give us some privacy, and wouldn’t be expensive. The shopkeeper unrolled sample after sample, while Maryam assailed him with questions: how much is this one, how much is that one, are you seriously asking for this much, do you have this in other colors. Then she picked out damask curtains. “But this will block the light,” I said.
“It’s such a pretty pattern,” she replied.
I tried to imagine our living room with those curtains, and I couldn’t. On the weekends, I liked to sit by the window and read the newspapers, but with these curtains I knew I’d have to sit on the balcony or go to a café just to get through the morning news. “You like something with a pattern?” I spread out the fabric samples on the counter. “Then how about this lace? It has a pattern.”
“I don’t like lace.”
“No lace. Let’s try cotton, then. It’ll let in some light.”
But Maryam didn’t like any of the fabrics I chose, so in the end I gave in. We bought the curtains she liked and went home. I got the ladder and brought out my tools, but every time I drilled a hole, she’d tell me the rod needed to move a little higher or a little lower. When the curtains were finally up, we had five holes in the wall and the rod slanted on the left. I don’t know why I’m remembering this, so many years later, it’s such a small thing. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to understand what happened myself. All I know is that life is short. Without realizing it, I had been traveling down the road from birth to death with the wrong companion. But now I had found the right one, and I didn’t want to give her up.
Coleman
The victim’s daughter came into the office, her eyes telegraphing that she had some news. It took her a while to get to it, and maybe I should’ve been more patient with her, but I was having a rough morning. I’d just found out that Miles was flunking math, which was infuriating to me because it had been his best subject when we lived in D.C. Now he had two Ds in pre-algebra. Meanwhile, the PTA ladies had asked if given my line of work I could chaperone for the seventh-grade dance, but I had to say no because I had a district meeting that night. I was pretty sure I had blown my last chance with them. I would never be admitted to their tribe. And to make things worse, Vasco was pressing me about this hit-and-run. He was getting bad press about a police-beating incident earlier that spring, and he was desperate for some good news. All of this is to say that I had a lot on my mind when Nora Guerraoui came to speak to me that morning. She shifted in her seat, drained the glass of water she’d asked for, clicked and unclicked the clasp of her bracelet watch. I thought about the pile of paperwork on my desk, all those silver Fords waiting to be checked and cross-checked. “What can I do for you, Ms. Guerraoui?”
“Please, just call me Nora.”
“What can I do for you?”
More fiddling with her watch. Another minute passed. “So I came across some information?”
“All right.” Let this be good, I thought.
“I don’t know if it’s relevant to the case.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it is? We can decide if it’s relevant later.”
“My dad was having an affair.”
Oh, that.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“These things happen.”
“But you knew?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Texts on his cell phone.”
“It wasn’t locked?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s dumb.”
Love ain’t smart, I wanted to say. I’d seen it before, people doing the dumbest things you can imagine, out of love or lust or whatever you wanted to call it, all along thinking they were going to get away with it because they were special. And thank God for that, or they’d never get caught.