The German Wife(123)

“We really don’t need any more trouble,” Tucker said hesitantly.

“Please.”

He sighed as he nodded, and I pushed the door open. I sat opposite Lizzie as if I were the interrogator.

“What do you want?” she said, defensive as always, but I barely heard her. As I stared at her, I was startled to see something in her eyes I’d never noticed before.

Familiarity.

I had also made the wrong choices in a panic to protect my family, and I’d been forced to learn the hard way that even failure did not leave a person beyond salvation.



49


Lizzie

Huntsville, Alabama
1950

It was busy at the station, and for a while, I thought the detectives might have forgotten I was there. But then the door opened and Sofie Rhodes was standing there. She looked even worse than I felt—her eyes red rimmed, her face pale. When she walked, the robe she was wearing shifted, and I saw the dark, dried blood on her nightshirt.

I looked away, suddenly ashamed. I had only ever seen her as an enemy. Now I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t know she was once young and hopeful, the world at her feet.

“We are the same, you and me,” she said suddenly.

“We are nothing alike.”

“We are the kind of women who do whatever needs to be done—” she dropped her voice, and her gaze softened as she added “—especially when it comes to our family.”

My shoulders slumped. She immediately saw through my plan to protect Henry, just as I knew Calvin would. Would it matter? Could the police charge my brother for a crime I confessed to?

“I hope your husband is okay,” I whispered. She nodded to acknowledge she heard me, but her gaze was distant.

“We told ourselves that we were only protecting our family. In the end, we lost our son and our daughter anyway—and what’s almost as hard to live with now is that we lost ourselves in the process. It’s too late for us to make things right back home in Germany—that’s why it’s so important to Jürgen and me to build something good here.” She gave me a sad, searching look. “You only get one life, Mrs. Miller. If nothing else, you have to live it with integrity—true to yourself and your values, whatever the consequences.”

She closed the door behind her, leaving me alone again. The second hand on the clock seemed louder than ever. I stared up at it until my eyes watered.

You only get one life, Mrs. Miller.

But that wasn’t true. I’d lived many lives. I’d become someone entirely new, just to survive in El Paso. I’d done it again for Calvin’s sake, and I’d honed that new persona, desperate to make him happy the only way I seemed able. I’d shape-shifted again for the El Paso wives, just so I’d fit in.

And it seemed I’d been willing to do that all over again for Henry; to pretend I was the kind of woman who would shoot a man in his own backyard, to save my brother from himself.

Why had I thrown myself on the grenade of his mess, without so much as a second thought for my own welfare? I’d even been more concerned for saving Sofie Rhodes, a woman I supposedly despised, than I was for protecting myself.

In all of those years since me and Henry left the farm, I had reshaped and remolded and reinvented myself to please other people so many times, I’d entirely lost touch with the woman I started out as. I’d been living for other people, every single hour of every single day, for more than half my life.

When it all boiled down, I didn’t think twice about blowing up my life because I didn’t value it. The only life I’d ever loved was the one I’d lost.

I was unraveling in that interrogation room, my perspective shifting and twisting until it felt as though layers were coming away. I never wanted to be a suburban housewife, bored out of my brain, tolerating petty gossip and begging my friends for a chance to plant their gardens. That life was fine for other people, but I had always known what I wanted for myself, and this was never it.

I wanted to help my brother, but constantly trying to protect him from his own mistakes was only hurting him in the long run. He needed to face the consequences this time. I’d fight for him and I’d advocate for him. I’d do whatever it took to find the right treatment for him.

But I could not let him hide from the truth.

I’d finally seen in my own life how much damage that could cause.

Calvin entered the room a few minutes later. He pulled the chair out and sat opposite me, staring into my eyes.

“Lizzie,” he whispered brokenly. “What on earth is going on?”

“Cal,” I said quietly, and then I squeezed my eyes closed. “I’m sorry. I’ve made an awful mess.”

Calvin arranged a lawyer for me, and with his help, I told the police what really happened. Then we waited at the station until word came that Henry had been safely arrested in Nashville. They told me he was emotional but went willingly as they took him in. About the same time, Tucker told us that Jürgen Rhodes made it through surgery.

“He’s still very unwell,” he said quietly. “The doctor told me this could still go either way, but this is a start.”

Henry was being taken to a facility in Birmingham for the night, and a hearing would be held in the morning. Calvin and I would get up early and travel over to the courthouse so we could support him. The lawyer expected that, for the short term, Henry would be committed, and in the longer term, he’d face trial. I only hoped Henry would forgive me—not for telling the police the truth, but for not getting him help sooner.