heard him.
“What.” The word shot out of me like a bullet.
“I heard from the doctor tonight. Kelli’s toxicology report came back and he thought I’d want to know the results.”
I rolled over to look at him, temporarily forgetting my anger. I could barely see him in the dark, just the shadowy outline of his long body, the sharp angles of his face. “He called you on Thanksgiving?” Victor nodded. “Okay, so?” I prodded, still furious with him, but letting my curiosity get the better of me.
“He said she died of a sudden ventricular tachycardia. A heart attack, basically.”
“We already knew that.” I couldn’t tell if he was being purposely evasive or just struggling to find a way to say what he needed to say. I was too irritated to care.
“Right, but now we know it was caused by the medication she was taking.”
“Victor,” I said, past the point of any patience with him. “Did she commit suicide or not?”
He sighed. “There’s no way to know for sure. The doctor said her electrolytes were completely out of whack, probably because she wasn’t eating. She was on the verge of anorexia, I guess, which completely screws up how your body processes things.” He swallowed once before continuing. “So the meds she was taking built up in her system to the point where they became toxic to her.”
I thought about this a moment. “Is there any way for him to tell how many pills she had taken that morning?”
Victor shook his head. “Not an exact dosage. But the levels in her blood were higher than they should have been, so she was probably taking more than the prescribed dose for a while. It’s more the combination of that and her system being too broken down to handle it, I guess. Her heart just gave up.” He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell the kids. Ava keeps asking.”
“You can’t tell them the truth?”
“That their mom was a pill-popping anorexic? That’s a great idea.”
I knew I needed to confess my trip to Kelli’s house with Ava and explain the possibility that she might have given up a baby for adoption, but his tone slammed a door shut inside me. My cheeks warmed and I gritted my teeth to keep from telling him to fuck off. “Jesus, Victor,” I said instead. “I wasn’t suggesting you should say it like that.” I rolled back over and pulled the covers up to my neck. This conversation was over. “I’m tired, okay? Good night.”
He didn’t respond, but soon, his breath fell into a slow, deep rhythm, and I knew he was asleep. Frustration crackled through my body, keeping me awake. I knew his first loyalty lay with his children, and rightly so. And yet. The way he’d spoken to me—dismissed me, really. Like anything I had to say was irrelevant. I gnawed on this thought, tossing and turning for most of the night, wondering how we would get through this situation, questioning whether or not I could.
Around four thirty, I finally gave up any pretense of being able to sleep, got up, and took a shower. Victor woke up at six to find me already dressed and sitting in my armchair in the corner of our bedroom, reviewing one of the client files I’d brought home from work. He propped himself up on his elbows and gave me a small smile. “Hey. You’re up early.”
“Yep. I figured I might as well get a jump-start on my day.”
He cocked his head to one side. “It’s a holiday weekend. You’re going into work?”
I bobbed my head once. “For a little while, before you need to get back to the restaurant. I need to get some things done now, since I’m assuming you’ll need me to take care of the kids in the afternoons, so you can be at work?” He hadn’t asked specifically, but I understood that with Spencer’s broken arm I would need to take over much of what Victor would normally do for the kids because of his longer hours on the job. I’d need to alter my work schedule so I could pick them up from school. I’d need to get Ava to dance squad practice and Max to basketball. At this point, I didn’t see any alternative but to do whatever had to be done. There was no reason the kids should suffer just because their dad was being a jerk.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Of course. Ava got her period when we