have a lot of buffer right now. I can’t afford to put anyone offside, June least of all. I didn’t bring lunch, that goes without saying. I should go downstairs to the cafeteria later and grab a sandwich.
I spend the next two hours marking. It’s easy work, if a little time-consuming, but it’s what I need right now and I’m lost in it when my phone rings, making me jump.
And I know, I just know, my body knows, that finally this is the call I’ve been dreading all day and frankly by now it’s almost a relief.
“Luis?” I try to sound normal and I can’t remember what that sounds like so it comes out forced and overly cheery.
There’s silence on the other end, and I’m about to ask if he’s there, when I hear him take a ragged breath, the sound you make after you’ve been sobbing your heart out and it’s finally over.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. What I really want to say is, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. No, I’m not sorry. I don’t know what I want to say anymore but he speaks before me.
“She’s dead. Isabelle is dead.”
My heart leaps in my throat. I sit up. “Are you sure?” Then I realize the wrongness of my question and add, “We saw her only last Friday night, how could she be dead?”
“The police called me. She was found this morning. At her house.”
“I can’t believe it. Did they say what happened to her?”
“Not yet. Just that she was found dead this morning in her house.”
“But I don’t understand!” I’m on my feet now. I’m almost shouting. “How can she be dead?”
“I don’t know!”
“When they did call?”
“An hour ago.”
An hour ago. He has waited for an hour before telling me. There’s the beep of another call in my ear but I ignore it.
He sighs, a beat of silence passes between us. I wait.
“The police are coming over, they want to ask me a few questions. That’s what they said.”
“What questions?”
“I don’t know! Jesus, Anna! Are you listening to me? They’re probably talking to everyone who knew her. Her colleagues. Other artists who worked with her. Her friends!”
Her lovers? “Oh my god, this is awful.”
I sit down again. Do the police even know they were lovers? Then suddenly it occurs to me that maybe Luis didn’t even know she was pregnant. I try to remember what Isabelle said to me last night. I’m carrying his child… But did she say she’d told Luis? Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the police don’t have to find out about any of that.
“I just don’t understand.” I have to calm down but I can’t breathe properly. Thoughts are stumbling over each other and I can’t think straight. Is this a panic attack? Is this how they start?
“Babe, I have to tell you something—”
The beep, again, intense and relentless. Just go away, whoever you are.
“No, you don’t,” I interrupt. “We can talk later.”
“Anna, wait. I—”
“Please, Luis!” I don’t want to do this, why doesn’t he understand? “I have to go, I have to go to class.”
Then he says something so low I can barely make out what it is. Barely, but it sounds like, “I’m scared.”
I want to say, just tell them the truth and everything will be okay. But that’s not true. Nothing can be possibly okay after this. And I don’t want him to tell them the truth because then they’ll know. And everybody will know, and I’ll know for sure, that my husband didn’t love me anymore. That he loved her instead, and that she was carrying his child. And now she’s dead.
This is so bad. And yet I am numb. I have to pull myself together. People will be asking soon, Did you know her? I must say the right thing, think of her parents, her boyfriend, her colleagues, words of sorrow. But all I can think is, Will they do some kind of DNA analysis on the unborn child? And what did I do with my gloves again?
I have to think. There is no room for error now. “You still there?” he asks. I want to scream into the phone, This is all your fault! Why did you have to do this, Luis? Why did you want to leave me? We could have worked it out. You could have talked to me.
“I have to go, honey. I love you,” I say instead.
“Anna, listen—”
Tell me you love me. Say the words, Luis, say, ‘I love you too, I love you more than