too soon.”
The waitress brought Czarcik another drink. She glanced at Chloe’s glass and didn’t even bother asking.
“Other than the illness, sounds like the perfect life.”
Chloe stared across the bar, lost in memories of a world far different from the one represented in the photos of prewar Kiev that lined the walls. “It was,” she said quietly, giving herself a few seconds to compose herself before taking a sip of wine. Czarcik didn’t press. She would continue when she was ready.
“Then, about a month ago, something changed.” She chewed on her lip. “It sounds so clichéd. Like I rehearsed it, but other than saying a dark cloud came over him, I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“His mood changed. His personality,” Czarcik offered.
“Drastically.”
“Precipitated by the cancer, I presume?”
Chloe smiled. “I like to think so. Personality changes, even drastic ones, are common at this stage in the disease’s progression.” There was something about the way she said this. Czarcik thought she desperately wanted to believe it.
“I know it’s personal, but I’d like to hear the specifics about these personality changes.”
“That’s fine, but I should probably start with what Daniel was like before. Before he got sick. You know, we’ll have been married twenty years this coming January.” She snorted bitterly. “Some anniversary.”
Czarcik forced out a small compassionate smile.
“Anyway,” Chloe continued, “we met at the University of Wisconsin. Up in Madison. I was finishing up my degree in comp lit, and he was a graduate student in engineering. I was working part time at the university bookstore. That was when bookstores still sold books, instead of stuffed animals and god-awful vinyl releases of albums that had never been released on vinyl in the first place.” She blushed. “I’m sorry, that’s Daniel talking. He was a bit of an audiophile.”
“The good old days,” Czarcik corroborated.
“I keep getting off track. Where were we?”
“You met in the bookstore.”
“Right. He needed a book. I showed him where it was, we got to talking, and he asked me out for coffee.” She fiddled with her drink. “It’s funny; I’ll never forget the name. Fluid Mechanics and Circuit Analysis. Can you possibly think of anything more boring?”
Smiling. “I can’t.”
“For our one-year anniversary, he gave me a wrapped copy.” She began to cry.
Chloe continued with her story. Her demeanor changed. She became more serious, less wistful. But there was something else, thought Czarcik. He could tell she was now working.
The memories that came easily, the life snapshots that may as well have been recalled from a favorite movie or beloved book, were replaced by careful deliberation. She was trying her best to build a profile of the man she loved with pieces that had not yet crystallized in her consciousness.
Or pieces that needed to be invented. Czarcik wasn’t about to swallow the grieving-widow routine just yet, even if nothing Chloe had told him thus far raised suspicion.
“Daniel was one of those people you would describe, superficially, by saying ‘everybody loved him.’ But if you knew him well, that wasn’t entirely true. Everybody liked him.” She realized how this came out and clarified her statement. “I don’t mean this as a judgment. He was as good a man as there was.”
It wasn’t lost on Czarcik that Chloe had started referring to her husband in the past tense.
“What I mean is that although he had a ton of acquaintances, he didn’t have a lot of close friends. I think some of it was the result of him being an only child with hardly any family. But he wasn’t socially awkward or anything. In fact, he could be extremely charming. But at heart, I think he preferred to be alone.”
“Nothing wrong with valuing one’s privacy. Reminds me of myself.” Czarcik surprised himself by revealing this much unprompted. He chalked it up to the liquor, even though he was only on his second double Cutty.
Or those eyes. Those eyes were doing something to him.
“No, nothing at all,” Chloe agreed. He prompted her to continue. “Well, to make a long story short, after Madison we moved to Chicago. Daniel received an offer from ClearTel that was too good to pass up. Remember them? They had those goofy commercials with the animated wire that was constantly looking for something to connect to. But it can’t, because the world has gone wireless.”
“I do remember those commercials,” Czarcik recalled, “and they were goofy.”
“Phallic too.” She paused to gauge his reaction. “Daniel would tell me the marketing folks would have knock-down, drag-out fights about how large and rounded