The Husband Hour(38)

“Sort of,” he said. “It’s a long story.”

“Did you drive over?” Henny said to Lauren. “He needs a ride to pick up his car.”

Lauren looked at him quizzically, but he waved off the comment, saying, “It’s all good, Henny. I’ll take care of it later. And thanks again.”

Lauren didn’t say a word until they walked to the side of the house, out of Henny’s earshot. Standing at the base of the stairs, he said, “This is a surprise.”

“You said I could look at your interviews and correct any misinformation.”

He tried to appear casual, as if she hadn’t just given him the first shred of hope in the past twenty-four hours.

“I did.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” she said.

Now? He thought of the disarray in his room, the aftermath of manic hours of working followed by a sleepless post-binge-drinking night. Mostly, he thought of the notecards all over the floor spelling out the trajectory of her husband’s doomed life.

“I’m all for it, but I need a few minutes to charge my computer and get things together,” he said.

She looked impatient.

“Five minutes,” Matt said. He’d throw a sheet over the notecards. And do them both a favor by taking a quick shower.



“I hate being late for work,” Lauren said, mostly to herself. “This is crazy.”

Henny looked up from the can of paint she was opening and smiled.

“You know what they say about all work and no play,” she said. “Sometimes you need a day off. And he really is a handsome fella.”

Lauren’s jaw dropped. “Henny, no. That is not what this is.”

“I’m ready when you are,” Matt called from the gate. He had changed clothes, wearing jeans and an NYC T-shirt. His hair was wet. Had he showered?

“Well,” Henny said, looking at him. “From one widow to another, may I just say, that is a mighty shame.”



Matt pulled a bench in front of his desk. Lauren sat on the end of it, as far away from him as possible. Clicking his keyboard, eyes on the screen, he said, “I don’t bite, you know.”

She said nothing. The screen filled with an image of Rory, young Rory, wearing his LM hockey uniform. She recognized the Havertown Skatium. He raced down the ice, and she could imagine the intense look of concentration on his face even though the camera didn’t capture that view. He raised his stick and launched the puck in the air; it landed just beyond the goal line. Rory pulled his left arm sharply in, bent at the elbow, his fist tight. The familiar gesture brought tears to her eyes.

“I could show you the Dean Wade interview,” Matt said.

“Actually,” she said, feeling nervous, wondering if now that she wanted something from him, he might turn her down, “I was wondering if you interviewed Emerson Kincaid.”

Just saying his name felt taboo, as if, like in the film Beetlejuice, the mere act of uttering it would conjure him.

“The older brother?” Matt said casually, as if he were, in fact, a movie character, not someone real, not Lauren’s former brother-in-law, not someone who had the power to cut her down or even change her world with a few choice words.

“Yes. Did you talk to him?”

Matt shook his head. “I tried to. The only response I got was a legal letter threatening to sue me if the film exploited or misrepresented Rory, the Kincaid family, or the U.S. military. If I remember correctly.” He smiled wryly.

Yeah, that sounded like Emerson.

“Oh,” she said. She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.

Matt clicked around his keyboard, and a still frame of Dean Wade, Rory’s former NHL teammate, filled the screen. Dean had the all-American good looks of a Midwestern farm boy, though he was actually from Vancouver. The sight of his face brought Lauren back to a different life. She could imagine sitting across the table from him and his wife, Ashley, at their favorite Mexican place in West Hollywood. She could hear Dean calling her “the missus,” something he did even before she was married to Rory.

Everywhere they went, she could feel the eyes of envious women. Lauren would talk about it with Ashley, how it felt to be the recipient of glares like daggers. They were the lucky ones, the chosen, and she could hear the unspoken words: Why her?

Matt played the video. He asked Dean questions off camera, general stuff about the team, when he’d started, how the other guys felt about Rory joining the Kings. How he felt about Rory personally.

The last time she’d seen Dean in person had been the day of Rory’s memorial service, and it was jarring now to hear his voice. She tuned in and out, half listening to Dean talk about Rory’s first season with the Kings, half fighting off a flood of memories.

“So that hit he took in December, the game against the Blackhawks. That seemed pretty bad but they said it wasn’t a concussion, am I getting that right?” Matt asked him.

Lauren focused intently on his answer.

Dean nodded. “You’re right—that was the party line. But I’ll tell you, he got his bell rung that time. I know what the doc said, but I was with Rory that whole night. He was out of it. I mean, he was a tough guy, but none of us can shake off a hit like that.”

Matt asked him another question, about how Rory had played the next game. Lauren interrupted the video.