even remember if there was a rule in the book for a situation like this. For sure, nothing like it had ever come up in his training classes. He looked over at his partner and raised his eyebrows. What now? Captain Josell just stared at him blankly. It was obvious that he didn’t know what to do, either.
Bella blinked away her tears and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. She looked around, and said, “You look uncomfortable. If you aren’t going to leave, you might as well sit down. Are you supposed to talk to me? Are you going to tell me how my husband died? Or is a shrink on the way to do that for you?
“I don’t know what to do here. I’ve heard stories, seen movies, but I never thought I would turn out to be a leading character in one of those stories,” Bella said, her voice cracking with each word that came out of her mouth. “I guess I am now one of your statistics. Is there some special protocol we need to follow?” She knew that she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“Actually, Mrs. Nolan, there is a protocol of sorts. We usually follow the bereaved’s lead and do what they want, and go from there. Personally, ma’am, I think you should talk to the psychiatrist when she gets here. I think you’ll feel more at ease with a female,” Captain Kimball said.
Bella didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t know what to think. What did gender have to do with anything? Dead was dead. A man talking about it or a woman talking about it couldn’t bring Andy back to life. Maybe what she should do was call Mitchell Jones and ask him what to do. Lawyers usually had the answer to everything, or at least they would have you believe they did, and that’s how they justified billing you out the kazoo. Maybe Mitchell could undo the paperwork and recall the whole sorry mess, and she could go on with her life and pretend she didn’t file for divorce the very same day she was notified of her husband’s death.
She nixed that idea immediately because she realized that, papers or no papers, it was impossible to divorce someone who was already dead when the divorce papers were filed. Bella Ames Nolan was, for all eternity, the widow of Major Andrew Nolan, not the ex-wife of a man who had died serving his country.
How could this be happening? How? You file for divorce the same day you find out your husband is dead. All within the space of an hour. And all it took was a single hour. An hour, her mind screamed silently. Good God, how am I supposed to live with this? This is wrong. I need to sit down somewhere in a dark corner and howl my head off, Bella thought, as she knuckled her eyes to keep more tears from spilling down her cheeks. She needed to say something. Ask questions? Why? You couldn’t fix dead just like you couldn’t fix stupid.
Bella knew she had to do something, like right now, or these men were going to be in her apartment like mother hens forever.
“Did you . . . has anyone notified Andy’s sister? I know almost nothing about her, just that Andy told me he had a sister.” Something niggled at her concerning the sister, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “I think they were estranged but that they had patched up their . . . whatever it was that caused a problem, and I didn’t want to . . . you know, invade his . . . personal life, I guess, is how I should put it. We were so into ourselves, there was no room for anyone or anything else those last few days. We only had two days to . . . to spend loving each other.
“I’m not even sure I know her name. Susan, Samantha, maybe Sara. I’m just not sure. Andy never talked about her to me. I think the estrangement had something to do with his sister’s spending his inheritance plus her own when their parents died, but that might be all wrong. I’m sorry, I just don’t know very much about her.”
Whatever it was, it was right there on the tip of her tongue, but it wasn’t coming. Damn it, what is it? “Then, like I said, they patched up their differences. She was all he had in the way of family as far as I know. I guess that doesn’t help much, does it?”
“You had part of it right. Major Nolan’s sister’s name is Sara Nolan Conover. She indicated to us that she and Mr. Conover are divorced. She now goes by the name Sara Nolan. From what we can tell, she moves around quite a bit. She is listed as the beneficiary on Major Nolan’s insurance and also as next of kin. Her name is . . . was on Major Nolan’s bank account. For some reason, he never removed her name from the account. His pay went into that account. The account was drained and closed by Ms. Nolan once everything was turned over to her as next of kin. Major Nolan was a little lax on updating his personal information. There was nothing in his personnel file about his . . . your marriage,” Captain Josell said.
“It was only a month ago that we found out that Major Nolan was married. I’m sorry, ma’am. When we found out about you, we went back and took another look at the sister but were unable to locate her. She had cleared the bank account, moved, and is no longer on our radar. I’m sorry, Mrs. Nolan.”
Bella reacted to the news like she’d been slapped in the face. And then kicked in the gut for good measure. Andy hadn’t thought it important enough to change his insurance or to list her as next of kin, to put her name on his bank account, to provide for her. How could he not tell the military he had gotten married? How? That was the first thing she’d done at work when they returned from their two-day honeymoon. She’d told everyone, even the janitor, as she flashed her plain gold wedding band. She’d added Andy’s name to her savings and checking accounts. She’d listed him as her next of kin and made him the sole beneficiary on her insurance. She couldn’t wait to go to HR and do everything she needed to do.
And now these military people were telling her that he had not bothered to do any of the things expected of a military man who had just gotten married. And even as he had failed to provide for her, he had thought early on that it was important to nag her until she agreed to harvest her eggs and store them in a fertility clinic in case he didn’t make it back. Even back then, when she’d done what he asked, she’d thought there was something ominous about the whole thing. But she had not been able to pinpoint any one thing that made her think such a thing. She chalked it up to something she did not want to think about, much less do, but she did it anyway because her husband had asked her to do it. How had all that gotten by her? Was she that much of an idiot? The obvious answer was yes—but no, not really, she was just head over heels in love with her handsome husband, Major Andrew Nolan, who looked like a movie star in his dress uniform.
It always came down to money in the end. Or the lack thereof.
Always.
The small group in the tiny living room looked at one another. Both officers jumped to their feet and ran to the front door when they heard the doorbell ring.
Bella swiped at the tears on her cheeks as she watched the hushed conference taking place at the doorway with two women in military dress. The shrink and another woman. Another shrink? She waited as both officers returned to where she was sitting, offered up their condolences again, then shook her hand. When the door closed behind them, it sounded like thunder to Bella’s ears. She looked up at the two women, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Mrs. Nolan, I’m Colonel Laura Atkins. I am also a psychiatrist. I should have come here with Captain Josell and Captain Kimball, but I was on another call and running late. I’m sorry. I got here as soon as I could. This young woman standing next to me is Lieutenant Carol Gibson. She is . . . was your husband’s nurse.”
Bella stared at the two women and simply nodded. She just didn’t have it in her right now to say even one word. She wished they would leave so she could go to bed and sleep around the clock, then wake up and find out this was all just a bad dream. That wasn’t going to happen, and she knew it. She motioned for the two women to sit down, which they promptly did.
“Do I call you Doctor or Colonel?” Bella asked. There . . . she finally asked a question that made at least
