BEFORE RETURNING HOME, I CONVINCE Mr. Delaney to swing by CVS for some basic supplies. I find a gigantic purse. Cheap brown leather, covered in miscellaneous pockets and snap detailing meant to make it look urban cool. Definitely not my classic Coach Christmas gift from Conrad. My mom will hate it. I smile as I sling it over my shoulder.
I pick out a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, light makeup. My mother has the bathroom fully stocked but I want my own toiletries. Brands I prefer.
I find myself in front of hair dye for a long time. Mr. Delaney has wandered off. No doubt trying to give me space. Alone in the pharmacy store aisle, I find myself thinking like the murder suspect I truly am. Maybe I should think beyond my preferred hair gel. What about a bug-out kit? New hair color, new hairstyle? Sunglasses, hat? If I ever want to leave my mother’s house, it will require some subterfuge.
So I do it. A rich brunette to cover my ash blond. Then, while I’m at it, a cheap purple scarf, oversized sunglasses. Then I go a little nuts in the hair accessory section, from scissors to hair extensions to flowered barrettes. I don’t know why I pick the things I pick, and yet it all makes perfect sense. Next up, pen and notepad. Then, even better, I stumble across a rack of prepaid cells. I select three. Again, not sure why. It feels right.
I need money. But my ATM card melted in the house fire. Maybe Mr. Delaney will take me to my local bank, where I can withdraw in person. Or loan me money? I feel uncomfortable, like I’m crossing some line; then I order myself to get over it. I can’t be dependent on my mom and helpless in the face of whatever is going to happen next. Between retrieving my passport and financial documents from the safe, and now this little shopping expedition, I’m going to make it.
I head back to the checkout line. Mr. Delaney magically reappears. He already has a credit card in hand, which makes me feel self-conscious again. Then he spots the prepaid cells. Without a word, he returns his credit card to his wallet, extracts cash instead.
I think I get it. He doesn’t want there to be evidence he bought the phones. In case they are recovered later at . . . what? The scene of a shooting? Another house fire? He doesn’t ask. I don’t tell.
“Nice purse,” he says finally when we emerge from the store and I start transferring over my supplies.
“I need cash,” I say. “And a new ATM card.”
He drives me to the bank.
There, things get more interesting. I walk in, and the first teller across from me, some woman I’ve never met, immediately gasps. I actually stop and glance behind me, wondering what the fuss is about. Did someone famous walk in behind me? Nope. Next, I look down. Are my clothes covered in lunch? No. Then, finally I get it. She’s gasping at me. A woman whose picture has been all over the news as a murderer.
I feel a lot better about my decision to buy hair dye. I only wish I’d bought more.
I square my shoulders, produce my passport, and get to work.
I know my accounts. I know what Conrad and I have and don’t have in our joint savings. I’m not sure if the police can freeze the funds as part of their investigation—sounds like a logical enough thing for them to do—so I make a large withdrawal now. The woman fusses, says she needs her manager. I play it cool, officially having an out-of-body experience where I’m no longer a shy mathematician’s daughter whose been shunning the limelight for her entire life but a regular La Femme Nikita. Yeah, that was me on the news. And if I was willing to shoot my own husband, just think of what I might do to you.
Then I wise up enough to turn sideways and show off my rounded belly. By the time the manager returns, I have the full pregnancy profile going on. She softens almost immediately. At least my future stretch marks have come in handy.
She tries to tell me there’s a limit on what I can withdraw. Which is partly true, but not the paltry amount she’s conceding to me. I keep my voice firm and polite as I walk her through it. This account is in my name. My passport verifies my identity. I am entitled to withdraw what I want to withdraw. Any questions, my lawyer is sitting in the car.
In the end, the manager counts out five thousand dollars. Stacks of hundreds. I find myself thinking of the metal box again, Conrad’s own stash of IDs and cash. It both confuses and saddens me. What was he really doing on all those business trips?
And why marry me? Why acquire a wife, then a child, if his whole life was just a lie?
As long as I’m in the bank, I order a new debit card to be sent to my mother’s address. That customer service person is equally skittish to be around me. I keep my chin up, but on my lap my hands start to shake. I’m an introvert. This level of attention is difficult for me. Especially the way people look, whisper.
Forget Conrad. I feel like a sixteen-year-old girl who just shot and killed her father all over again.
I get my money. I get promises of a new card. Then I clutch my bag to my shoulder and flee the premises.
THE MOMENT MR. Delaney turns down my mother’s street, reporters rush forward. He is patient and firm. One slow, steady speed. The reporters quickly start giving way because he will not. It occurs to me that he’s probably driven this gauntlet before, both given his line of work and given what happened sixteen years ago.
