.
My mother is already sitting up straighter, her eyes zeroing in on target. An older male, reasonably attractive and clearly out of his socioeconomic league. She will eat him alive. And relish every bite.
Behind him comes a second detective. Female. Chin-length curly blond hair. Killer cheekbones. Nearly crystalline blue eyes. She’s wearing slim-fitting jeans and sleek black leather boots that match her swagger.
I have that sense of déjà vu again. Her gaze goes straight to me, narrowing slightly.
Smell hits me first. The memory of gunpowder and blood. The refrigerator. Don’t look at the streaked stainless steel. Don’t stare at the wax-doll version of my father on the floor. Sitting at the table. Except not this table. That table. And not in this kitchen, that kitchen.
She’d been the one sitting across from me. Younger. Softer. Kinder, I think. Except maybe because I’d been younger and softer, too. Questions then, questions now.
I look at my mom, Mr. Delaney, the detective, my hands still shaking on my lap. And I can’t help but think, the gang’s all here.
• • •
THE BLONDE, SERGEANT Detective D. D. Warren, doesn’t speak right away. She lets the older detective, Call Me Phil, run through the particulars. Warren prowls the kitchen. I wonder if she’s noting all the differences—new cabinets, countertops, appliances. Does she think it’s strange my mother still lives, cooks, eats, in a crime scene? That we are sitting, even now, mere feet from where my father died?
My mother is talking. With Mr. Delaney’s approval. She’s also turning her head a certain way—her best side, while periodically fingering a strand of frosted blond hair above her ear, French-manicured nails lingering on the graceful curve of her neck.
I’ve never seen my mother interact with a man without batting her eyelashes. She remains an attractive woman. Slim, graceful, good bones. Not to mention she’s a fanatic for green smoothies and organic this and organic that. In lieu of yoga, she prefers triple-distilled vodka, served straight up. Still seems to work for her.
My father never minded her flirting. He’d watch, a knowing gleam in his eye as she worked the room. I think he liked the way she sparkled. Others admired her. Others wanted her. But she always belonged to him.
I feel like I can’t breathe. Time is collapsing. I’m sixteen. I’m thirty-two. My father. My husband.
The same detective. Still prowling the expansive kitchen while most likely thinking, How many “accidents” can one person have?
I have a second question for her: How many losses can one person take?
My mother is swearing she was with me all afternoon. The detective, politely but forcefully, wants to know if anyone can corroborate. Mr. Delaney intervenes smoothly that if the police don’t believe his client’s statement, the burden is on them to prove otherwise. Do they have