His Other Life

One

LEAH

Would they expect her to wear black?

Leah frowned into the closet, where knitted turtlenecks embraced sheer camisoles, and Neil’s old jeans smothered her summer capris. Where was that dress? Or did a dress scream “trying too hard”? She dug beneath scarves and button-down shirts until her hands grazed the silky-smooth satin she’d been after. With a tug and a grunt, she pulled it free. Shook it out. Held it up.

Nope.

Her fingers twisted in the dark material before she tossed it to the floor. It was beyond her why she’d even kept it. Once a funeral dress, always a funeral dress.

Leah sighed, hands on hips. Gray blouse, dark-blue slacks maybe? Surely no one would fault her for being disrespectful in that. She pulled her unruly curls into a tight ponytail and dressed quickly, allowing herself no time to reconsider. Lord knows if she did, she’d miss the assembly altogether.

It was always a relief to shut the closet door, as if that was her deepest darkest secret—the piles, the mess, the sheer assortment of garments amassed over the course of a nineteen-year marriage. Admittedly, it used to be organized. His to the right, hers to the left. Shoes on racks below, seasonal items on the shelf above. Neil color-coordinated his side lights to darks, and he’d frowned upon her not following suit. She’d been such a rebel.

“How do you like it now?” she whispered to the closed door. It was a stupid question—obviously he wouldn’t like it one bit. But allowing the mess was progress. Finally.

Leah shrugged off the cold, spectral hand at her neck and hurried to the kitchen, closing the door to the bedroom behind her. She had forty minutes until she’d take her seat in the gym with her colleagues at Aspenwood Middle School for the last time this school year. As the librarian, she wasn’t required to participate in all assemblies, but this one was as much for her as for the outgoing class of eighth graders, so here she was, sweating over her oatmeal. A celebration of life, they’d said. An “In Memoriam” on the anniversary of his death. “The greatest principal we ever had here at Aspenwood.” Rah rah rah.

It was fortunate she’d had a lot of practice over the past year accepting people’s sympathies, gracefully bowing her head as condolences were bestowed upon her. Poor Leah Sloane, the young widow. Without Neil, surely her light had gone out. They did everything together and now she’s all alone in that big house, daughter off to college…

At the thought of Hannah, the tension in Leah’s shoulders eased. Eight more days and Hannah would be with her again. Home for the summer. They’d go hiking and shopping, watch movies together, read in the sun. She’d laugh. Hannah had her summer job at the YMCA too, but still. She could do eight more days. No biggie. foot in front of the other.

She put her bowl in the sink and almost left it there to dry before thinking better of it, instead rinsing and placing it in the dishwasher. No need to be sloppy.

Leah’s cheeks heated as she hurried to her office with the swell of students at her back, post assembly. She’d underestimated the overzealous impulses of a vice principal struggling to fill much bigger shoes. They even had the choir sing “Amazing Grace”. Unbelievable.

She clasped the grocery-store bouquet of assorted flowers they’d gifted her, nearly dropping it when she fumbled with the key to her door. They meant well. She tossed the flowers on her desk and loaded the coffeemaker with a pod, before collapsing in her chair. It protested loudly, mostly due to its respectable age.

Leah closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Today was Wednesday—only two more days of work after this. She’d miss the kids; they weren’t the problem—it was the adults she no longer knew how to be around. As the thought crossed her mind, the library assistant, Mags, poked her head in the door, brows knitted.

“How’re you holding up, dear? Not a dry eye, I think. Not one.” She made a sad little tsk sound and shook her head. “A fitting tribute.”

“Mm.” Leah pressed her lips together in what she hoped would come off as a smile.

“It must be so hard. So. Hard. I swear I don’t know how you do it.”

“Well…”

“If Carl went before me, I’d die myself, I’m sure.” She held up her hand, middle finger and index finger crossed. “Like this, we are. Like one. Just like you and Principal Sloane. Such a darling couple.” She was tearing up now, splotches of red blooming on her neck.

Leah got up and put a hand on Mags’s arm. “Hey now.”

“Whoo.” Mags fanned herself. “Look at me, a hot mess. And you such a picture of grace in the midst of this hardship. You poor thing.”

She caressed Leah’s cheek, and Leah had to focus all her willpower not to pull away. She means well , she thought again. They all mean so darn well.

She allowed Mags a few moments to collect herself then said, as gently as she could, “I have a heap of paperwork to do,” hoping the older woman would take the hint. When she didn’t, Leah added, “Would you be able to shelve the books on the gray cart? I didn’t have time yesterday.”

