THREE

 

 

At some point on some day around six months after the accident, there was a pounding on the door.

Dan assumed it was in the middle of the afternoon because of the program flickering in front of him. But he wouldn’t have bet on even that much.

“Go away,” he shouted from his chair. “I’m not buying.”

“It’s Detective Carson,” a man’s voice shouted back. “I need to talk with you.”

Dan just shook his head, clicked off the television, and climbed to his feet. He had on jeans that hadn’t been washed in any recent memory and an old work shirt he had put on a few days ago as one of his last clean shirts left.

He went to the front door and opened it, letting in the bright light that made his eyes hurt for a moment. Clearly it was a nice day outside.

The quiet suburban street he lived on seemed extra quiet at the moment. Only a black sedan seemed out of place along the green grass and flowerbeds that lined the street.

A heavy-set man stood at the door holding his gold badge. “I’m Detective Carson. We have the results of the cause of your wife’s accident.”

Dan just shook his head and stepped out on the porch to talk with the detective.

Carson had a strong grip and seemed to give off an air of control. He was fairly short and had a large beer-gut pushing out his suit coat.

“They are dead,” Dan said. “Car accident ruled Jennifer’s fault. Why investigate?”

“We have to do a complete investigation on all fatal accidents to determine the exact cause.”

“And did you?” Dan asked, not really wanting to be a part of this conversation.

“The cause of your wife and daughter’s death was because she was distracted while driving,” Carson said.

Dan knew that.

He knew he had been at fault. He didn’t need to have some detective tell him that.

Dan knew that he had killed his wife and daughter.

Then Detective Carson said, “She was texting.”

That shocked Dan to his core.

He blinked twice and looked at the detective, who was just staring at him.

“Texting?” Dan asked, making sure what he had heard was correct.

The detective nodded. “Were you and your wife having marriage issues?”

Dan opened his mouth, then closed it. Then managed to ask, “Why?”

“This is her final text,” Carson said. He opened a green file he had been holding under his arm and handed Dan a sheet of paper.

The words made no sense at first and it took Dan twice reading them before he actually understood what they said.

I am free!!! Caught bastard with your friend. Divorce to follow.

There was a response.

“Wonderful! We can finally be together. I knew Anna would come through!”

When Dan looked up from the page, Detective Carson said, “She was texting her response when she drifted in front of the truck. Do you know who she was texting to?”

“Do you?” Dan asked, reading the words one more time and trying to get them to sink in.

He had been set up. Jennifer had wanted to leave him. But because of Denise, she couldn’t. So Jennifer had set him up with Anna.

There would have been no way after that for him to argue against a divorce.

“I do,” Detective Carson said. “Do you know a Susan Fields?”

“Jennifer’s best friend,” Dan said.

Dan remembered her standing off to one side at the funeral, crying. She was being comforted by another woman and an older man. Dan hadn’t been up for talking with her.

“Very, very best friend,” Carson said. “We dug up evidence that Jennifer and Susan had been having an affair for years. Since right after your daughter was born, it seems.”

“Oh,” Dan said, more stunned than he had felt since hearing the news of Jennifer and Denise’s deaths.

Jennifer was gay and having an affair.

None of that made any sense at all in the wonderful life the three of them seemed to have had.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Carson asked.

Dan shook his head.

“I didn’t think so,” Carson said.

“Does Susan know she was the one that killed Jennifer and Denise?” Dan asked.

“She did,” Carson said, nodding. “She overdosed a month after the accident.”

“Oh,” was all Dan could say to that as well. Susan wasn’t even around to be angry at and blame.

But Susan had had more courage than he had had over the last six months. He had just wallowed in self-pity; she had acted on her grief.

“Here is a copy of the file on everything we discovered in the investigation,” Detective Carson said. “I figured you needed to know.”

Carson handed him the thin file.

“Thank you,” Dan said.

“There is one more thing I think you need to know as well,” Carson said, standing there, looking like he might jump and run. He didn’t look happy at all telling Dan all this and Dan didn’t blame him in the slightest.

“Worse than this?” Dan asked, holding up the file.

Carson nodded. “The information is in there, but figured it was better to hear it coming from me than just read it.”

“Go ahead,” Dan said.

“Denise was not your biological daughter,” Carson said. “We did mandatory DNA matching after the accident and discovered that fact fairly quickly. We have no idea who the father might have been.”

Dan nodded, holding onto the folder like it was about to burn him.

Actually, the news in it had already burned him.

And oddly enough, the same news gave him a flickering flame of life again.

“Thank you, Detective,” Dan said. “I mean that.”

“If you need my help on anything,” Carson said, “feel free to call.”

Dan nodded and stood in the sun on his front porch, holding the folder with his past and his future in it as Detective Carson walked back to his black sedan parked at the curb.

Then Dan turned and went back into the darkness of his home.

In one conversation, it had become his home now.

Not the burial chamber for every member of a supposedly happy family.

Jennifer had wanted to leave this house and take Denise.

And she must have known that Denise was not his child.

Dan wondered when she was going to tell him that bit of news. More than likely after a lot of years of child support.

But that didn’t matter. He would have always thought of Denise as his daughter, no matter what.

Jennifer and her lover Susan had taken Denise from him.

He would never forgive either of them for that.

Ever.

He put the folder in his chair and went to the blinds and opened them on all the front windows.

And then he opened the windows as well, letting in the fresh air of a new day.

There was a lot of smell to get out of this house.

Smell of stale food and dirty laundry.

Smell of six months of self-pity.

And the smell of years of betrayal.

But the bright light of the truth and a few open windows to a future might just be what was needed.