Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [13]
“Mrs. Hutchinson? How are…how are you doing?”
“I’m a little thirsty, if I could…”
“Certainly,” the sheriff said, who then went out into the bustling main office to get a cup of water for her. Before the door shut behind him, she saw the man named McGuane again. He was gaunt and had lightly graying dark hair that seemed too long for a detective. He looked to be about fifty, and something in his demeanor and his wrinkled jacket made her think of a scarecrow. He stared at her, as the door closed behind the sheriff.
“We had you checked out,” the sheriff said. “Your head. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t think it’s a problem,” she said, but the headache was pretty strong.
Then, she was alone again in the office, blinds drawn around the windows.
After the sheriff returned with a large plastic cup of water, McGuane followed.
She watched as he went and took a chair opposite her, pulling it in closer.
She couldn’t look at him again. Not for a while.
“I wish I could be gentler about this,” McGuane said.
4
Mel came to take her home, and hugged her when she saw her. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the padded yellow envelope in Julie’s hands.
“Personal effects they said. Wallet, keys, watch,”
Julie said, feeling dead on the inside.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Mel gasped when Julie
turned away from her.
Julie felt the bandaging on her neck. “Oh. That. It’s
nothing. Really.”
5
In the car, Mel said, “I don’t even know what to say, sweetie. I just don’t. We’ll go home. Somehow, we’ll sort this out.”
You hated him, Julie wanted to say. You told me on my wedding day that he was a poor bet for a husband. You told me he had too much baggage. Don’t sit here and pretend everything will ever be all right again.
Julie said, “Hut bought a gun two years ago. He said he didn’t like the way there was too much crime, even in the suburbs. He bought it and I hated it and I tried to throw it away twice. He had it locked up at the top of the linen closet. I made him take the bullets out of it and put those elsewhere. I wish I hadn’t insisted on it. I wish he had his gun with him. I wish he had it. He might still be alive.”
She felt her sister’s touch on her scalp, combing through her hair, just as her older sister had done when they’d been kids, when Julie had come home from a bad day in kindergarten or first grade, a day of fears and a day of friendships lost. Mel would comb her fingers through Julie’s then-blond hair and whisper, “I’m going to brush all the bad things from your head, Jules. Don’t worry.”
6
At home, she lay down on top of her bedspread and stared up at the ceiling until her eyes lost their focus and she had to shut them.
In her dream, she saw the face again.
His face. Not dead, but alive.
Not on a shiny metal table, pasty-white skin, covered
with blotches of brown-red and bright blue bruises.
But as he had been the last moment she had seen him. Alive.
It was morning, and she had just made coffee.
She turned to him, feeling the sorrow that came with the knowledge of the loss.
His warm brown eyes brightened when he finished telling a truly bad joke to her, and she chastised him for spilling coffee on the edge of his sleeve. He had given her that look that meant he was tired of the small, petty comments. In the dream, she tried to erase even making a comment about the coffee stain. She looked at him and said, “Try to be home early at least one night this week.”
“You know how demanding things are right now.” His voice—had she even remembered it correctly in her dream? “It’s not as if I’m making people get sick so I can work late and never be home with my wife and kids. You think I’m that kind of man?”
Even in the dream, the thought of another woman whom he might or might not be seeing came up for her, a cloud that was both distant and close.
“Well, you don’t even know your son at this point,” she said—and something inside her said, don’t keep doing this