CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BECCA

I pick up Ivy from daycare and drive home. In a couple of days, we’ll reach the two-week mark since Jenn’s death. We’re settling into the routine of having her live with us. I make sure to update Rick on how she’s doing every day. In my last few texts and phone messages, I’ve left hints asking about his plans for Ivy moving forward. What should I expect? Whether she’s going to be with me long term or going back to live with him soon, I need to know.

The idea of giving her back to her dad makes my eyes water. I want her with me. I blink the tears away and sing to Ivy. When she laughs, I glance at her through the rearview mirror. She’s grinning and flapping her arms.

We get home and enter the house, where the smell of freshly removed sneakers hits me. Davis and Maggie are back from school.

“All right,” I say, clapping my hands to get their attention from the TV. “Time to pack for Dad’s!” I’m wearing my happy face in hopes that it’ll make getting them ready and out the door with Jason a bit easier. Predictably, they rush to Ivy, who’s in her carrier by my feet. They make faces at her, tickling her toes, and otherwise being cute but unhelpful. I hold my foot out between them and the carrier. “If you pack quickly, you might have time to play with her before Dad gets here.”

The twins pause long enough to process my words. They look at each other, communicating silently as only twins can, then race up to their rooms. I spend the next half hour feeding and changing Ivy and making sure the kids pack everything they need.

“Not your video games,” I tell Davis when I check his carry-on. “Nice try, but it’s not happening.”

He groans and whines that it’s not fair, then marches back to his room.

Soon, I have the house to myself. I take off my ad-executive business clothes and put on something easier to move in. An hour-long walk with Ivy in a stroller—another thing borrowed from Jenn’s house—gives me the exercise and endorphins needed to relax. Better yet, by the time I get back, Ivy is drowsy. A warm bath, a new diaper, sleeper jammies, and a bottle are all she needs; she quickly nods off and stays deeply asleep when I set her in the portable crib in my home office. She’s gotten used to me and the house, and we even have some semblance of a routine here now. She usually sleeps through the night.

I take a quick shower, then slip into comfy pajama pants and a big Lakers tee.

I wash my face and go through my regular skin-care routine for the first time in several days. Would a therapist think that’s a good sign? I don’t recall routines and skin care being anywhere in the stages of grief. As I squeeze a tiny chocolate-chip-shaped bit of eye cream onto my finger, I pause. Does any of this mean I’m getting over Jenn’s death already? That I didn’t love her as much as I thought I did? No, that’s stupid. I lean into the mirror and dab the cream around my eyes with my ring finger. From my nightstand, my phone rings.

Usually, I put it on Do Not Disturb mode after work so no one can bug me during off-hours when my focus is my kids. Most days, the twins need me, and on nights like tonight, when they’re with their dad, I need time alone, untethered from the office, to regroup. If I’m being honest with myself, since Jenn’s death, any time I’ve spent alone has been more wallowing than restorative.

The phone keeps ringing, and I continue to be unwilling to answer it. The volume is low enough that the sound is unlikely to wake Ivy in the other room, especially with the office door closed. I’m reluctant but curious, so I walk to my bedside and check the screen to be sure it’s not one of the twins or Jason. Maybe I did remember to turn on Do Not Disturb mode, but their numbers get to bypass that.

It’s Rick. Good. Maybe he’s calling with answers to my questions. I steel myself for whatever he’s going to tell me, even if it means not having Ivy with me anymore.

I sit on the edge of my bed and stack a couple of pillows behind me as if I’m about to talk to Jenn. I can’t count how many times I’ve sat on this bed, with these pillows behind me, chatting and laughing and crying with her. Rick and I have never had a nighttime chat or anything remotely resembling one. He’s also the only living person who was as close to her as I was. The only other person mourning her as I am.

“Hey,” I say.

Rick doesn’t answer for several seconds.

Unsure if the call dropped, I say, “Rick? Are you there?”

“Yeah.” His voice doesn’t sound normal, but I’m not sure how to read it. He clears his throat and adds, “Um, sorry.” A long sniff comes through the line, and my worry antennae goes up.

I sit up straight. “What’s wrong?”

Aside from the fact that he’s lost his wife? I’m such an idiot.

“I mean, is there something new that’s gone wrong?” I clarify. Maybe he needs me to take care of Ivy for longer. Please, please, please. I don’t dare ask, so I probe from a different direction. “Is everything hitting you harder tonight? Because I know what that’s like—the grief comes in waves, often when you least expect it. My dad died fifteen years ago, but sometimes I break down if I see an older man who walks like him or wears the same glasses. It can come right back, knocking you off your feet like a tsunami. It just . . . sucks.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It does.”

“Sometimes you need to cry it out.”

Great. Now instead of sounding like a callous idiot, I’m sounding like Ann Landers. Normally, I’m not so, well, weird, but this is Jenn’s husband, a man I hardly know. This is new territory for both of us. How am I supposed to speak or act? I absolutely can’t face the idea of pushing away the one person who also knew and loved Jenn. We are her only family. The stakes to say the right thing feel awfully high, and I seem to be screwing it up.

