Page 6 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

Thinking of the enormity of it is suffocating. The only way to even consider it is to distill it down into its basic core. The encapsulated event of her murder. It was that event that defined my life and without that happening, everything would have been different. I would be in a totally different place.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Sam says. “You’d be an artist.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“No maybe about it. You were incredible. You still are. If you hadn’t left art school for the Bureau Academy, you would have showings all over the world now. Everybody would know your name.”

“Everybody already knows my name,” I say with a laugh. “Just for a different reason.”

“You really should work on your art again. It doesn’t have to be anything serious. Just something for you. Or for the house.”

I give my husband a soft smile. “I might. At least I know one thing that would still be the same even if she hadn’t been murdered.”

“What?” he asks.

“We’d still be married.” I know it’s true. It would have come at a different time and in a different way, but Sam is a constant. No matter what path I took, if I was ever going to live my adult years, it was going to be with Sam by my side. I knew that before my mother died, while I was grieving her, and long after. It’s a constant that has never and will never change. I lean against him and turn to kiss his shoulder. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now. But you can’t let this get to you this much. Whatever you choose, it’s your decision. There’s no right or wrong.”

Sam turns to press his forehead against mine. “Can’t you just make the decision for me?”

I laugh. “No. That’s not how it works.”

“I mean… it kind of is. I make decisions for you when you don’t want to make them.”

“You telling me I can’t go pursue a suspect through an unknown location by myself and without letting anybody know isn’t the same thing as me making the decision about what to do with your house,” I counter.

Sam lets out a dramatic sigh and nods. “I guess.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m still mad about the hay bales.”

I wrap my arm around him, knowing the frustration is going to come back, but glad for the moment of reprieve for him.

“I know.”

Sam is cutting himself a slab of the lasagna that got abandoned last night when I walk into the kitchen the next evening.

“Are you planning on being busy next weekend?” I ask.

He looks over at me with a vague expression of surprise in his eyes. “Hey,” he says, leaning down for a kiss. “You’re home early.”

“I know. One of the interviews I was supposed to do fell through and I got an intern doing some research for me because… well, that’s why they exist.” I snag a piece of the thick, cooled cheese from the side of his piece and pop it into my mouth. “Cut me some of that. I’ll get the salad back out.”

“What were you asking about next weekend?” Sam asks.

He cuts another huge slice of lasagna and reaches into the cabinet above his head for a plate. He plops the lasagna onto it and holds it out to me as I walk past with the bowl of salad I’ve just taken out of the refrigerator.

“Just toss it in the microwave for a minute and a half or so,” I tell him.

Sam looks down at the plate. “Oh, you want it warm?”

I pause and look at him. “Did you just ask me if I want my leftover lasagna warm?”

“Yeah. I mean, I was just going to eat it cold.”

I shake my head, knowing exactly where this is coming from. “I can’t believe you and Xavier teamed up on that one.”

“Hey, I’ve been saying for years, cold pizza is the best. And if Xavier says lasagna is just pizza in cake form, it’s good enough for me,” Sam says. Xavier has many ideas about food, but I’m still unsure about his assertion that the pasta sheets in lasagna are analogous to the crust because of their similar ingredient structure. “It’s really delicious. You should try it.”

“I am still a warm tomato sauce and melted cheese in lasagna kind of girl,” I tell him.

Sam shrugs and puts the plate in the microwave. “Suit yourself.”

---