Did I come out of the house back then? I don’t remember. I was so lost in my own grief. While I’m sure the media was terrible to my mother, asking for the gory details again and again, I’m also sure she got to vamp up her role of heartbroken widow. While I, the strange quiet kid, was let off the hook as a minor.
What did I do after my father’s death? Sat in my room and stared at a wall, trying not to see his shattered chest. Sat in his office and stared at his whiteboard, trying to capture his last bit of genius. Then one day my mother said I was going to school, so I did. Because that’s how it works in my family. We don’t talk. We don’t resolve. We just . . . move on.
Mr. Delaney turns into the driveway. Once we’re on private ground, the reporters have to give up. I notice signs staked in the lawn: No Trespassing. Probably Mr. Delaney’s handiwork from when he first arrived this morning. It makes an interesting counterpart to all the neighborhood Christmas decorations.
Mr. Delaney parks the car and looks at me.
“I’ll be okay,” I tell him.
“Two vodkas are okay,” he says. “Five are too many.” He’s referring to my mother, who probably is a functioning alcoholic. Take away her vodka and she’s unworkable. Too much vodka and she’s overly dramatic.
Conrad rarely drank, only the occasional beer. I realize now that’s one of the things I liked about him. Growing up in a household where alcohol felt like a necessary evil, I barely touched it myself, and was happy my husband didn’t either.
“Will you tell her about the lockbox discovery?” Mr. Delaney asks me.
“No. She already hates him enough.”
“Do you know why?”
“A window salesman isn’t worthy of Earl Hopkins’s daughter.”
Mr. Delaney smiles. “I don’t think that’s the case.”
“Then why?”
“You should ask her yourself.”
My turn to give him a look. But I’d told him I’d be okay and I can’t make a liar out of myself now, so I pop open the door and step resolutely out of the car. Across the street, the reporters shout questions, hoping to get lucky. In front of me, my mother appears at the side door, vodka martini already in hand, though it’s only three in the afternoon.
Last glance at Mr. Delaney.
Then, ready or not, here I come.
MY FIRST ORDER of business is trying to gauge how much my mother has already consumed. A jug of Ketel One sits on the kitchen island, a peeled lemon beside it. She follows my gaze, then raises her martini glass in open defiance. Normally, my mother waits till five o’clock sharp for her daily habit, but she’s never been great under pressure.
As usual she is impeccably garbed. Dark-green wool slacks, a cashmere turtleneck the color of oatmeal, a beautifully pleated chocolate-brown vest. Given her beverage and the waiting media, I doubt she’s planning on going out, but in my mother’s world, there’s no excuse for ever looking other than your best.
Now she spies my new chunky, clunky purse. Immediately, her brow furrows. “What is that?”
“My new bag. Old one burned up in the fire.”
“Evie, if you needed a purse why didn’t you just say so? I have a number of Chanels that would be perfect for you.”
I don’t answer the question, simply set my purse on the kitchen chair closest to me. Then I cross to the bottle of vodka, screw back on the cap, put it away. In my world, this passes for conversation.
“Did you eat lunch?” she tries now, going on the attack as a concerned mom.
“Mr. Delaney took me for lunch.”
“Did you eat? It’s very important that you eat. The baby—”
“I had a very healthy, fulfilling lunch, thank you. Including OJ, hold the vodka.”
She flushes, frowns at me again. “Did you find what you needed at your house?”
“I learned enough.”
“Is it a total loss?”
I hate to say this. “Yes.”
“Then, that’s it; you’ll stay here. Your rooms are ready to go, the nursery is nearly done. A woman in your condition can’t be subject to undue stress. Frankly, all this nonsense about the shooting is enough.”
For a moment, I think she’s referring to my father, then realize she means Conrad.
“The police say Dad didn’t kill himself.” I don’t mean to utter the words so baldly, but I don’t know how else to deliver them.
My mom freezes. There’s some kind of look on her face, but I can’t read it. Horror, sorrow, confusion. All three.
“Why are the police talking about your father’s death?”
“Because I told them the truth: I didn’t do it.”
“Evie Hopkins—”
Not my married name, I notice. Even half drunk and caught off guard, my mom can still get her digs in.
“I didn’t shoot him. We both know it. We lied to protect him sixteen years ago, Mom. Because we loved him. Because we couldn’t bear to think he killed himself. But it’s been sixteen years, and given what happened with Conrad . . . If we lied to protect Dad all those years ago, then I need us to find out the truth now, in order to save me.”
My mom sits. Hard. Just collapses in the chair, vodka sloshing against the sides of her glass. For a moment, she looks lost, almost childlike, and it unnerves me. Then she takes a fortifying sip.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“According to the police, someone else shot Dad. Someone had to be here in the house.”
