Page 66 of Mail Order Bride

“No, he isn’t.”

“He wanted me to tell you that no matter what anyone says, he loved you. He didn’t want you to worry about anything, but especially not about where he stood.”

“Should I be... worried?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

Suddenly, it comes to me, why she asked me to meet her. She's trying to gauge what I know, which I'm hoping she can see isn't much.

“You might think you didn't know your husband. But take it from someone who's been around a lot of men of his kind—you made him very happy.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” I say, analyzing the distance between me and my car.

“I do,” she says. “I saw Joel. A few months ago. He was up my way on a job. He really looked good. Happier than I've ever seen him.”

I force a smile.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I didn’t come here to kill you or anything like that.”

It wasn’t my first thought, but I hope it’s not my last. I can tell she smells weakness. I can see that she views me as some sort of damsel in distress. Still, she’s not making any sense. One minute she acts like she wants to tell me some big secret, the next she acts like she knows all mine.

She smiles wickedly, like it brings her great pleasure to keep me in the dark. “I mean, if I ever found out you had anything to do with his death… or like, I don’t know… maybe you told some lies or something to the cops… Painted him in a bad light…”

“I didn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “We both know the truth, don’t we?”

“Joel—”

“You don’t have to say it,” she says, cutting me off. “I made a promise, and I’m not looking for any kind of bad karma.”

“Neither am I.”

She scoffs. “And for all I know, Joel might not even be dead. It’d be just like him to fake his own death. I wouldn’t put anything past that man.”

“I—He’s—”

“Don’t take this as a threat or anything,” she tells me with that same wicked smile. “But the less you say, the better.”

“You said that already.”

“Right. Well, if I were you… I’d keep my mouth shut,” she says. “Especially with the cops. It seems like you’ve said enough.”

Margo takes a long breath in and lets it out slowly. “Joel told me to tell you that you'll find your letters under the bed on his side. But maybe you've already found them?”

I nod. I hadn't.

Margo leans toward me and extends her hand. I let it hang in the air. “Well, good luck,” she says. “I really hope I never see you again. Because if I do—”

“I got it.”

She looks me up and down and shakes her head. “God, let’s hope,” she says. And then she's gone.

Later, at home, I go in search of the letters Margo says Joel had hidden under his side of the bed. Part of me thinks it’s a trap, some sort of game. It surprises me that he would have kept them. Joel was not, from what I knew, a sentimental man.

I don’t find them right away. There’s nothing under the bed, at least not on his side. I consider maybe I’m right. Maybe Margo is toying with me. But why?

I sit outside on the porch swing with Annie and Blue nestled at my feet, thinking how this all could have been different; thinking that Joel should be here, he should be beside me. I think about the letters, about how this all started, and about everything Margo said. It hits me just after supper. Joel was a grave digger by trade, at least part of the time. If the letters were where she said they would be, they’d be buried.

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