Page 63 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

“I don’t know what to do without him,” I wail. To them, women are incomplete without their husbands. “I might as well die!”

Mama sniffs. “Don’t let yourself be destroyed by grief,” she says. “You still have a whole life ahead of you. I’m the one who has lost my son. I’m the one who has lost her life.”

That’s right, mustn’t upstage her grief. I lean back from her so I can give a small, brave smile. “You’re right, Mama. I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t—I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved him. You’re the best mother.”

This brings forth more tears as she nods and cries. She agreesthat she had been the best mother, even though the truth is that she’d been such an awful parent that one might say it was her fault that Ivan was killed. By her own daughter. To have raised such a monster and not realize it, that’s a whole new level of negligence.

After a while, we both stumble out into the living room, clutching each other and taking turns sniffling. Ani is with Papa, who looks so shrunken and aged that I almost feel bad for him. He’s almost unrecognizable. Just days ago, he’d been a healthy, strapping seventy-year-old man. Now he looks like he’s one step away from his own grave. Ani, on the other hand, is pacing madly about the living room. She’s glowing with triumph, though she disguises it well as rage.

“We need to know exactly what happened,” she says. “Wouldn’t you agree?” She aims this at me, chin raised, eyes blazing. A challenge.

“I—I don’t know,” I say softly.Tread very, very carefully, Thalia.“I’m just—the thought of them cutting him up—” I feel Mama stiffen next to me. Good. She’s getting an image of her beautiful son being sliced into like a pound of meat on a cold metal slab.

“Yes, but somewhere, somehow, someone did something wrong,” Ani argues. “How many doctors have we taken him to? And all of them said he was fine, and then suddenly he has a heart attack? These doctors deserve to lose their medical license, and that’s not going to happen unless we can prove there was malpractice. That they missed something. I mean—” She pauses, choking back a loud sob. “They might as well have killed him themselves.”

Mama and Papa straighten up at this, a light entering their eyes. Shit. Ani is good. Their grief is so overwhelming right nowthat they’d jump at any cause to distract them from the endless sorrow. And what better cause than revenge for their dead son?

I think fast. “It’s next to impossible to prove medical malpractice. I don’t want you to put yourselves through that for years and years. It’s not—”

“No,” Ani says, nodding her head. “I agree with you, Thalia. It’s too much on Mama and Papa.” She gives them both a sad smile. “I will do this. I’m not going to stop until we find out who killed my brother.”

I can only watch, unable to say a thing, as Ani whips out her phone and calls the hospital to make arrangements for an autopsy to be done.

My blood chills. She’s so insistent about it that I know then, whatever they find, it’s going to be bad for me.

29

Jane

I walk out of the police station in a daze. When I check my phone, I see seven missed calls and a dozen messages from Ted, asking me if I’m okay. It’s been almost two hours since I left for the station. I hit Return Call. He picks up on the first ring.

“Jesus, Jane. Are you okay? I’ve been going crazy here. What happened?”

The concern in his voice is heartbreaking. Or it would be, if I weren’t in shock. I want to tell him what happened, that I seem to be the suspect in Kurt’s death, but as soon as I start to say it, my throat clamps up and the words won’t come out. Because how ridiculous do they sound? It makes no sense. So instead, I say, “Yeah, it’s fine. They just had a few follow-up questions that they’ve been asking everyone.” How easy it is to lie to my husband.

“Okay...” He sounds unsure. I guess I’m not that great a liar. “Well, do you want to meet me at the airport? Because I don’tthink there’s time for you to get back to the hotel. I’ve packed up everything—”

The airport. God. I’d completely forgotten about our flight. And as soon as he mentions it, I realize that there is no possible way I’m getting on that flight today. There’s too much unfinished business left in New York. And how would it look to Howe if I were to fly back to California now? She’d think I was trying to run away.

“Um, actually, I think I’m gonna stay here for a while longer.”

“What?”

“I just—there are some things I need to do.” Like clear my name.

“Well—” He struggles to speak for a few moments before sighing. “Okay. I’ll extend our room.”

“No, I think you should go home, Ted,” I say without realizing what I’m really saying until the words are out. But as soon as they’re spoken, I know I meant them. I don’t want him here. The past couple of days, we’ve been inching back toward each other, but now I’m about to do something I don’t want him to know about. “Go home; don’t bother checking out because I’m going to be staying on for another couple of days at least.”

“But—” The word comes out sharp with so much pain that I have to close my eyes for a second.

“Go home.” The words come out heavy with finality. I don’t wait for an answer before hanging up. As soon as I end the call, I tap on his number and add it to my Blocked Contacts list. I can’t afford to be distracted by Ted no doubt calling and texting me nonstop, demanding an explanation, wheedling, begging me to talk.

I go into a nearby café and buy myself a hot coffee. I need time to think about what just happened. I sit down in a farcorner and start ripping up napkins into narrow strips to give myself a bit of a distraction while I work out the giant ball of shit that Thalia has somehow plopped into my life. Right. So this goes back years. Oxford. She’s always been someone different. Beautiful on the outside; something repulsive and dangerous on the inside. I think about how, at Oxford, she’d fooled me into thinking she was a socially anxious person, and I realize with a kick of bitterness that she must have read me well, must’ve figured out that I have social anxiety and so pretended to have it as well to get my guard down. The thought of it is so overwhelming that I almost crush my coffee cup. I have to will myself to keep breathing, snapping the rubber band over and over.

Doesn’t matter that she was a conniving little bitch, that she’d fooled me all this time, that she’d tricked me into claiming responsibility for Antoine’s death. Oh god, Antoine. I’d believed her without any second thought, but now I know, without a doubt, that she’d killed him for no good reason. Maybe she was bored; maybe she was angry that he’d shown up unannounced—shit. He wouldn’t have shown up if it wasn’t for me. For years, I’d tortured myself, thinking that it was my fault that Thalia was assaulted, that she’d had no choice but to defend herself by killing him. But now I’m overcome by guilt because it was my fault that Antoine was killed.

Okay, focus. I need to prove that Thalia was behind everything all along. That she’d planned it so that she could kill Kurt and pin the blame on me. But how? I’m a pawn in a game I hadn’t even realized was being played. What move would she make next? What weaknesses does she have?

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