CHAPTER 37

Stretched out on the sofa in the family room, Dee Dee was mindlessly flipping through the channels on the TV.

Family room. Hah. What a joke.

The room could have been ripped right out of a design magazine.

Big, overstuffed, pale green sofas were situated around the room to encourage conversation at parties. The tall, wide windows encased the room with light and provided a view of the fabulous pool outside, but today it was obscured by heavy silk draperies.

Everything was perfect. The gold-leafed picture frames were dust-free, the plants were full and green, showing no signs of neglect. The glossy magazines on the glass coffee table were new and unwrinkled. And never read. They were there purely for cosmetic effect.

It looks like no one lives here…

What was that song Luther used to sing?

“A House Is Not a Home.”

This doesn’t feel like home to me anymore. Without Michael, this is just a big empty house.

She heard a key turn in the lock and sat up, glancing at the clock on the fireplace. 6:15.

She pictured him pressing the alarm code into the keypad.

Him.

In a few minutes, he’ll come in here. If he came in at all.

Years ago, he would have fixed himself a drink and would have retreated into his study until it was time for dinner.

They would sit together like a family, at least when she was home early enough, and talk. Sometimes Jackie would come by, her presence shifting their casual dinner into unsettled tension. She didn’t mind, though; at least they were all together as a family.

She didn’t mind smelling alcohol on Jonathan’s breath when he kissed her. And she didn’t mind him picking Michael up from basketball practice that day, either. Isn’t that what good fathers do? How wrong I was.

He tried to blame it on the rain, the other driver, anything but himself.

“Where is he?” she had demanded at the hospital, taking no notice of the ugly gash on Jonathan’s forehead.

“Oh my God! That car, it came out of nowhere. Didn’t see it coming—”

“Where is he?”

“Tried to swerve,” Jonathan was saying, eyes wild, unfocused. “Road slick…Oh, my God, Dee Dee. Oh, my God!”

“WHERE IS MY SON!”

“He is dead. Michael is dead.”

She didn’t hear him, or chose not to hear. And she didn’t hear the doctors as they rattled off Michael’s injuries: “Brain hemorrhage, shattered pelvis, broken ribs, a punctured lung…”

When she finally saw him, his body had already gone cold. He was gone. His eyes were closed, and the expression on his face was eerily calm. He looked like he was sleeping. She dreamed about him all the time. Each dream would be different. Sometimes he would wake up and everything would be okay. She would take him home and fix him macaroni and cheese from scratch, just as he liked it, with lots of cheese.

Those were the dreams she loved the most, the ones where she would wake up smiling. In most of her dreams, though, he didn’t wake up, and those were the ones she hated. They were too real, too much like life. When she awakened from those dreams, she would be awash in a sense of dread that no amount of showers or baths could rinse away.

“Why are you sitting in here in the dark?” he asked, turning on the lights and causing her to squint in the sudden brightness.

Him.

All this was his fault.

Why is it drunks always kill people, but they come away with a little scratch, or nothing at all?

She looked at Jonathan’s forehead, still seeing the slight scar from the accident. Plastic surgery could have prevented scarring, but he had insisted on having a scar, a reminder that his son was gone.

Hypocrite. Wasn’t having an empty house and a son in the grave enough?

Not for Jonathan, though. He had to be dramatic, had to let people know he was grieving.

But sometimes, late at night, when she was in her bedroom alone, she wondered if he missed Michael. She heard him crying in his bedroom down the hall several times, but not once had she comforted him or asked him how he was dealing with losing Michael.

She pushed the thought down. Why should she be worried about him? If he feels guilty, he should. All this was his fault.

But a part of her, the secret part, the part she wouldn’t share with anyone, felt she was responsible. She knew Jonathan liked to drink. She should have stopped him from driving after drinking too heavily. But she had gotten careless, especially with all the long hours at the salon. And with things going so well, she never imagined that Death would come knocking at her family’s door. But it did. And it wanted Michael.

It was the reason she stayed with Jonathan, in this marriage, in this house. It was her prison. Her sentence for giving Death permission to take Michael.

“You’re home early,” Jonathan said.

“I could say the same about you.”

“You feelin’ okay?” You look a little tired.”

Am I feeling okay? How can I feel okay when you killed my son? MURDERER!

She wanted to scream it out, so everyone would know what kind of man Jonathan was. Instead, she turned her attention to a TV program about lions and hyenas in Africa.

“Had a hard day?”

She shrugged.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Don’t be stupid, Jonathan. Why would I do anything as absurd as talk to you?”

“I thought it would make you feel better.”

“Do me a favor and don’t think so much. It doesn’t do you much good,” she said, getting up and walking past him.

“I can’t keep living like this,” he said.

She laughed bitterly.

“Sweetie, you call this livin’?”