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

then opts to give him an awkward rub on his shoulder.

“And look at you,” she tells him. “If I hadn’t seen pictures, I wouldn’t even recognize you. You’re twelve now?”

“Eleven.”

“Willow’s thirteen,” Cora says.

“No one cares.”

“Willow, attitude,” Peter says.

“It’s just hard to believe we haven’t all been together in so long,” Cora says. “It’s crazy, right? We’re a family. We shouldn’t let time slip away like that.”

“You knew where we lived,” I say. “You could have visited anytime.” I’m careful not to say she was welcome anytime.

My comment registers the smallest of glancing blows on her face. “Well, as I recall, I invited you out for Thanksgiving a few years ago, and you declined.”

“I wasn’t ready to be here then,” I say. “I am now.”

Cora puts a hand on my shoulder. “Oh god, of course. And I’m so glad you’re back so we can help you. I just couldn’t believe when we heard about Riley.” She looks only at me as she talks, as if Max has faded into the background. “I was shocked. Simply shocked. I mean, so young. Not even forty, right? What a terrible, terrible thing. I just can’t imagine.”

Riley’s name slides like cold steel into my guts, and I wonder if that will always be the case.

“It’s been hard,” I say instead of thanks. I reach for Max’s hand and squeeze it. I hope I’m grounding him as much as he is me.

Peter takes a small step forward and makes eye contact with me first, then with Max. “You know,” he says, “I’ve taken sleep medication from time to time. Stress of the job and all. But I’m always careful not to mix it with alcohol. Too much risk.” He seems to hear what he just said and scurries to demolish and rebuild his point. “I’m just saying I know how easy it is…you know, to overdose by mistake. Happens all the time, at least that’s what my doctor says. Anything we can do to help. Seriously, anything. Just let us know.”

I let out a practiced sigh. “I think being in a different place will be good for both of us.”

Willow steps around her father and right up to Max. She’s a good five inches taller than him. “Did you see the body?” she asks.

“Willow Sofia,” Cora says. “How can you ask that?”

Cora is horrified, as am I, and both of us for reasons beyond the shock of the question itself. The moment produces a surge of electrical current through my body, jolting me to a sudden, surprising, and dissonant thought:

I miss my sister.

So odd I feel that right now, in this moment. It doesn’t last long, but enough for Cora and me to make eye contact and have what I think is a shared moment.

Max squeezes my hand a little harder but gives no other indication he’s upset. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t retreat.

Instead, he simply says, “Yes.”

I’m amazed he answered.

Willow’s eyes widen. “What was it like?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I say.

“Quite enough,” Peter adds. “Behave yourself, Willow.”

“I was just asking.”

Before Willow gets another scolding, Max says, “He looked peaceful.” Max shifts his focus and looks directly at me. “He didn’t look angry anymore.”

His answer sucks the air out of me. Max has never talked about the few seconds he saw Riley’s body in the bed, and now that he does, he describes it…this way.

He didn’t look angry anymore.

“Did you cry?”

I turn and see my father, who’s just walked into the foyer with a drink in hand. Single-malt whiskey, if habit holds true.

“No,” Max mumbles. “Not right then.”

“That’s because you’re a Yates,” my father says. “And Yateses don’t panic. Don’t lose their nerve in a crisis.”

“Jesus, Dad.”

My father barrels right over me. “In fact, I’d wager none of us were as young as Max when we first saw a dead body. Any takers on that?”

My entire body stiffens with an old, familiar dread, one so heavy and instant it’s as if I’ve been cast into stone.

“Stop it, Dad,” I say.

Willow chimes in. “I’ve seen lots of messed-up stuff on YouTube.”

“No.” My father points in her direction with his drink. “I’m talking real stuff. Live, so to speak. You had to be there. See it in person.” He doesn’t pause long enough for anyone to interject. “I saw my first dead person when I was twenty-one. Wasn’t even a funeral, though I’d been to a few of those already. But they were all closed-casket.” He takes another step closer, locked in on me. “Cory Levitz. Senior year of college. I didn’t know him, but his car wrapped around a lamppost right outside my apartment. After midnight on a Friday. Drunk as a skunk. I was the third or fourth person there after hearing the crash. Car was crumpled like a beer can. His blood all over the windshield. Someone had a flashlight, and I couldn’t even fathom the fact his arm was no longer—”

I snap. “Dad, what the hell is wrong with you?”

That stops him. He doesn’t look angered. He seems amused.

“Well, fair enough,” he says. He reaches out and ruffles Max’s hair. “I’m just saying your boy is a tough son of a bitch.”

Then he turns and walks back from where he came, jingling his glass, the clinking ice the only sound among us.

My god, we haven’t even made it past the foyer.

Seven

Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin

Back home, Colin found Meg with a book in bed, covers pulled up to her waist.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked up. “How was she?”

“Numb,” he said.

“Did you talk?”

He nodded. “A little. Usual stuff, mostly.”

“Did you tell her we want to hire someone to check in on her?”

“Yup, as always. And as always, she said no.”

Meg let out an exhale, and Colin identified it. Meg’s exhales all had fingerprints on them, and Colin could gauge her state of mind by which exhale she used at any particular time. His guess was confirmed with her next sentence.

“We uprooted our lives, and all we’re doing is watching her slowly kill herself. We could have done that