how he changed? He would get over-excited, too much so, like he was on drugs. He’d say to me, ‘June, one day you’ll be able to say you knew me when!’ Then the next day he wanted to quit and go sailing for a year. To be honest, I never thought he was cut out for academic research, not at this level anyway. He was too… unstable.”
“How did he die?”
June’s face looks full of pain when she says it: “I’m so sorry, Anna. He jumped. Out the window of his apartment.”
Bile rises and for a moment I think I’m going to be sick, right there on the dark blue carpet. “I thought you were going to say he took an overdose or something.”
“I know.”
“But jumping out of a window?” I feel as pale as June looks. “He’s really gone?” I ask, god knows why. Maybe because hearing it from someone else makes it real. Even more real than yesterday, when I looked down at his bleeding and broken body wedged behind a dumpster three floors below.
June says something else but I don’t hear the words, only the sound of blood pulsing inside my ears. Her mouth is still moving when I step out of the room and almost run down the stairs and around the corner to the parking lot. I drop my keys before I can open the driver’s door of my car, where I spend the next twenty minutes with my forehead resting on the steering wheel, hyperventilating, vaguely recognizing the symptoms of a panic attack. I can’t even tell if it’s because Alex is dead or because of the magnitude of what I’ve done.
Eight
I have a longing to be with Luis, to rest my head on his shoulder and hear his soothing voice. I reach for my bag on the passenger seat and fish around for my cellphone, but the call goes straight to voicemail, which I half-expected. He always turns off his phone when he’s working.
“Hi, it’s me. Can you call me back?” Then I add in a smaller voice: “I know you’re busy, but do you think you could come home early?” I pause, about to tell him about Alex—Remember Alex? He’s dead—but instead I just say, “I miss you.”
I start the car, but let it sit idle for a moment. I shouldn’t go home to my kids in this state. I will Luis to call me back, then I think, Why don’t I go to him? I could watch him work while I tell him about Alex and why it’s all my fault. Not the real ‘all my fault’, obviously. I mean the bit about pushing him too hard, having high expectations. No. Don’t tell him about Alex. I will tell him later. Instead I will say, “Let’s go away after the exhibition, just the two of us. The kids will be fine without us. They can stay with your dad for a week or two. They’d love that. I’ll take time off work. We wouldn’t tell anyone where we were. Let’s remember us, the way we were. I miss you.” That’s what I’ll tell him.
I text Carla.
Working late, eat without me, there’s a lasagna in the fridge you can microwave. Make sure Matti does his homework, please. I’ll see you later, honey. Love you xox
She replies immediately.
K x
I stop by the liquor store on the way, because one thing I need right now is a drink. I’ve been needing a drink for hours. I pick up the first bottle I see, a Napa Valley cabernet, when I catch sight of the box wine further along the shelf. A wave of nostalgia rolls over me and for a moment I am back at college. Luis and I, seated crossed-legged on the floor of his room, Cher or Celine Dion on the CD player. We’d drink Franzia wine out of jam jars and kiss till my lips hurt. We’d talk of our plans for our future, how many kids we wanted (two: a boy and a girl), we’d talk over each other, our hands flying around as we constructed a life where Luis was a famous artist and I would be a famous mathematician.
I put the bottle back on the shelf and grab the box wine instead. The guy at the till recoils slightly at the sight of me. I glance at my reflection in the mirror behind him and see that my cheeks are streaked with dried-up rivulets of tears stained with mascara. I