Mags startled as if she’d forgotten where they were. “The books. Yes.” She grasped Leah’s hand and squeezed. “Say no more. It’s done. And if you need anything at all, let me know. I’m here for you.”

Leah smiled, because how could you not? “Thank you. Now, let’s get some work done. No time like the present.”

“Oh.” Mags’s hand went to cover her mouth, and her eyes grew red again. “That’s what he used to say.”

Did he? Leah supposed it did sound like something he’d tell her. You’re starting to look your age. Go work out or something. No time like the present.

She made a mental note never to use the expression again.

“Want me to find a vase for those flowers, dear?”

“Huh?” Leah followed Mags’s gaze to the bouquet. “Oh. Sure. And you know what? Let’s put them on the check-out desk. That way everyone can enjoy them.”

“Always so considerate.” Mags grinned at her and accepted the flowers, but she lingered in the doorway still.

Leah glanced at the clock on the wall. This day was slower than a snail in molasses. “Was there something else?” She had to get some work done, but maybe it was only fair to indulge those who needed to dwell on Neil’s demise today of all days. Wasn’t that the least she could do as his widow? After all, it wasn’t Mags’s ribs he’d fractured. Twice. He had been a great principal.

“No.” Mags blinked her watery eyes a few times. “I’m all right. You stay strong, you hear?” And with that she left.

Leah reached for her coffee mug and drank deeply, burning off every taste bud in the process.

To Leah’s credit, she kept it together the whole day thanks to the kids. Their curious minds, day-to-day conundrums, and unapologetic opinions were warm turquoise oceans to dive into, forgetting the world above. Plus, they couldn’t care less about her late husband. To them he’d been an adult in a sea of other adults who told them what to do and how to behave. To them, he was lost to the past already. As he should be. Heck, the sixth graders had never even met him.

To be so lucky.

But now she was home again. She parked on the right side of the garage because Neil’s sedan still sat in its spot to the left, and she made sure to bring the mail straight to the office and not leave it on the kitchen counter. I’ve tried to tell you—each thing has its place. I refuse to live like some fucking hobo. Some habits die hard.

The itinerary for her ticket to Seattle still sat on the printer, and she eyed it warily as if it had appeared there by magic. Her fingers twitched. To rip it or not to rip it? No, her therapist was right; it was time. A quick trip before Hannah came home. She’d manage.

She snatched the papers up and took them with her back to the kitchen. She’d need to get a suitcase down. Where did they keep that weird attic key again? It was always Neil who’d gone up there.

Leah stood in the middle of her kitchen, island at her back, surrounded by cabinets and drawer banks. Her mind prodded each space, testing them. It wasn’t with the cooking utensils. Not in the junk drawer. She was about to check the cabinet in the foyer when her cell lit up next to her hand. Hannah.

“Do you have any idea where we keep the attic key?” she asked by way of greeting.

Hannah chuckled. “Hello to you too. And I think on the top shelf in the bathroom closet.”

Ah, that’s right. Next to where Neil kept his gun safe. That’s why she’d never gone close. She didn’t want to remember those times, but her treacherous mind conjured thoughts that bounced like skipping rocks, testing the dark surface to find a weak spot.

No . Not today. He was no longer here, and neither were the firearms.

Leah cleared her throat. “How are you, hon?” she asked, moving on to safer waters. “Ready to come home?” She toed off her flats and made her way into the living room. of the throw pillows was askew at the end of the chaise, so she picked it up and tucked it back into its corner. There—better.

Hannah was a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts, working hard to become a veterinarian. Her finals were done and aced, but she’d stayed in Amherst with her boyfriend, Chase, while he finished up his thesis.

“Yeah, about that…”

Leah froze right as she was about to sit down. Straightened again. “What?”

Hannah sighed. “Look, before you say anything… I have this opportunity, okay, that everyone thinks I’d be stupid not to take.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“And it’s only for the summer, but I’ve always wanted to travel more, and?—”

“Hannah.”

“I know I said I’d be home, but Chase really wants me to come. I have enough money, and this could be my last chance before I graduate.”

Leah sat down at the edge of the couch, steeling herself. “Start from the beginning please.”

“Chase is going to Brussels for the summer. He has an internship with some animal rights lobby organization, and he wants me to go with him.”

“But you have a job here.”

