Just the Nicest Couple(86)

I leave Lily standing at the window. I go to look online for information. It’s not there yet. We have to wait, which is torture. I hate waiting. I need to know now.

Eventually I convince Lily to move away from the window, though it takes some persuading. We spend the evening in nervous anticipation. I can’t sit down. I can’t sit still. I try to, but then I find I need to get up, to move, to do something. I mill about the house. Every time I hear a car engine coast down the street, I think it’s the police, coming for Lily or me. I go to look and find myself standing in the foyer in the dark, watching the bobbing and weaving movement of headlights down the street. I hold my breath as they come, descending on the house. I think this is it, the beginning of the end. But then the cars stop before they get to our house, going to some other house, and I feel my jaw unclench, my body slacken. I breathe. I go back to sit by Lily, only to return the next time I hear a car in the distance.

I do anything I can to distract myself. I make dinner that neither Lily nor I eat, and then I busy myself cleaning dishes like they’ve never been cleaned before, taking out all my angst on a pan with a steel wool pad.

If we say anything, it’s only to appease ourselves, things like “Just because Jim Brady saw you at Langley Woods, doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t prove anything” and “It’s justifiable homicide, Lily. You acted in self-defense. There is no criminal liability in cases of justifiable homicide. We’ll get a good lawyer. The best.” I do most of the talking. Lily’s eyes are glassy, empty, blank, and her skin is pale. I try to get her to eat—just some crackers if nothing else—but she won’t eat. I try to get her to drink. I hand her a glass of water. She takes it from me, she thanks me for it, but then she sets it on the coffee table, where she leaves it untouched.

At some point I say, “I’ll say it was me, Lily. Just because Jim Brady didn’t see me, doesn’t mean I wasn’t there.” And then, “This isn’t something you did alone. We’re in this together, Lily, remember? Like Bonnie and Clyde,” trying and failing to get a smile out of her. She nods dimly, and I’m not sure what she’s nodding at, us being in this together or me taking the blame for what she did.

I force myself to sit on the couch beside Lily. We stare blankly toward the TV, waiting for the news to come on and eventually it does. The lead story is how the body found at Langley Woods has been identified.

My eyes go to Lily’s hands in her lap. She’s been picking at her nails so that one bleeds. I reach over for her hand. It’s like ice. I take it into my own, rubbing it between mine to warm it up.

This moment reminds me of some apocalypse movie. The asteroid is about to hit Earth and we know we’re going to die. It’s imminent. It’s only a matter of time.

I look back at the TV as they share a picture of Jake, one which I have to think came from Nina, and I imagine Nina going through the pictures on her phone, finding one of Jake to share and giving it over to the police. It’s the first time I’ve paused to think about Nina and what she must be going through. I’ve only been thinking about Lily and me, and for a second, I get almost choked up, imagining Nina at work being informed by the police that Jake is dead.

In the image, Jake is on a boat. A blue lake surrounds him. Jake looks so easygoing and affable in the image, and I have a hard time reconciling this face and this wide smile with the furious, unhinged man who attacked Lily that day in the woods.

It’s almost like they’re not even the same guy.

They go to a live shot of a reporter standing in the parking lot of Langley Woods. It’s night now. Darkness surrounds her, though with the camera’s lights, the trees are still visible behind her. The reporter says, “The body belonged to thirty-nine-year-old Jacob Hayes, a local neurosurgeon. Dr. Hayes was found dead yesterday morning with a gunshot wound to the head...”

I choke on nothing. Everything but the reporter’s face fades out. I only see her face.

There is a ringing in my ears.

“What did she say?” I ask, almost to myself. I fumble for the remote. It’s on the couch between Lily and me. My hand wraps around it, but my hands are shaking so badly that I drop it the first time, to the floor. The back snaps off the remote and batteries come out, rolling under the coffee table. I reach down to grope for the batteries, snatching them from the floor and forcing them into the little springs that hold the batteries in place. I snap the back on. I rewind live TV. I listen to it again, scootching forward, sitting on the front edge of the couch, leaned into the TV.

“Dr. Hayes was found dead yesterday morning with a gunshot wound to the head...”

A gunshot wound.

Beside me, Lily is limp. I look over at her in disbelief. She has an arm pressed to her stomach and she’s folded over it, like she might be sick.

My jaw is slack. My eyes are wide.

I rub at my forehead. I shake my head, trying to mentally absorb what I just heard.

A gunshot wound to the head.

Cautiously I ask, “What does she mean when she says a gunshot wound?”

Lily shakes her head in denial. Some feral sounds rise up to her throat. Her hand moves to her mouth, where she holds something back, a cry or a moan. She utters to herself, “No. No. No,” all the while still shaking her head.

“Answer me, Lily,” I say, my voice more firm. “What does she mean when she says a gunshot wound?”