Look Closer(117)

“The things I said to her,” he mumbles.

“Adam, please.”

“After she left. When she was full-on using again, shacked up with some pretty boy who was handing it out to her like candy. I told her to stay away from the kids.”

“You had to.”

“I told her I didn’t want them seeing their mother as a junkie whore—”

I grab and hold him tight, while he sobs and moans.

“You had to protect the girls,” I whisper. “You tried to help her, and you would have. She would have made it. But he used the drugs to drag her over to the dark side. He turned her into somebody she wasn’t. You couldn’t let the girls see her like that.”

I remember that time, too. Talking to Monica every day, fielding the occasional frantic call from Adam. I should’ve done more. I was too caught up in my own addiction. And I was out of my element. I’d never had to dispense a single word of advice to my older sister, the successful one.

“I would’ve taken her back,” he says, his voice still shaking.

“I know.”

“After he robbed her clean and took off, and she was living in filth and waste and practically in the gutter. I would’ve brought her back and cleaned her up and we could’ve—I know we could’ve—”

“I know, Adam, I know. None of this was your fault.”

That seems to help. Adam doesn’t have anyone to talk to about these things, about his guilt. There was no Survivors of Suicide for Adam, no therapist. A guy like Adam would never go for that.

I had someone. I had Simon. Simon listened. He listened to everything I had to say. He listened to me talk about the sister that I loved more than I ever realized after her death, and how I loved those girls. He didn’t judge me when I told him why I moved to Chicago, how I had used a private investigator to find Nick, and I was waiting for him to return to Chicago so I could kill him.

He tried to talk me out of it. He told me it wouldn’t solve anything. He told me I’d cleaned myself up, I was sober now, and I should focus on starting a new life and spending time with the girls. He proposed marriage and talked about us having a family of our own. But even when I said no, he never left me. He said I should move on, move forward. He said that’s what he had done with Lauren. He’d put Lauren behind him. And I should do the same with Nick.

But he didn’t judge me when I told him I couldn’t let it go, I couldn’t let Nick get away with it. He helped me pack my stuff and move to Delavan, so I could have some distance from Chicago, so nobody could possibly connect me to Nick or Chicago when I killed him.

And I was ready to do it. I was waiting for the summer. In the summer, so my original plan went, I’d come down to Chicago, run into Nick in a bar, and hope he’d take me home with him. If that didn’t work, I’d find some other way.

And then Simon saw Lauren on the street in Chicago last May, and my simple little plan to slit that monster’s throat turned into a much more complicated plan for both of us to find peace.

Did we find peace? Did I?

“Adam,” I say softly. “Macy really wants to show you her pierced ears. You still have two beautiful daughters.”

“I know, I know,” he says, wiping at his face, composing himself. He takes some deep breaths and looks at me. “Okay. It just all kinda came flooding—I’m okay. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“You wanna know something?” he says. “And I wouldn’t say this to anyone else.”

“Shoot.”

He takes another breath and looks at me. “I wish I could have killed him myself. I really do.”

I tuck my arm in his. We head back to the house, Macy waiting inside the door, jumping up and down.

“I know the feeling,” I say.





103

Simon

At ten-thirty the following Monday morning, it’s time for my call. I can’t remember if he was supposed to call me or the other way around, but he calls at the exact time.

“Dennis,” I say.

“Simon. How are you?”

“Any better and they’d have to arrest me,” I say.

“Well, I wish I could say the same. We’re going to miss you.”

“I appreciate that. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Dennis. I really do.”

“It’s been my pleasure. So, should we go over the allocations one more time?”

“Please.”

“Okay,” he says. “Five million to the American Stroke Association.”

“Right.”

“Five million to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.”

“Yes.”

“Five million to the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health.”

“Correct.”

“Five million to the National Runaway Safeline.”

“Yes.”

“Oh-kay,” he says. “And you took out that million a few months ago.”

Right. That’s for something else.

“So,” he continues, “that leaves only a couple hundred thousand left over. You could leave it with us, or I could transfer it to a money market.”

“Divide it up equally and add it to the five million we’re giving each of those groups,” I say.