THAT EVENING, TEST, who’d not been called away, enjoyed her family. The pizza she’d brought home the previous night had been left on the counter uneaten and gone bad. So they made custom, individual pizzas, George keeping his toppings simple and organized: three pieces of pepperoni on each slice. Elizabeth added the works: pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, sausage, and left-over mac and cheese. Test was in a mood to let things go, appreciate the chaos, pile the dishes in the sink and leave them for morning. A morning during which she intended to wake up late, make covert love to Claude, and lounge around in her bathrobe.
She skipped the kids’ baths and she and Claude helped make a pillow fort on the bed for the kids before they all snuggled in to watch Ratatouille.
Elizabeth complained her tummy ached from her pizza, and Test welcomed her snuggling right up to her, so toasty warm.
Test hadn’t thought the kids would last for the entire movie, but they had. And it was after 10:00 when they finally shuffled off to bed.
With the kids down, Test rested her head on Claude’s chest and ran her hand over his thigh.
The house was so quiet. Too quiet. For eleven years, Charlie had slept on the bed; first Test’s bed in her studio apartment, and then her and Claude’s bed, in their first shared apartment in Keene, before the kids, and then here. Charlie would moan and groan and nudge and crowd. Whine to go out to pee. After the kids, he had at times been a hassle, one more responsibility for which Test sometimes was just too fried to want to deal with, especially at night. Now, tonight, she missed all of it.
And she wondered: Even if Brad died, even if he’d committed suicide because he was guilty, whoever had killed Charlie was out there still.
Claude played with her hair, rested his chin on the top her head.
“Want to try?” he said and lifted her chin in his fingers to look at her.
“More than ever.”