Chapter 37
Will
After hanging up with Hellie, Will still had an hour and a half to go.
He went through the twenty-four-hour drive-through at McDonald’s and got an Egg McMuffin and a large black coffee. He was
the only one in line.
The person who handed him the cup and brown baggie barely looked at him.
They had no idea he’d killed someone tonight.
“Thank you!” he said before pulling away.
He ate the Egg McMuffin one-handed as he merged back onto the highway. It was almost five. The girls would still be sleeping
when he got home, but he’d been practicing what to say to them once they were up, over breakfast.
Girls, something really sad happened at the party. Your mom died.
He’d call it an accident. He didn’t want to use the word murder.
She’s in Heaven with Jesus now, he would tell them, even though he had no idea if that was true.
His mother-in-law would have her own set of questions, and he would give her a slightly longer story: there was a drug addict
at the party, someone both Jenn and he knew. They had no idea he was violent. Jenn got into an argument with him, and he pushed
her down the stairs.
He wouldn’t offer more detail than that. If she pressed, Will would simply say I don’t know. That he wasn’t there, hadn’t seen it happen. Just like he’d told the cops.
Then he would find an Indianapolis-based funeral home. Have Jenn cremated. Maybe take the girls on a special trip to the mountains,
or the beach—either one would do, as long as it was far, far away—and scatter her ashes.
He still couldn’t believe she was dead. He’d gone to the basement to end things with her, but not in that way. Will merely
wanted to tell her that he’d reached his decision: he wanted a divorce. The awful revelations of what she’d done to Will’s
friends—their friends—was the push he needed to realize he couldn’t stay in the marriage. He could no longer be Will the Peacemaker.
Seeing that viral video over dinner, being toasted for being a peacemaker . . . it left a mark. An impression that echoed
through the evening. That was what Will was going to be known for? Playing it safe? Not risking direct confrontation? Will was the guy who ran his
own credit card for a thief and bore the cost. And for a bike . . . it was worth it. But his life was worth more than a bike,
and he’d let Jenn steal it from him without even putting up a fight.
The basement door wasn’t locked; he went right down. She heard him and called out, Who’s there? and he called back, It’s me. Jenn was on the couch, looking strange, kind of out of it, like he’d just woken her up.
“Jenn,” he said, “this won’t come as a surprise, but I want a divorce.”
He would never forget the way she stared at him from the couch, her body limp, her arms dangling, her eyes wide and empty.
Like she wasn’t really there.
“Jenn?” he said.
And then, she surged up, her limbs awkward, like she wasn’t in full control of her body.
“You—” She stumbled toward Will and shoved him in the chest.
“Jenn,” he said, even though her shove had been weak, “please don’t.”
But she wouldn’t stop. She kept grunting, and shoving, backing him toward the stairs. The monster inside Will was waking up,
flexing its arms, but he could keep it under control—
“Jenn, we need to talk. Please stop! This is ridiculous!” His feet found the first stair.
By three stairs up, she was still coming. Her shoves were getting stronger.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said, starting to panic. The monster inside him was rolling its shoulders, clenching
its fists . . . “People get divorced all the time, okay? We can work out a custody arrangement that makes sense for both of
us.”
She stumbled on a stair and Will caught her arm.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he said with a growl of frustration, and then she let out a strangled sound and came even
harder. They were most of the way up the stairs when she raised her hand to slap him.
She’d done it so many times before, this exact angle of arm and hand. Will’s reaction was instinctive. Except he didn’t just
raise his arm to protect himself. He flung his arm out like a weapon to knock her away.
And he did knock her away.
Not just her hand—her entire body.
Will’s arm caught her in the face. Her nose sprouted blood. She was always one for nosebleeds, and as blood spewed, wetting
the handrails, the stairs, and her, she fell backward. Her arms windmilled. There was a moment when Will saw the fear in her
eyes—a strange, dull, animal fear—and he reached forward to grab her. He was too late.
