was going to send you a letter, from her, to say she never wanted anything to do with us, that she was moving away and not to contact her again. I made The Nest for us, Anna! I put all that stuff in it, your mother’s things, the Epipen, some other things you wouldn’t know about... I wanted to get rid of these things and start again. But I couldn’t just burn them, I had to do something more, something transformative, a new beginning. That’s why I had to make something big out of it, something for us. That’s why I took Isabelle’s ring and put it in. And then I was going to sell it, it would sit somewhere, in a gallery, and only I’d know, and it would be like a song, to us. Do you see?”
I’m shaking my head, crying so much I can’t speak.
“We don’t need to tell anyone anything, Anna. No one needs to know. Not about your mother, not about Isabelle, not about Monica.”
“Oh god, Luis. Yes, they do.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “They will know about Isabelle, they’ll figure it out, and there’s June…”
“Don’t worry about June, babe. I’ll take care of June.”
“You have to let her go! I’ll tell everyone what you did if you hurt her—you have to let her go, Luis!” I’ve turned around and I’m on my knees, scrambling to get to my feet but he grabs my ankle and I fall, hitting my head against the corner of the coffee table. He’s yelling for me to stop. He’s shouting: Where are you going? What are you doing? He wants me to listen, but I can’t listen anymore, and I’m screaming and kicking him and there’s a second when he lets go and yelps in pain and there’s a door next to the fireplace and I’ve lunged through it and slammed it shut after me and I lean against it, panting.
It’s June’s bedroom.
“What are you doing? Babe? Don’t make me do this! Anna?”
He’s kicking the door and I’m screaming for him to stop and suddenly he’s on top of me and he pulls my hair and slams the side of my head on the floor and I’m clawing for something, anything and with one hand I’ve grabbed the leg of the bedside table and I’ve pulled it so hard the lamp has come crashing down and Luis is swearing, and I can’t reach the lamp and I claw at the drawer of the table, grappling blindly, and then I feel it.
Small, hard, metallic.
June’s gun.
I’ve kicked him hard in the face and he holds his nose, his face scrunched up in pain and I’m on my feet, my arms outstretched, my hands shaking so hard I don’t know how long I can hold it.
Luis drops his arms to his sides. His nose is bleeding. He shakes his head slowly. “No. Don’t.” Then suddenly his hands are on my face and there’s a noise, so fast, so sharp, it rips through the air and, just as quickly, silence. Except for a high-pitched sound, like a whistle. Luis smiles so sweetly and his eyes fill with tears and when he mouths the words, I love you, it’s pure and real and he looks down at the blood on his chest and I scream but I can’t hear myself, just the high-pitched noise, and when he falls I fall with him and hold him tight, and I say it to him, over and over, I’m obsessed with you.
Forty-One
I stand at the window gazing at the trees filled with brilliant white blooms. They’re all over campus, blossoming in unison, tall and dense, wide and round at the bottom and pointy at the top, which has always struck me as poetic, since they’re ornamental pears, and they really are shaped a bit like the fruit they bear.
“Hey.”
I turn around. June has walked in with a plate of cookies. I laugh.
“A selection of your favorites,” she says, setting it down on the desk. We hug even though I saw her this morning. I stay with her in her new place whenever I’ve needed to return for the investigation.
I grab a cookie and sit down at my desk. Which is not really my desk anymore, although no one has filled this office yet.
“It’s so quiet around here,” I say.
“I know, spring break, no students. Don’t you love it?”
“I sure do.” It’s the first time I’ve been back to Locke Weidman since