to crack his jaw. By now it’s barely seven, and Dave has never been a morning person.
“I’m searching for clues.”
“I figured as much.” He stretches his long arms up to the ceiling and twists, a noisy wringing out of his spine that makes me think of bubble wrap. “But what I meant is, dare I ask if you’ve found evidence of another life in Seattle?”
“The opposite, actually. No unusual payments, no names I don’t recognize. Only more evidence that when it comes to organization, my husband is completely anal.” I pick up the will, flip through to page seven. “Do you have a life insurance policy?”
“Yeah.”
“For how much?”
He rubs a hand over his dark hair, making it stand up in tousled tufts. “I don’t remember. Just under a million or so.”
“What about James?”
“Somewhere around the same, I think. Why?”
“Two and a half million dollars.” I shake the paper in the air between us. “Million, Dave. Doesn’t that seem extraordinarily high?”
He shrugs. “I assume you’re the beneficiary?”
“Of course,” I say, even as another question elbows its way into my consciousness. Who’s to say he didn’t purchase others, to benefit whoever’s in Seattle?
“Then, yes and no. As I recall, the calculation is something like ten times your annual salary, so, yes, the amount Will insured himself for is steep. But he loved you. He probably just wanted to make sure you’re well provided for.”
Dave’s words start a slow leak of grief, but I swallow it whole. Yes, my husband loved me, but he also lied. “Two of the policies were bought three months ago.”
His head jerks up, and his brows slide into a sharp V. “That’s either an incredible coincidence or incredibly creepy. I can’t decide.”
“I’m going for creepy.”
He sinks onto a chair and scrubs his face. “Okay, let’s think this through. Life insurance doesn’t come for free, and an amount that big would have cost him a hundred bucks or more a month.”
I point to the pile of binders, one of them containing this year’s bank statements. “Well, he didn’t pay for it from our mutual account. I combed through every single statement and didn’t find anything but a shocking amount of Starbucks charges.”
“Could he have another bank account?”
“It’s possible, I guess. But if it’s not here, how do I find it?”
“His computer. Emails, bookmarks, history files. Things like that.”
“Will never goes anywhere without his laptop. Ditto for phone and iPad.”
“Can you log in to his email?”
I shake my head. “No way. Will isn’t like us, people who still use the name of their childhood dog as a password. He uses those computer-generated log-ins that are impossible to crack, and a different one for everything.”
“Even for Facebook?”
“Especially for Facebook. Do you know how often social media accounts get hacked? All the freaking time. Next thing you know, all fifteen hundred of your Twitter followers are getting DMs from you hocking fake Ray-Bans.”
Will would be so proud. They’re his words, the ones he preached to me when I told him rocky321 is my password for everything. Now they roll right off my tongue.
I sigh, looking around at the messy piles of papers and binders. There are no more answers in these, that much is certain. I scoot forward on my knees, begin shoving everything back into the cabinet.
“You know the next place I’d look if I wanted to find my husband’s secrets? And I tell you this at the risk of confirming every stereotype you’ve ever heard about gay men.”
I reach for another binder, glancing over my shoulder at my brother, and we say the words in unison.
“His closet.”
* * *
Will’s closet is a neat, orderly world where each item is organized by color and grouped by category. Work shirts, pressed and starched and buttoned. A row of pants with pleats sharp enough to slice bread. Jeans and T-shirts and polos, every hanger matching and perfectly spaced. I pull on the top drawer handle, and it opens to reveal his boxers, rolled into tight Tootsie Rolls and stacked in even rows.
This is Will’s domain, and he’s everywhere I look. I stand here for a moment, drinking him in like wine, feeling a quivering ache take hold in my stomach. I sense him in the orderliness, in his preference for soft fabrics and rich jewel tones, in the scent of spicy soap and mint. Like I could turn around and there he’d be, smiling that smile that makes him look younger and older at the same time. The first time he aimed it at me in a rainy Kroger parking lot, I liked it so much I agreed to a cup of coffee, even though he’d just rammed his car into my bumper.
“You could have just asked for my number, you know,” I teased him a few days later, as he was walking me to the door after our first official date. “Our fenders didn’t have to take such a beating.”
“How else was I supposed to get your attention? You were driving away.”
I laughed. “Poor, innocent fenders.”
“A worthy sacrifice.” He kissed me then, and I knew he was right.
“You okay?” Dave says now, his tone gentle.
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” He searches my face with a concerned gaze. “You don’t have to help, you know.”
“I know, but I want to.” He doesn’t look convinced, so I add, “I need to.”
“Okay, then.” He points back toward the beginning, to where Will’s sweaters are stacked in perfect piles in the cubbies. “I’ll start on that end and you on the other. We’ll meet in the middle.”
We work mostly in silence. We check every pocket on every pair of pants, shorts and jeans. Dave shakes out every sweater, and I dump out every drawer. We peer inside every single shoe, reach into every single sock. It’s a good hour’s work, and in the end, we find nothing but lint.
“I know your husband is meticulous, but this is insane. At the very least, we should have found some trash. Old business cards, receipts, some spare change. Is there a spot somewhere where he emptied his pockets?”
“We keep a spare change jar in the laundry room, but as for the other things...” I lift both shoulders high enough to brush my earlobes.
My brother and I are seated cross-legged on the closet floor, surrounded by messy piles of Will’s clothes and shoes. The closet looks like a tornado came through it, whipping clothes off the hangers and out of the bins and dumping everything onto