Hanna was quiet for a beat. “I already told them I can’t do it this year. They’ll find someone else.”

“But…” Leah pinched the bridge of her nose. But what about me? she wanted to say. Eight days. That’s what the calendar on the fridge promised. Her reward after Seattle. “It sounds expensive,” she said instead. “And without a job…”

“Grandma gave me some money.” Hannah’s voice was low and quick, brushing past the words.

“She did what?”

“I told her I wanted to go, and she offered me some money.”

“You told her …” Leah’s jaws clamped shut. Jealousy wasn’t a good color on anyone.

“Mm-hmm.”

“How much?”

“She said she’d always wanted to summer in Europe, but that it was too late for her. She insisted.”

“How much money, Hannah?” The room was suddenly too hot, that stupid gray blouse clinging to Leah’s back.

“Five grand.”

Leah sagged back in her seat. “Five… She gave you five thousand dollars? No strings attached?”

“Do you have to get all weird about it? Yes, she gives me money sometimes. I’m her only grandchild. Maybe she appreciates that at least one person in the family calls her regularly.”

Leah ignored the stab. “And now you’re going to Europe?” A dry chuckle forced its way up her throat. “I haven’t seen you since Christmas.” Ugh, she hated how whiny she sounded. But the words were already out.

“Mom.”

“No, it’s your life.”

“Mom, I’m really sorry. But Chase needs me there. It’ll be too hard to be on separate continents.”

“Is that what you think or what Chase thinks?”

“Both of us. Jeez.”

A long silence stretched between them. Longer than the physical distance between Leah’s Chicago suburb and her daughter’s apartment in Massachusetts.

Leah blinked against the late-afternoon sun cutting through the plantation shutters. It was so much easier pretending things were fine when Hannah was here. And now she wouldn’t be.

“You could come out this weekend,” Hannah said finally, the excitement of an epiphany in her voice. “Yes, that’s perfect. I’ll fly you out Friday, we’ll hang, and you can help me pack.”

Oh, the sweet child. “I can’t. I’m going to see Mom, remember?” It would be hard not to bring up those five thousand dollars, but she’d have to try since the point of the trip was making amends.

“You’re actually going this time?”

“I bought a ticket.”

“Good for you.”

“Well,” Leah mumbled after a long moment, “it’s not like anyone is here to stop me anymore. And I should apologize while there’s time. Tell Mom the truth.” Then as an afterthought, “I wish you’d come with.” Thoughts of her past in the Pacific Northwest always jostled Leah’s equilibrium. It was an undefined tremor at the earth’s core that broke open cracks to another world and forced glimpses of it upon her. Some good, some bad. All bigger and brighter than what she’d lived since. Would it even be possible to reconcile the two?

“Oh, Mom.”

Leah waved a hand in front of her face as if Hannah could see her. “No, I know.”

“You’re a strong, independent, forty-year-old woman.” Hannah chuckled. “You can do this.”

“Almost forty-one.”

“Whatever. I’m proud of you.”

Leah rested her head against the cushion and closed her eyes. “You know today is the anniversary, right?”

Silence. “It’s only been a year? Feels longer.” Hannah’s voice was clipped.

“Do you miss him?”

“Fuck no.”

“He was your dad.”

“I don’t have a dad.”

Leah didn’t have the energy to argue. Maybe Hannah was right to look at it that way. It seemed to work for her.

“You should forget about him too, Mom. Move on. I don’t know how you still live in that house.”

“Is that why you’re not coming home?”

“What? No.”

Leah wasn’t convinced. Seeing your dad throw your mom down the stairs at the tender age of nine was bound to leave marks. “I’ll miss you. A whole lot.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.”

What choice did she have? Leah forced a smile. “So, Europe, huh? What places do you think you’ll see? Tell me everything.”

Leah hadn’t left Chicago since she’d toured colleges with Hannah, and that time they’d driven. Plane travel? Not since her honeymoon. Sea-Tac Airport wasn’t as confusing as O’Hare, but she still didn’t fully exhale until she sank into the driver’s seat of her rental car and closed the door behind her.

“I’m going to take five,” she whispered to herself, a cue she’d learned in therapy that allowed a moment’s stillness to center a frazzled mind. With each breath, the stress of the day drained off her. She was solid underneath. It was a miracle every time because that hadn’t always been the case.

