“Fine,” I tell him. “Just fine.”
He runs his hands down the thighs of his pants, straightening them. “I suppose we’re all a bit jumpy today,” he tells me, and I nod my head and agree.
“Anything Sadie and I can do,” Will tells Officer Berg as he walks him to the front door. I rise from my seat and follow along. “Anything at all, please let us know. We’re here to help.”
Berg tips his hat at Will, a sign of gratitude. “I appreciate that. As you can imagine, the entirety of the island is on edge, people fearful for their lives. This kind of thing doesn’t bode well for tourism either. No one wants to visit when there’s a murderer on the loose. We’d like to get this wrapped up as quickly as we can. Anything you hear, anything you see...” he says, voice drifting, and Will says, “I understand.”
The murder of Morgan Baines is bad for business.
Officer Berg says his goodbyes. He hands Will a business card. He’s about to leave, but before he does, he has one last inquiry.
“How’s the house treating you?” he asks off topic, and Will replies that it’s been all right.
“It’s dated and, as dated things go, has issues. Drafty windows, a faulty furnace that we’ll need to replace.”
The officer grimaces. “A furnace isn’t cheap. That’ll run you a few grand.”
Will tells him he knows.
“Shame about Alice,” Officer Berg says then, meeting Will’s eye. Will echoes his sentiment.
It isn’t often that I broach the subject of Alice with Will. But there are things I find myself wanting to know, like what Alice was like, and if she and I would have gotten along if we’d ever had the chance to meet. I imagine that she was antisocial—though I’d never say that to Will. But I think that the pain of fibromyalgia would have kept her at home, away from any sort of social life.
“I never would have pegged her for the suicide type,” Officer Berg says then and, as he does, I get the sense that my instinct was wrong.
“What does that mean?” Will asks, a hint of defensiveness in his voice.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Officer Berg says, though clearly he does because he goes on to tell us how Alice, a regular at Friday night bingo, was affable and jolly when he saw her. How she had a smile that could light up a room. “I guess I just never understood how a person like that winds up taking their own life.”
The space between us fills with silence, tension. I don’t think he meant anything by it; the man is a bit socially awkward. Still, Will looks hurt. He says nothing. I’m the one to speak. “She suffered from fibromyalgia,” I say, realizing Officer Berg must not know this, or maybe he’s one of those people who think it’s more of a mental disorder than a medical one. Fibromyalgia is highly misunderstood. People believe it’s made up, that it isn’t real. There is no cure, and, on the surface, a person appears to be fine; there’s no test that can be used to diagnose fibromyalgia. Because of this, the diagnosis is based on symptoms alone—in other words, widespread pain that can’t otherwise be explained. For this reason, a large portion of physicians themselves question the credibility of the condition, often suggesting patients see a psychiatrist for treatment instead. It makes me sad to think about, Alice in so much pain and no one believing it.
“Yes, of course,” Officer Berg says. “It’s such a terrible thing. She must have really been hurting to do what she did,” he says, and again, my eyes go to Will. I know that Officer Berg doesn’t mean to be rude; in his own awkward way, he’s offering his sympathy.
“I liked Alice a lot,” he says. “She was a lovely lady.”
“Indeed she was,” Will says, and again Officer Berg mumbles, “Such a shame,” before he says a final goodbye and goes.
Once he’s gone, Will heads quietly to the kitchen to start dinner. I let him go, watching out the narrow pane of glass alongside the door as Officer Berg pulls his Crown Vic from our drive. He heads uphill, about to join his cohort at the Baineses’ home, or so I think.
But then he doesn’t go to the Baineses’ home. Instead he pulls his car to the end of the drive across the street from theirs, at the home of the Nilssons. Officer Berg steps out. He leaves the car running, red taillights bright against the darkness of night. I watch as Berg places something inside a mailbox and closes the door. He returns to his car, disappearing over the crest of the hill.
I disappeared that night after Will and Sadie met. I was full of anger, of self-loathing.
But I couldn’t stay away from Will forever. I thought about him all the time. He was there every time I so much as blinked.
Eventually, I sought him out. A little internet surfing told me where he lived, where he worked. I looked for him. I found what I was looking for. Though by then he was older, grayer, with kids, while in all those years, I hadn’t changed much. My gene pool was apparently a good one. Age couldn’t touch me. My hair was still the color of rust, my eyes an electric blue. My skin had yet to betray me.
I put on a dress, a black off-the-shoulder dress. I put on makeup, perfume. I put on jewelry. I did my hair.
I followed him for days, showed up where he least expected to see me.
Remember me? I asked, cornering him in a deli. I stood too close. I grasped him by the elbow. I called him by name. Because there’s nothing that excites us more than the sound of our own name. It’s the sweetest sound in the world to us. Corner of Madison and Wabash. Fifteen years ago. You saved my life, Will.
It didn’t take but a moment for him to remember. His face lit up.
Time had taken its toll on him. The strain of marriage, of parenting, of a job, a mortgage. This Will was a burned-out version of the Will I met.
It was nothing I couldn’t fix.
He just needed to forget for a while that he had a wife and kids.
I could help him with that.
I gave him a wide smile. I took him by the hand.
If it wasn’t for you, I said, leaning in to whisper the words in his ear, I’d be dead.
There was a spark in his eyes. His cheeks flushed. His eyes swept me up and down, landing near my lips.
He smiled, said, How could I ever forget?
He lightened up; he laughed. What are you doing here?
I tossed my hair over a shoulder, said, I was outside, just passing by. I thought I saw you through the window.
He touched the ends of my hair, said it looked nice.
And that dress, he said, followed it up with a long, low whistle.
He wasn’t looking at my lips anymore. Now he was looking at my thighs.
I knew where I wanted this conversation to go. As I often did, I got my way. It wasn’t instantaneous, no. It took some power of persuasion, which comes naturally to me. Rule number one: reciprocity. I do something for you, you do something for me in return.
I wiped the mustard from his lip. I saw that his drink was empty. I reached for the cup, refilled it at the soda fountain.
You didn’t have to do that, he said as I sat back down, slid his Pepsi across the table, made certain our hands touched as I did. I could have gotten it myself.
I smiled and said, I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to, Will.
And just like that, he owed me something.
There’s also likability. I can be extremely likable when I want to be.