She arced back, hitting her head on the stairs with a dull thump, then sliding down the last few treads like a broken doll. Her nose kept on gushing unbelievable amounts of blood.
He didn’t yell. At first, he didn’t even react. He just stood at the top of the stairs, not understanding what he was seeing.
Not believing that his own hand had just struck his wife across the face and sent her plummeting to her death.
There was a small noise behind him.
Hellie, standing in the door, which he had left open, with a gun in her hand.
That galvanized him.
“Help me! Jenn is hurt!” Will cried, even though in his heart of hearts he knew she wasn’t hurt at all. She was dead, and
he had just killed her. They both ran down the stairs. Will lifted Jenn under the armpits and pulled. Her legs dragged uselessly
behind her. “Help me get her on the couch!”
But Hellie was shaking her head. “No, Will. Stop. Put her down.”
Will laid her gently down. Hellie came forward and felt for a pulse. When she stood up again, he knew for sure.
“We have to call 9–1–1,” he said.
“No!” said Hellie. “We have to get away from here. Right now.”
“Where?” Will’s brain felt hot, foggy.
“Upstairs. No one saw us.”
“But . . .”
“We have to get out of here and wash our hands.”
“But—but—” He reached for his phone. Hellie grabbed his wrist.
Her voice was fierce. “You have kids, Will. I don’t.
I’ve always wanted kids, I wanted to be a mom more than anything, do you understand me?
But I don’t get to have them, and you do.
Three precious girls. You’re not thinking clearly, so I’m going to think for you.
When you have kids, you do whatever you have to, to keep them safe.
When you have kids, you bend whatever rules you have to bend so that you can be with them and raise them and love them with everything you’ve got.
Your kids are a gift, Will, the greatest gift you’ll ever have in this life, and you being their dad is their greatest gift, and don’t let me ever catch you taking that for granted again. ”
Her chest was heaving.
Her eyes were liquid fire.
She nodded once.
Will nodded back.
He’d never heard Hellie say so much all at once. The power of her words operated like a tether. Will followed her upstairs
like a lamb.
No one saw them. Will cleaned up first in the little bathroom, then went into the bedroom he and Jenn were supposed to share
with Bennett and Olivia and closed the door. Hellie washed her hands while he lay there staring at the ceiling. At one point,
he heard Doug shouting and stomping around, but he stayed put, unable to think a single clear thought. He kept seeing Jenn’s
eyes in her last seconds of life. Looking at Will with mute terror in the split second before gravity did its work. Hearing
Hellie’s voice say, You bend whatever rules you have to bend.
Hellie finally joined him, closing and locking the door, and as Will lay on the air mattress, she quietly explained everything
in her calm little voice. Jenn would have Hellie’s DNA under her fingernails, so Hellie wouldn’t be a good witness in Will’s
defense. It might seem like they had both ganged up on Jenn. It would be better to say that Will went to lie down after Hellie
accidentally broke a glass against his head when she was toasting. Since she was the responsible one, she was playing nurse.
They would alibi each other. The whole time she was talking, they could hear Doug thumping around in the room right next door.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Then they sat in silence. They heard Doug leave the house. Shortly after, they heard Olivia from the hall, calling out for
Bennett and pounding on their door. Hellie made a motion to Will not to move, so he just closed his eyes and lay there.
When the police arrived, Will could hardly bear to look them in the eyes. If they asked him anything about the state of his
marriage with Jenn, he would crack. He could feel it.
Then Doug exploded, and as Will listened to his bizarre confession, he slowly realized that somehow, salvation had found him.
Unexpected, as salvation often is.
Will took his last sip of coffee as he entered the city limits of Indianapolis. The sun was coming up. Only now was he remembering
the gun hanging from Hellie’s hand. Will never did ask her why she had the gun, or what she meant to do with it.
At this point, it didn’t matter.