Traffic was light even for a Friday night at 9 PM, so it only took her forty minutes to get into the Eastside suburbs where she’d grown up. Nothing looked the same, and not only due to the waning light of day. If not for the 520 plotting a straight line to her destination, she might have gotten lost. Redmond had more than doubled in size since she was there last. Even far up Avondale—a road that used to be a pathway to nowhere—there were now subdivisions and businesses.

Leah viewed the changes with growing interest. She’d spent the first twenty years of her life in this corner of the country, but with Neil, she’d had to cut the cord. Their life was in the Midwest—he’d made that crystal clear. Driving the familiar old road now was like rediscovering a derelict building that had morphed in both shape and size from the ivy taking over. She glimpsed the masonry beneath the green, and the potency in the recognition surprised her.

Her mom’s house was located in the back corner of a subdivision that was well past its heyday. There were signs of effort here and there—fresh paint on one split-level home, a porch added to another, a cherry-red front door on a third—but most were still dressed in the drab camouflage palette of the 1970s and showed little evidence of owners who prioritized curb appeal. The canopy of evergreens didn’t help, rendering everything in night-time shade. It had been a bright and bustling place when Leah grew up, kids running all over, all day long, but now the swing sets sat rusty, only dreaming of a child’s touch.

“They’re probably in bed,” Leah muttered, as if to console the abandoned playground.

She made the turns without having to think—so odd to know intimately a place that no longer knows you—and pulled into the driveway a few minutes later. Her childhood home and the three neighboring ones stood out in the mishmash of seventies construction since they were the first four built here by at least fifteen years. Each lot backed onto Cottage Lake and sported a large two-story home with a deep wraparound porch in the front and a deck in the back. The slight elevation they were on gave a stately impression—noble rulers to their smaller minions below.

The Brady house was a shade of blue that over the years had turned leaden, but unlike the neighbor’s flat gray sibling, Leah’s childhood home still held on to its original beauty. With white corners and window trim to contrast the siding, the house stood out amidst the untamed landscaping.

Leah frowned. Normally, the yard was impeccable with mulched flowerbeds, trimmed shrubs, and seasonal flowers adding splashes of color. Though who knew what normal looked like these days? She hadn’t been back in so long.

She opened the car door and stepped out into the pine-crisp June evening. Warm cypress and lilacs. She inhaled deeply, hand still on the car as if she needed steadying against the onslaught of memories the scents invoked. Bare feet on cedar needles, flashlights in a tent, hide-and-seek.

The sky was a kaleidoscope of colors over the lake behind the house, but evening crept closer by the minute. With one last pat on the car roof, Leah closed the door and made her way up the path to the front door. She deliberately left her suitcase in the car. She hadn’t told her mom she was coming, and after all this time, it would be foolish to presume she was welcome.

Echoes of the past rang through her mind. Mom had thought Leah too young to marry, too naive to commit, too inexperienced to know for a fact Neil was the one for her. They’d fought fiercely. Repeatedly. It was the only time in her life Leah remembered something she did eliciting in her mom a response beyond moderately fond, everyday parental engagement. Attention and expectations were usually reserved for her older sister, Alison, who was carted from one activity to the next as soon as her potential became obvious. Which was fine with Leah. What middle child isn’t okay with playing second fiddle?

In response to her mom’s novel attention, Leah had done the only thing that seemed logical at the time. She’d eloped and moved to Chicago. Neither one of them had attempted to mend the rift, and by the time Leah mistakenly ordered chocolate cake instead of vanilla for Hannah’s first birthday and learned the dire consequences of that from Neil, she was already so far removed from her past, all she could picture Mom saying was “told you so.”

They’d had meager contact over the years, and as soon as Hannah was old enough, she’d more or less taken over all communication with her grandmother, but now it was finally time to change that. If Mom wanted to gloat about how she’d been right all those years ago, Leah could take it. After a year in therapy navigating a treacherous climb from rock bottom up, she was confident she’d be able to say she was sorry. Sorry she didn’t listen. Sorry she was too proud. Sorry for running away and being a shitty daughter. Sorry for attaching herself to someone like Neil. She only hoped her mother would listen.

Lost in thought, Leah stumbled over the edge of a paver but caught herself on the porch railing. She cursed under her breath and grimaced as pain shot from her toe up her shin.

“Calm down,” she muttered, stepping onto the wooden deck. She looked up to face the shadowed corner where the doorbell was, but the sight that met her made her freeze. What on earth?

Across the door, like a garish forgotten Halloween decoration, was a large X in yellow tape. POLICE LINE, it said. DO NOT CROSS.

***