“Thanks, Becca.” Rick sniffs again, more loudly. He sounds sincere, not distant or annoyed. A good sign, I hope. “There is something wrong. Something new, I mean.”

My stomach sinks. “Oh no. What is it?” Both of my hands hold the phone to my ear as if the extra fingers somehow add support through the airwaves to him.

“I’ve been . . . oh, Becca.” Sobs come through now, whimpers and sniffs. Actual sobs. He’s crying.

I’ve never heard Rick cry. If this were Jenn, I’d know exactly what she needed. I could read her tone so well that she hardly needed to say more than a word before I’d know which kind of comfort she needed.

Not with Rick. Sitting on my bed, I realize how little I know Jenn’s husband.

“What is it?” I ask.

A deep breath and then he goes on. “I’m officially a person of interest.”

My brain takes a few seconds to catch up. “Not a suspect?” I say, thinking back to the news magazine shows I’ve seen.

“No, not officially. Not yet.” He sounds as if his life is over. In some respects, it probably feels over. So does mine sometimes. Our lives will go on. How, I don’t know.

“They always investigate the spouse first,” I remind him. “If they weren’t looking at you to rule you out, I’d worry they weren’t doing their job.”

“I know,” he says. “They have to investigate me so they can rule me out, but I don’t know if I can handle much more of it. They keep asking me to come in, again and again.”

That seems odd. He hasn’t mentioned Ivy, though, so he’s probably not calling about her at all. I force my shoulders to relax. “What are they looking for?”

“No clue. The interviews are feeling more like interrogations. I’m this close to getting an attorney.”

This doesn’t sound like the strong guy I know Rick to be. Then again, do I know him to be anything?

Rick groans on the other end. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they ask me to take a polygraph.”

“Jump at the chance,” I tell him. “Hell, suggest it. Clear your name.”

“They’re going to try to pin this on me,” he says, his voice weak. “I could see it in the detective’s eyes. He told me I couldn’t leave town. Did he tell you the same thing?”

“No,” I say quietly. A weight has fallen over the conversation, and a new worry goes through me. What if Ivy loses her father too?

“Becca, you have to believe me,” Rick says through a hiccup between tears. “I didn’t do it.”

“I know you didn’t,” I say quickly. “Just remember, the sooner they eliminate you as a suspect, the sooner they can find the person who is responsible.”

“I guess.” He sounds as if fatigue is messing with his head as much as it is with mine. He needs someone to talk him out of this slump.

“Rick, listen. Cooperate with anything they ask for. Anything and everything. Again and again, even if they ask the same questions over and over. Whatever it takes. They can’t pin this on you without evidence, right? And there can’t be any if you didn’t do it.”

“You’re right,” he says. “It’s just—” Another deep breath as if he’s trying to calm down. “I thought they’d be past that point by now.”

“The investigation is just starting,” I remind him. “Hang in there. When the toxicology, DNA, and other reports are all in, and they’ve cleared you, we can start getting some closure. What other suspects are they looking at?”

“None that I know of.”

“Well, let’s correct that. There’s got to be something pointing to who did this.”

“I haven’t even been able to bury her,” Rick says. The pain in his voice is palpable. “She deserves a proper burial.”

“She does,” I agree. I try not to choke up.

“Will we be able to have an open casket after an autopsy?”

“I think so.”

“Maybe I’ll have her cremated.”

I don’t answer. I have a feeling that Jenn wouldn’t want to be cremated. Her body has already been through so much. Autopsies seem so violent, with saws and knives and who knows what else. And fire is utterly destructive. Which, I suppose, is the point. My vision blurs, and I hear him sniffing again, which makes my own tears fall.

“This sucks,” I say. “There’s no other good word. It plain old sucks.”

“Yeah.”

I wait for him to go on. The silence on the line stretches and stretches.

“Anything I can help with?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says quickly. “I thought I should come over to see Ivy. Don’t want her to forget who I am, right?”

“Right,” I say. She’s been asleep for half an hour, but maybe I should wake her up if he misses his daughter and wants to bond with her. “She’s down already, but if you want to play with her for a bit, we can wake her up. You could put her back down for the night.”

“I wouldn’t know how to do that.”

He doesn’t know how to put his own child to bed? I feel like a question mark is hanging over my head now. Jenn did most of the heavy lifting when it came to caring for their baby. I know that. But even if he never put his daughter down for the night, he had to have noticed how Jenn did it, or he’d want to learn now, you’d think.

On the other hand, he also isn’t showing interest in learning anything about Ivy’s schedule and patterns, so maybe he doesn’t have plans to.

“Do you want me to wake her up?” I ask again.

“That would throw off her schedule or something, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yeah . . .”

“Then no,” he says. “But can I come over tonight anyway? To talk with someone who gets it?”

“Sure,” I say. “I can make you some of my famous Mexican hot chocolate. Maybe we can try to figure out where the cops should be looking.”

“Deal,” he says. “I’ll be there in a few.”