The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

“Detective—”

“My mom’s a hoarder. Has shit all over the house. Meg just wanted to help her organize, just a little. Though that’s like throwing a pebble into the Grand Canyon. Is that how the saying goes? But she just wanted to help. And Meg, despite being as pregnant as she was, went over to help. First few minutes she was there, she tripped on a box of Tupperware at the top of the stairs. Fell down the steps. Hardwood. Head over heels. Snapped her neck.” Colin listened and watched himself from a distance. Analytically. This man on the couch in the dark, processing what had happened for the first time. Without judgment. Without emotion. “My mom has dementia, which gets worse starting in the afternoon. Sundowner’s syndrome, or some such. And this was in the evening.

“So Meg falls, dies. Baby…baby dies, I’m guessing. Soon after. Little girl, I said that, right? Little girl. Dies. And my mom… She does nothing for, like, two hours. Just sits there with Meg. Can’t process it, so just sits there. Maybe if she called for help right away, my little girl could’ve lived. But my mom? She called me two hours after it happened. And by then, there was no saving anyone.” Colin was close to sleep and, strangely, almost at peace. “It just happened a few days ago. But I’ve already forgiven my mom, because that’s what families do. She’s not a bad person, she just has brain rot. I suppose everything rots eventually.”

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“My point is, Rose, that I know all about families. I get it. And if you ever want to talk to me about your family, you’ll find someone who understands.”

Colin stopped talking. He had nothing more to say on the matter.

Then he pulled the phone out from under his cheek and saw the line had disconnected. Rose had hung up at some point.

He liked to think she heard what he’d said.

The bit about family. He hoped she’d heard that, because it was all true.

Seconds later, Colin was asleep, dreaming terrible things.

Forty-Seven

Bury, New Hampshire

November 16

6:03 a.m.

Six in the morning, my phone buzzes. The text doesn’t wake me. I’ve been up for hours.

I slept fitfully for a couple hours after Pearson’s call, but by one thirty, I conceded defeat to any further rest. I put on my robe, grabbed my laptop and phone, and went downstairs into my father’s study. Poured myself a cognac and then eased into his chair. I wanted to be Logan Yates for a little while, if only to see what he would do in my position.

Bleary-eyed, sipping a drink I didn’t even enjoy, I summoned the mindset of my father. It didn’t take long before I realized exactly what he would do. He’d fight with every ounce of his being. He’d use his money and ego to rage against anyone posing a threat to him. He’d lie, he’d misdirect, he’d sue. Logan Yates wouldn’t be satisfied until he not only won the battle but humiliated his enemy in the process.

At what point would Logan Yates take off and run? The situation would have to be hopeless.

I don’t want to be like my father, and sitting there in the room smelling of cigar smoke and bitter years, I knew I had to do the exact opposite of him. The moment I came to my decision, a tremendous weight lifted, as if I’d been held captive for years and I woke one morning to find my cell door wide open.

After this decision, I wrote. Wrote like I never had before. Not in fits and bursts, but a marathon of words, hour after hour, getting up only to pee and refresh my drink. I didn’t even know where my current story was headed until I began typing, but it unveiled itself to me as I wrote, as if I were driving a hundred miles an hour at night and could just see enough of the road ahead to keep from crashing.

I exhausted myself after four thousand words. I’ve never written anywhere close to that amount in one sitting. For the past hour, I’ve sat here, staring at nothing, still marginally drunk, wondering how I will get through this day.

I reach over and lift my phone from the mahogany side table, a piece of furniture that hasn’t moved from this spot as long as I’ve been alive.

The text message is from the Bury School District. All schools closed due to weather. I’m completely disoriented, trying to remember any weather at all. There was snow a few nights ago, though it wasn’t bad. The night at the trailhead with Cora. A dozen lifetimes ago.

I can’t wrap my mind around what day it is, never mind the weather. I look back to my phone.

Monday.

How is it Monday already?

A year ago, I was on top of everything. Had to know the news. The temperatures for the coming week. People’s social-media tidbits. I consumed everything, but now my brain is so overloaded I can’t even remember the last time I showered.

I stand, aching from hours hunched over a laptop. Blood drains from my head, threatening to topple me. I fight it, steady myself, and walk over to the window and pull back the heavy gold drapes.

Under the pink wash of dawn, an unexpected foot of snow suffocates the landscape. The sight of so much transcendent white causes me to stare for minutes on end, mesmerized. More than mesmerized. In absolute awe.

I’ve experienced this one other time: freshman year of high school, a ten-day trip to Italy with my school. We had three days in Rome, and my friends and I were much more concerned with Italian boys than Italian culture. One morning was dedicated to touring the Vatican, which promised to be boring in addition to hot and crowded. I had no reason to be interested in anything religious; the only time my father mentioned God was in using