A Good Marriage(11)

Zach looked down again, shook his head. “The people in my life now, they don’t really know me.” He motioned to his injured face. “I can’t have them seeing me like this.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

But did I? Was there really no one he was close enough to? And what was that little flutter in my chest? Was I flattered that I was apparently an exception?

“You and I,” he went on, answering the question I hadn’t asked, “I always thought we were kind of kindred spirits, you know? I never felt like you judged me.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”

Zach looked up at me, his one eye glassy. He hadn’t just gotten better looking, he’d softened, too.

“Anyway, I know the front door was locked when we left for the party because I locked it. But the alarm was malfunctioning. Amanda had an appointment to get it fixed—one of the last things I did was complain that she hadn’t done it yet. Nice, right?” He closed his eyes for a moment as if in pain. “Anyway, Amanda would have locked the door behind her once she got home, too. She was like that: nervous.”

“Nervous how?” If there was a reason, maybe it pointed to something, or someone, other than Zach.

He shrugged. “She was from a really small town, and her family was poor, like going-hungry poor. She didn’t like to talk about it, but sometimes I think she got overwhelmed by these neighborhoods we lived in, the people. Even the wives who don’t work are impressive: fancy educations, community involvement. Amanda was smart, but she didn’t even go to college. I think she worried about being found out. It made her jumpy. Maybe I pushed her too hard to be something she wasn’t.” He looked up at me. He seemed genuinely regretful. “But she was more capable than she realized. I just wanted her to be her best self, you know?”

The way he said “best self” set my teeth on edge. But then Zach had always been big on self-improvement, even for himself. And it was hard to argue with his results.

“Sure, yeah,” I said, because Zach seemed to be waiting for me to agree. “That makes sense.”

His face darkened then. “I went to do the CPR, you know, but Amanda was ice cold. And the blood, when I stepped in it, was so thick, like glue. And I—” Zach pressed a hand to his mouth. Hadn’t he said on the phone that he had done CPR? I could have sworn that he had, but maybe he’d misspoken. Or maybe he was ashamed to admit the truth. “The police made something of that when they came, like ‘Why didn’t I have more blood on me?’ ‘Had I changed my clothes after I killed her?’ ‘Did I not even bother to do CPR because I didn’t love my wife?’ ‘Which was it?’ It had to be one or the other, according to them. But she was so cold, that was the explanation, and I—people think they know how they’ll act. But you don’t know until something like that happens to you. It’s much worse than you think.”

It was. I knew that firsthand. Only last week, I’d woken to find Sam passed out on our living-room floor with a gash to his head. There had been so much blood. On Sam’s hands and shirt, smeared under his head on the hardwood floor. I’d rushed over, sure he was dead. But he moaned when I touched him, the alcohol radiating off his body. I could not imagine what it would have felt like if he’d been cold to the touch.

“You’re right,” I said. “No one does know what they’d do.”

Nonetheless, Zach’s clean clothes were a problematic fact that the police had already demonstrated could be used to their advantage in multiple ways. Though presumably they hadn’t yet located another, bloody set of Zach’s clothes—otherwise he’d surely be under arrest for murder.

“I don’t know what happened to Amanda, Lizzie. I wasn’t home when she died,” Zach went on. “But she might be alive if I was a better husband.”

Whatever that meant, Zach needed to never say it again. It was tantamount to a confession.

“Um, I wouldn’t—”

“I left her at that party, texted her after I was already gone. Because that’s what I do: leave. Leave it to Amanda to explain me. Leave it to her to build our life. And she always does.” He paused, sucked in some air. “Did. She always did. I probably never once said thank you, either.”

“No one is perfect,” I offered. “Especially no one who is married.”

He gave a grim smile. “We didn’t argue. I’ll give us that. We were not fighters. Our home life was pleasant. Case is a great kid. Were Amanda and I exceptionally close?” He shook his head. “Honestly, I always looked at marriage as a practical arrangement. And now my wife is dead, so that’s going to be the reason I did it, right? Because I’m detached? Unemotional? The asinine part is that I didn’t even have to leave that party. I left because I got bored. I went to go take a walk on the—”

My hand shot up like a traffic cop’s. “No, no. Don’t get into specifics.”

“But my story isn’t going to change, Lizzie. Because it’s not a story. It’s the truth.”

“It doesn’t matt—”

“I was on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Walking. By myself. The water, the lights of Manhattan. I used to go walking when we were in Philly all the time, remember?” Did I? I wasn’t sure. I was sure Zach was going to make for a frustrating client. He didn’t listen. “Anyway, I already told the police that’s where I was. I told them everything they wanted to know about the golf club, too. They were like, ‘Is that yours?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s—’”