What mattered for all of them was moving forward.
“God,” he breathed out loud. He hadn’t prayed in so long. Will let his name hang in the air for a while, trying to feel any
hint of his presence. Any hint of comfort or reassurance. Anything.
Finally, he spoke again. “I don’t know how to do any of this. Help.”
He kept on driving. He didn’t sense any divine guidance. That’s okay, he didn’t expect to. And then . . .
You let someone take the fall for you. You just sat there and let everyone cover for you.
The cold voice snaked up his spine. Not God . . . Jenn. Sneering.
Not man enough to step up. Not man enough to face your problems.
Will’s heart slammed in his chest. He darted a glance at the passenger seat. Of course it was empty.
This isn’t a fresh start, Will. Don’t delude yourself. This is the part where it really gets fun, because you killed me, and now I get to hold that over you forever.
“No!” he shouted, slamming his hands against the steering wheel. He accidentally swerved in his lane and a car behind him
honked.
Doug is in jail because you didn’t have enough courage to stand up and take accountability. Her words bit, deep and hard. You’re passive, Will. A passive nothing of a man.
His body clenched.
No, no, no. He wasn’t who Jenn said—she didn’t get to define him, accuse him—
You pathetic, bland, weak—
“Shut up!” he screamed, shaking his head viciously, as if to throw her out, even as his trembling hands struggled to keep
the car steady. As his head shook, it felt like she was slapping him, back and forth. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he roared.
Silence fell suddenly. It felt violent after all his noise. He released a whimper. His heartbeat was wild, his eyes hot and
pulsing like they were going to pop out of his skull—
He took a right turn. A shaky breath. Looked at the passenger seat. Empty . . . and quiet. Had he purged her? Shouted her
down, shaken her out? Was she gone?
He had to fill the space, right away, so she didn’t talk again—
“Mackenzie,” Will said desperately. “Tessa. Vivi. Mackenzie . . .”
Over and over, he repeated their names. Raise them and love them with everything you’ve got. Will was all they had now. He couldn’t let himself fall apart—he couldn’t let guilt corrode what was left—couldn’t let Jenn
whisper her venom any longer—
He was still soundlessly murmuring the girls’ names as he pulled into the driveway next to his mother-in-law’s minivan, sweaty
and sick.
Through the windshield, he looked up at Mackenzie’s big second-story picture window and the early sun rays reflecting off it. The same window Mackenzie looked through five years ago, watching her mom leave in the middle of the night to burn down Phelps’s restaurant.
As Will opened the car door, his gaze flitted once more to the passenger seat and he thought of the Jenn that social media
knew. The Jenn who briefly blinked to life again in the statements they all gave to the police. Jenn was a sweet, dear friend . . . Jenn was an awesome mom . . . So blessed to have her for a wife . . .
He slammed the car door. Their statements would fit right in on her Facebook wall.
Let her have it. The good opinion of the world. The perfect image. Even the beautiful eulogy he would have to write for her
funeral.
He would be the messed-up guy who was a monster and a peacemaker, too passive and too violent, a hetero who liked to put on
dresses, a Christian who didn’t trust God, insecure and half-destroyed—Will would happily be all of it, imperfect, but trying, always trying, because he got the girls, damn it.
“I got them,” he said in a low voice as he walked toward the house, certain that somehow Jenn could hear him. “And whatever
else I am, whatever else you say I am, Jennifer, I’m going to be a fucking incredible dad. You can keep berating me all you
want, but I got the girls and you can’t take them away anymore.”
She didn’t get to follow him. She had to stay where she was, in her blood-soaked New Year’s Eve outfit, zipped into a bag.
Dead. Still, Will glanced behind him one last time. He could almost see her through the windshield, dressed in the halter
top and silk skirt she died in, arms crossed, ponytail ebullient, a tiny smile on her face.
A whisper—vindictive, satisfied—that only he could hear.
And you’ve got me too.