Page 115 of Mine

You deserve to die.

A gentle cough pulls me back to the moment. My eyes open. I look at my wife, her little bird body tucked in the hospital bed.

One foot is hanging off the side. She keeps doing that.

I walk over and slide her thin white ankle under the sheet. Bracing myself against the mattress, I lean in. “Valerie.”

Her hand flutters, and she coughs again. She speaks, but not often, and when she does, it’s only two or three words at a time.

I hover there for a while, watching her chest rise and fall in shallow breaths.

I’ve failed everyone in my life, yes, but here lies my redemption. Here, in front of me, is one person that I can commit to helping. Here, I can begin to make up for all the wrongs.

My hand trembling, I sweep the snow-white hair from her forehead, seeing Chloe in her face. My beautiful, sweet baby girl.

If I could go back in time, what I would change. So many things. For starters, I would have spent more time with my daughter, loving her, pinching her cheeks, making her laugh. Holding her hand.

I lay a hand over my aching heart.

If I could go back in time, I would have pressed the cops harder to continue their investigation after ruling it an accident. I would have worked harder on my own investigation. I wouldn’t have given up.

I don’t have Chloe anymore, but I do have her mother, a woman I owe just as much. A woman I have vowed not to give up on. Not now.

“I’m here for you,” I practice saying. “I’ll be by your side. You are not alone, Valerie.”

The door opens, and the nurse shuffles in. I quickly straighten, sniff, and gather myself. Her name is Marsha. She’s blunt, competent, and unemotional. She’s the only staff member here I don’t want to punch in the face.

I step aside as Marsha takes Valerie’s vitals.

“Has the doctor spoken to you about your wife’s delusions?”

“Yes. Well, no, only that she’s had them. I’ve heard her muttering things, but I can’t make them out. Why? What specifically is going on?”

Marsha readjusts Valerie’s pillow. “She keeps calling out for her daughter.” She straightens and looks at me. “I’m sorry for your loss—I don’t think I’ve told you that.”

“Thank you.”

The nurse nods, then continues. “When she isn’t crying for her, she appears to be cursing someone.”

A tingle spreads at the base of my spine. “I’m sorry—what? Cursing someone?”

“Yes. Angrily.”

I frown. Valerie read Chloe’s medical examiner’s report and knows about the missing lock of hair, but she accepted the officer’s analysis that Chloe had likely done it herself, as she’d done many times before. Valerie didn’t draw the same conclusion I did—that someone had killed our daughter and that the missing lock of hair was meant to be a message.

“Who was she cursing? Did she say a specific name?”

“No, but to be clear, I didn’t get the vibe that she was addressing someone in particular, just that she was, like, asking the universe why it happened. Anyway, I tell you this so that you don’t worry if it happens at home. This is very common. She is on a lot of medication, and it’s going to be a while before everything evens out.”

I nod and thank her, but a feeling of unease slithers into my stomach like a warning, the heavy dread of something to come.

When Marsha leaves, I tuck the sheets around Valerie—very tightly around that one damn foot that keeps slipping out—and turn back to the window.

And once again, and forever, I think of Sabine.

I love you anyway . . .

And of how she must have felt when she learned that I’d made a deal to trade her for Valerie. How she must have felt when she realized Valerie and I had more history than I’d admitted to.

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