Page 29 of The Vacancy In Room 10

“You were pregnant,” I say.

“Still,” she says.

I smile at the portrait of her in a blue sundress with her hand on her belly, looking out at the sparkling water.

“I love it,” I say, then I perch on the edge of the couch and cut open a few bigger boxes; nothing but drop cloths and brushes.

“Well, you have to keep these, they were his favorite,” Monica says, handing me a stack of old LP records.

I take them and flip through Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Glenn Miller. I feel my cheeks go hot and red when she says this. If these were his favorites, I would know that. How does she know that? He only played them for dinner-party night because it made him seem sophisticated. What is happening right now?

“Dean Martin especially, right? Cooking bad pasta and singing ‘You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You’ into a wooden spoon.” She laughs, sort of singing along with the melody a moment, then stops cold. “Sorry. God, I can’t imagine how hard this must be. Shit. Sorry,” she says, but it’s not that.

It’s just, where is she getting this from? I’ve seen Henry sing Dean Martin into a wooden spoon cooking dinner, but when has she? It doesn’t make sense to me. But I’m probably just losing it in general with everything going on and not recalling. There could have been a dozen times he did this when I was pouring drinks for guests on the patio for all I know. I’m being ridiculous. And I’m becoming delusional. I really need to keep it together.

“It’s... I’m okay, yeah, we’ll keep these.” I tuck them into a keep pile behind the sofa and take a sip of my martini. I need a break from this.

She’s mindlessly shaking out an old leather-bound book on the floor—the way we’ve been doing all afternoon—looking for any tucked-away photos we might miss, and then she turns it back over and flips through a few of the pages. Suddenly, I see her face fall. She closes the book and stares at the cover, then opens it again, then quickly shoves it into a box next to her.

“What?” I snap.

“What?” She makes a terrible attempt at pretending she didn’t see something upsetting. “Shit,” is all she says.

“What.” I walk over, and she stands as if to stop me. “Monica. Seriously. What the hell?”

“It’s...a journal I think. Unless he writes fiction. Does he...write fiction at all? Maybe? Probably?”

“He wrote some poetry. We met in a poetry class in college, you know that. Not... Why? What?”

“Oh, God, yes. That’s probably what it is then. That makes sense. Forget about it. Old bad poetry...” She tries to force a laugh, but I snatch the book and carry it to the couch.

I open it, perched on my knees, and search for what she saw that made that look fall across her face, and it only takes seconds to see. It’s written in one form or another on every page.

“Oh, God.” My hand flies to my mouth.

“Honey, maybe there’s an explanation...like...”

“This is not poetry, this is...” I stand. I can’t catch my breath. My face feels numb, my hands are shaking. “I gotta go,” I blurt, grabbing my keys. “Sorry, I just...I gotta get out of here right now.”

“Okay,” she says. “I get it. I...” She quickly grabs her bag, leaves her heels and mimosa supplies, and follows me out. Then I lock the door and just run.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, as I bolt to my car, and I have no idea where I’m going. For a brief moment, I want to run to Callum, and I don’t understand why. His car is here, but all of his lights in his apartment are off, so I don’t bother him.

I just drive. I just let the tears fall and beat the steering wheel with my fists and speed through the winding desert roads until I can figure out where to go.

How could you leave me with this? What have you done, Henry?

12

CASS

“What the hell happened!?” Callum says breathlessly as he runs to Eddie’s side and kneels down. I stumble backward in shock because at first it looks like he’s embracing the man or something, but it’s not the reaction I expected. Then I see he’s gone into autopilot and is performing CPR.

I’ve never seen anyone do this in real life, and it’s actually really violent, the forced breathing, the pumps on Eddie’s chest with his full body weight. There’s a pile of pool towels for the kids stacked up on a shelf, and he’s grabbed one to try to stop the bleeding.

I don’t say that there’s no point to all this. Words won’t come at all. I sit on the sofa and bury my head in my hands, and I want to cover my ears so I don’t hear the sounds he’s making, and I want to scream. Instead, I sob quietly into my palms. After a few minutes, it’s still, and I look up to see Callum slumped against the wall next to the body.

“Jesus,” he whispers. He’s covered in Eddie’s blood. It’s around his mouth, the side of his face, streaked down his white polo shirt. “He’s gone.”

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