Page 85 of The New Couple in 5B

twenty-five

The room is dim, though it’s past noon, light blocked by the milky drapes pulled against the daylight. And I can’t move. My limbs are filled with sand, and my head is heavy on the pillow. I can hear Chad’s voice in the other room, low and serious. He’s worried about me. There’s a part of me that wants to get up. She’s in there, the real me, the strong one, screaming,pull yourself together!

But no. A heavy despair sits on my back, crushing me into the mattress. Even my phone session with Dr. Black has done nothing to dispel the pall that has settled. He’s called in a prescription for antidepressants; Chad will pick them up later. I haven’t decided whether I’ll start taking them or not.

My abdomen aches, my period heavy. I don’t suppose you could call it a miscarriage just days after a positive pregnancy test. But it’s a miscarriage of hope, of joy.

It’s a loss, Rosie, said Dr. Black.You’re allowed to grieve that.

The buzzer rings. Chad’s voice rumbles, then Abi’s over the intercom. After a moment, Chad pushes in through the closed door, sits on the bed beside me and puts a hand on my hip.

“Detective Crowe is here. Olivia is on her way.”

“I can’t.”

“We don’t have a choice. It’s this or go down to the station.” The fatigue and the sadness I see on his face is a mirror of my own heart.

“I just keep seeing him there,” I say, tearing up again.

“I know,” he says, covering his eyes.

“The medium, Miranda, said that he was going to find love. She told me that our family was growing.”

Of course, it’s all a fraud; no one knows the future. I know that better than anyone. But still, I was happy to hear her words. Maybe that’s when we cling to predictions and fortune telling, when the words are deeply what we want to hear.

“It just wasn’t our time,” Chad says when I say nothing more, stay still under the covers. “It will happen, Rosie. Lots of couples struggle with this. Our familywillgrow.”

His optimism and strength give me some energy. He’s right. Plenty of people have trouble getting pregnant. Plenty of people miscarry. They go on to have healthy babies.

The doorbell rings.

“I’ll be right out,” I tell him.

He watches me a moment and then goes to get the door. I lie still, listening to Detective Crowe’s baritone. Olivia is here, too, her voice strident and high. It’s with herculean effort that I push myself from the bed, pad across the floor and enter the living room where they’re all waiting.

When I join them, a wreck in sweats and one of Chad’s old sweaters, hair up in a messy bun, all eyes turn to me. Detective Crowe frowns. Olivia is pressed and put together, her ink-black bob tidy, suit clinging to her shapely frame. She comes to embrace me.

She’s perfect; her skin dewy, her makeup flawless, nails painted a deep red.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers. I take in her lilac scent, then pull away. I sit on the couch, curling my legs up beneath me, wrapping my arms around my middle.

I know how I look—pale, exhausted, hair wild. I want to scream. It’s lodged in my throat.

“So,” says the detective, taking a seat across from me. “I have two deaths in a week. And what do they have in common?”

I stare at him. He, too, is sporting the purple shiners of fatigue, with uneven stubble at his jaw; his thick, dark hair is tousled. He keeps on his brown leather jacket, which he wears over a gray T-shirt. Jeans, work boots. He looks more like a construction worker than a detective.

“You,” he says when I don’t answer.

“You’re reaching,” says Olivia. She sits in one of the chairs facing the couch, and he sits in the other. Chad sits right beside me, a protective hand on my leg.

“Am I?” says Detective Crowe. “Dana Lowan is related to Chad Lowan. They were in a dispute over this apartment, among other things, apparently. She was blackmailing your client, by his own admission. And now she’s dead. Xavier Young fell from the roof deck of this building. Did he jump? Was he pushed? It’s too soon to tell, but here you are again, Rosie and Chad. It’s odd, don’t you think?”

Olivia is cool, easy. She offers a dramatic shrug, lifting her palms. “Many people in this building knew both Xavier and Dana. The Aldridges, right? The doorman Abi. Who knows who else?”

“There are cameras everywhere,” I say. “In the basement, in all the hallways, on the roof, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” says Crowe. “There are cameras but no recordings. And your doorman Abi was, apparently, off. In fact, there was no doorman on duty that evening, so no one watching the monitor.”

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