Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [37]
“What exactly do you mean by ‘feeling better about it.’ About what?”
“Hut. Being gone. Maybe if you think he was cheating on you, somehow you can deal with it.”
“This is not Little Julie weaseling out of anything,” Julie said. “This is not me at ten years old not wanting to deal with mom and dad’s divorce, Mel. I loved him. I loved him. I will never love any man like that again. I miss him. I ache at night knowing that I won’t ever wake up beside him again. I am torn down the middle when I have a dream about him. I have to fight to keep from crying when Livy comes to me in the middle of the night because she wants me to help get God to send him back to us. I have to look her in the eye. She has nightmares three nights a week that a ghost is coming for her. She is seeing a psychiatrist, for God’s sake. My six-year-old daughter. And Matt. Oh my God, Mel, Matt. I have to keep him from hurting himself and maybe anyone else. I have to keep him safe when his own mother would not. And I have to tell them that life is still good. That it’s still worth something. Even if I don’t feel it inside. Even if I’m not sure it’s true. I’m not sure there’s good in the world. I’m not sure that this life is worth living. I’m not sure that if the man I love can be torn from me by some—some obscene insane fucked-up human being who the police can’t seem to catch—that I can look at my children and say, ‘God loves you. The world is God’s creation. We have a wonderful life.’ I’m not sure I can ever, ever believe that. And I won’t lie to them. But I want to know who Hut was. I want someone else to tell me what I didn’t know. I want to feel that life is worth living. Do you understand me? Do you? Can you?”
Mel had a blank look on her face. Nothing had registered. “Julie. It’s been months. It’s not like you have this luxury life. Your kids need you. I’ll help out. But don’t dwell on every little unsolved mystery of his life. He was a man. No one is perfect. You loved him. You have a beautiful daughter. She needs you like she’s never needed anyone before. You’re never going to find out if he cheated on you. He’s dead. Think of Livy. Put her first, and things will fall into place. I’m not sure that therapist is doing you any good. If you want to talk to a minister or priest…”
Julie felt an overwhelming desire to explode at her sister, but instead turned around and walked back up the hill toward her house.
13
She went up to her bedroom, shut and locked the door. She called the phone number she’d found in Hut’s jacket so many months before she couldn’t remember which month it had been. It felt disloyal to his memory to call it, but she reasoned that if he had been having an affair—which, with the distance of his death and the perspective she’d gained from becoming a widow, suddenly, in a violent circumstance—maybe it was partly her fault, too, maybe she was too involved with the kids and the ER and the idea of them as a couple instead of what he needed with all the stress he had at the clinic. Maybe it was just the nature of men. “All men cheat,” her mother had warned her before she’d married. Perhaps it was true.
Mel’s wrong. It won’t make it easier. I don’t want Hut gone. I don’t want to believe he’s gone. I just want to know something. Something true about him. Even if it was that he wasn’t in love with me anymore. Even if it’s bad news.
She whispered it aloud, as she thought it, “I don’t want to lose him yet.”
She gasped. She hadn’t realized how overpowering the unspoken feeling had been.
Maybe no one will pick up.
She would tell the red-headed woman—whether real or imaginary—that Hut had died. That they’d both loved him. Blah blah blah, she’d say, being a wonderful and generous and forgiving widow.
Hang up, Julie. Just hang up the phone. You don’t need to know who she is. You don’t need to find out.
Someone picked up the phone on the other end.
Julie felt herself choke up. She couldn