Page 14 of The Better Sister

Ethan was initially annoyed that I’d accepted Andrea’s invitation to come inside. He’d been ready at the door, shoes already on. I knew that kid like the back of my hand. If he absolutely had to get up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday, he wanted to make it quick so he could return to bed as soon as possible.

Ethan’s irritation shifted to worry when a woman he didn’t recognize followed me in.

Once we were all gathered in the kitchen, coffees poured, I introduced the stranger with me as Detective Guidry from the Suffolk County Police Department.

Andrea placed a worried hand to her mouth, and her eyes immediately drifted to the staircase beyond the kitchen, and then to Ethan.

“It’s nothing the kids did,” I assured her. “It’s—something happened at the house. The police responded.” I asked her if she could give us a moment alone. She nodded and left, but not before giving my shoulder a quick squeeze. I wondered if she could already guess the news that was about to be delivered. Maybe my decision to come inside for coffee was as telling as that hospital nurse’s sudden kindness.

Looking at Guidry, I guessed that she was in her late forties. She seemed prettier, and more feminine than I would have expected of a person in her role, but I was going by stereotypes. I realized that I had also been operating on stereotypes when I asked her, specifically, if she would come with me to deliver the news to my son. Her partner, Bowen, had stayed at the station to work.

Once Andrea was gone, I gestured to Ethan to sit down at the kitchen table. He did so, and then crossed his arms in front of him and rephrased my previous assertion as a question. “Something happened at the house?”

“There was a break-in,” I said, but then looked to Guidry to elaborate.

“We think your father interrupted an intruder,” she said. “A bedroom window at the back of the house was broken. There was an assault inside the home.”

Ethan flinched.

“Your father was badly wounded. I’m sorry, but he did not survive.”

Ethan stared at the white tile of the tabletop and began working his thumbnail against a section of stained grout. “Did you catch someone?”

“Not yet. It’s still early.”

He nodded. “So, like, what happened? You said there was an assault. But how exactly did he die?”

I swallowed, no longer caring about all the logical reasons I had for involving Guidry. “The person who broke in stabbed him,” I said. Five times. The doctor told me it was five times. “Your father was so brave. He fought back. He was doing his best to defend himself. They think he would have made it except one of the wounds was to an aorta in his abdomen.” I was parroting what the doctor had told me at the hospital, and hoped it was close enough to be accurate. “It collapses the circulatory system. Even though paramedics got there fast, it was still too late.” I had tried and tried to find a pulse, but there was nothing. The doctor told me there would be an autopsy, and then I would need to decide where to have his body moved from there. That’s all he was now. A body.

Ethan nodded again. His arms were still folded, but when he finally looked up, he looked directly at me. I saw a flash of heat on his face that I couldn’t read. Before I could put my finger on it—was it anger?—his expression fell flat again. “So now what happens?”

Guidry shifted. Both literally and figuratively. She had been leaning forward, her body language as open and giving as Ethan’s was closed and withdrawn. But now she moved slightly back in her chair. She had only come here out of a sense of obligation, helping out a family during a time of tragedy. But suddenly, she seemed... curious.

I didn’t like the feeling of a detective being curious about us right now.

“Well, the medical examiner will follow up with your stepmother about making arrangements,” she said. “And we, of course, investigate.”

“To me,” Ethan said. “What happens to me? Where will I live? Do I stay in New York or go back to Nicky?”

Guidry looked at me. We had already talked about my sister at the police station, but a final decision hadn’t been made yet about contacting her.

“Do you mind if I talk to Ethan alone for a second?” she asked.

“Why is that necessary?” I replied.

“You had asked us for an accommodation for your family. He seems capable of having input on that decision.”

“Oh my god,” Ethan muttered. “My dad’s dead, and you’re talking about me in code. I’m sitting right here. Yes, I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself.”

The rational side of my brain was telling me not to leave him alone with a police detective, under any circumstances, ever. I had seen the way something in Guidry had shifted, and I knew that she and her partner had been treating me as a suspect for hours, whether they meant for me to feel that way or not.

But the other side of my brain was asking the same question as Ethan: What was going to happen to him next? I didn’t want them to call Nicky. Not yet. I had given them an abbreviated summary of the history there. All I wanted was to wait a day. One day for Ethan and me to deal with losing Adam on our own. But I understood why Guidry would want to hear it from Ethan directly.

I told them I’d wait outside by the car.

8

Poppit

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