the crest embroidered on the left chest, tucked neatly into a knee-length khaki skirt. Her long strawberry blond hair—just a shade lighter than mine—was tied back in a low ponytail, and she was holding a piece of white poster board with pictures and snippets of text neatly glued to it. It was her state capital report, which she had diligently worked on for the past two evenings.
“How are you going to bring that into school?” I asked as I turned to the sink to wash my hands. “I don’t think it will fit in your backpack.”
“It won’t,” Bridget confirmed. “But it’s going to get all bent if I carry it in like this.”
“Maybe we can roll it up and put a rubber band around it,” I suggested. “Go see if Dad has one in the office.”
“Okay.” Bridget trooped off toward our home office. Todd habitually checked his email on the desktop computer there every morning as he drank his coffee.
“Liam, did you find your shorts?” I called out.
“Oh, right. I forgot to look,” he responded. There was another flurry of heavy footsteps, the metallic thwack of the dryer door being opened and slammed closed. “Got ’em!”
Bridget returned, this time with Todd trailing her. My husband was a tall, broad-shouldered man with milk-pale skin and dark eyes. Todd’s dark hair was still thick, but it was becoming increasingly streaked with gray. I’d also noticed that lately he’d started wearing his tortoiseshell reading glasses more frequently.
“I don’t have any rubber bands,” Todd said.
“Oh, no! What are we going to do?” Bridget asked fretfully, her voice thin and sharp. Yes, my daughter was far more organized than my son, but her moods shifted so much faster. Joy one moment, tears the next. I worried constantly that the stormy emotional seas she traversed each day would one day capsize her.
“Don’t worry,” I soothed her. “Can’t you use a hair elastic?”
Bridget brightened at this suggestion. “Oh, yeah! I didn’t think of that!” she said and scuttled off to the bathroom the children shared to find one of the four million hair elastics that lived in the flotsam and jetsam of the drawers there.
Todd smiled at me. “Good save,” he said, crinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes. He rested a hand on my shoulder.
“I have my moments,” I said, turning back to the sink so that his hand fell away.
Todd had been trying lately. I had to give him credit for that, even if I wasn’t particularly charmed by his efforts. I wondered, fleetingly, if our marriage would ever return to the warm, secure place it had once been.
But then, before I could become too maudlin, remembering past happiness and the unlikeliness of its return, the doorbell rang. I looked up, wondering who it was. No one ever rang the doorbell before nine.
“Who do you think that is?” Todd asked.
I bit back my involuntary response. How should I know? Censoring oneself was necessary to a happy marriage. Or, in our case, to keeping an unhappy marriage from spiraling even further downward.
Don’t mess with one another, Dr. Keller, our marriage counselor, had suggested. Don’t drink too much. Don’t pick fights.
Don’t be too truthful, I’d privately added to the list. Honesty was overrated, especially within the boundaries of a troubled marriage. Actually, these days, I was starting to think that couples therapy itself was overrated. Was it really necessary to pay Dr. Keller an exorbitant rate just so we could have someone watch as we salted each other’s wounds once a week? Nothing ever scabbed over and healed when you kept picking at it. There was an undeniable wisdom to the old saying Least said, sooner mended.
I made a mental note to cancel our next session.
“It’s probably one of the neighbors,” I said. “Maybe someone has a dead car battery and needs a jump.”
Todd nodded and went off to answer the door just as the toast popped up. Whoever was at the house, they were arriving just as breakfast was ready. I checked the toast and decided to drop it down for further browning.
I heard the low murmur of Todd as he spoke, but I didn’t recognize the voices that responded. One male, one female, I thought. I couldn’t hear what Todd said in reply, but something about his tone sounded off. The smell of burning bread filled my nose. I popped the toast up. It was now charred black. I swore softly, feeling another flash of irritation at the interruption to our morning routine.
“Are you okay, Mom?” Bridget asked, appearing in the kitchen.
“I’m fine.”
“Gross,” Bridget said. “Burned?”
“Burned,” I confirmed.
“I’m not eating that,” Bridget said, pointing an accusatory finger.
“No one’s asking you to.” I plucked the bread out of the toaster and tossed it in the garbage can. “I’ll make some more.”
“Who are those people Daddy’s talking to?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Why?”
“He looks worried,” Bridget said.
I inserted a few fresh slices of bread into the toaster and put a lid on the pan of eggs to keep them warm.
“I’ll find out what’s going on,” I said. “Are your hands clean? No? Go wash them. Breakfast is almost ready.”
I passed through the open-plan living room with its well-worn brown leather sofas and floral wool rug, all overdue for replacement, out to the front hall. Todd was standing slightly to one side of the open door, so I had a clear view of the man and woman on our front step. Both were dressed in suits that looked too warm for a sunny April Florida morning. The automatic sprinklers switched on then and began spraying water across the browning lawn with rat-a-tat-tat efficiency.
“Who is it?” I asked.
Todd turned to me. Bridget was right, he did look worried.
“They’re police officers,” he said. “Detectives...” Todd’s voice trailed off as he turned back to look at our visitors. “Sorry, I’ve forgotten your names.”
“I’m Detective Alex Demer.” The detective was tall and bulky and had dark, pockmarked skin and a closely cropped beard. “And this is Sergeant Sofia Oliver.”
“I’m Alice Campbell,” I replied. Neither of them offered a hand to shake, so I followed their lead.
Oliver was the younger of the two. She was petite and fine-boned, and her auburn hair was cut short in a pixie style. Her lips rounded down, and her eyes were flinty. My best friend, Kat, would call it a “resting bitch face.” In Oliver’s case, it was an accurate description.
“Th-they want to talk to you about Howard Grant,” Todd stammered.
Howard Grant. Kat’s husband. Or, to be more accurate, her late husband. Howard had died three days earlier. The shock of his death still hit me anew