“But we didn’t see anyone.”
“Then the person left right before we entered.”
“Are they sure? How can they know these things?”
“You watch TV—”
“I don’t watch those shows—”
“Of course you watch those shows! Everyone watches those shows. Plus, I’ve seen them in your Netflix queue. This isn’t the time for posturing, Mom. Now is the time for truth.”
She glares at me. It makes her look more like herself. We both relax. She takes another sip of her martini.
“They’re sure?”
“Yes, Mom. Dad didn’t commit suicide.” The words are harder to say than I thought. Again, my family has always been defined by the things unspoken. And suicide is such a sad, terrible word. We never talked about it. Just like myself at lunch, my mother gets a sudden sheen in her eyes. The weight of her own burden lifting after all these years. What could’ve been a shared burden, if only we’d been the type of people to share such things.
She looks away, drains her glass. Then, without another glance at me, gets up, crosses to the cabinet, and gets the vodka back down. I don’t try to stop her. Some battles are too hard to fight.
“Everyone loved your father,” she says at last, peeling off a curl of lemon rind. “He was a genius. Who doesn’t love a genius?”
“Other geniuses,” I answer. “Jealous professors, overworked TAs, flunked students.”
She frowns again but, focusing on the preparation of a perfect martini, at least doesn’t immediately dismiss my ideas.
“It’s why your father threw the poker parties,” she says abruptly.
I shake my head, not following.
“The academic world is competitive. For ideas, grants, students, funding. Your father didn’t love that aspect. Especially in math, he saw everyone working alone. He thought ideas would be better if people shared their ideas and opinions. The university environment wasn’t conducive to such things, he said. So, poker nights. Invite other professors, doctorate students, et cetera. Get everyone relaxed, having fun. Collaboration would naturally follow.”
I nod. I never heard my father dismiss another colleague’s ideas or talk down to a student. As professors went, I always thought he was ahead of his time. Or maybe, simply that secure in his own brilliance. But I hadn’t known this aspect of the poker nights and it only makes me miss him more.
“There was a TA,” she says abruptly. “Aarav Patil. Very promising, your father said. But a loner. He rarely attended the poker nights, no matter how many times your father invited him. And while your father wasn’t one to go into detail with me, I could tell he was getting frustrated with Patil. I’m not sure the boy would’ve been his TA much longer.”
“Okay.” Belatedly, I realize I should be writing this down. Ugly purse to the rescue. I have my pad and paper. “Did this Patil know where we lived?”
“They all did. Your father was just as likely to have students over to his home office as the one on campus.”
“What about professors?”
She takes her first sip of her martini but is contemplative now, less emotional. “I’m not sure. I never heard your father say a bad word, but that didn’t mean others weren’t jealous. There were things your father could just . . . comprehend. His mind . . .” She looks as me abruptly. “There was no else in the world like your father,” she whispers. “No one else.”
For the first time I get it, truly get it. She loved him. Probably as much as I did. We both loved him. And neither one of us has been the same since.
“I miss him, too,” I say.
She just smiles, but there are tears on her cheeks now. I think I should stand up, give my mom a hug. But I’m too afraid she’ll turn away. So I remain seated. She drinks her vodka. We both wait.
“You should talk to Dr. Martin Hoffman,” she says abruptly, “the department chair. He’s retired now, but sixteen years ago, he would’ve known everyone and what personalities might have had issues with others.” She pauses a moment, then concedes: “And who might’ve been more ambitious. When your father died, that left a vacancy, of course, which had to be filled.”
“Who got his job?”
“Katarina Ivanova.”
“A woman?” It shouldn’t surprise me but still catches me off guard. “Did my father know her?”
“Yes. He’d been mentoring her for the past year. He was . . . impressed.” My mother’s face shutters up, and in her expression, I learn a few more things about Katarina Ivanova: She was very beautiful and my mother hated her.
“I don’t remember her from poker night.”
“Not everyone could always make it.” Or my mother hadn’t wanted her around.
“But she’d been to Dad’s home office?”
“Of course. That was how he worked.”
“Thank you.”
My mother looks at me. She still has tear tracks on her cheeks, and her fingers on the stem of her martini glass are trembling. “What good will come of this?” she asks me softly.
“I don’t know.”
“He’s dead. We both paid the price. And as for what happened Tuesday night . . . How can the circumstances of your father’s death matter? You were a child. The records were sealed.”
“The police are reopening the case.”
“Because you stirred the pot.”
“I have to know, Mom. I can’t keep . . . being the same person, telling the same lies. Just once, I want to know the truth.”
My mother smiles sadly. “You know what they say, dear: Be careful what you wish for.”