Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
hug and a look that she’d been unable to read. She suspected Evelyn thought Tyler’s murder was somehow her fault. Maybe because
of the presumably unlocked door. Maybe because she didn’t have a phone next to the bed. Maybe because it was Helen who had
alerted the masked man that they were awake at the end of the hall. There were many ways to lay the blame, and seeing Evelyn’s
pinched face approach, Helen braced for it.
When Evelyn reached her, the older woman grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her into a side hallway, away from prying eyes. “Oh,
Helen. I’ve never seen two people better suited for each other than you and Tyler.” Evelyn’s face crumpled. “You two gave
me a strange kind of hope I’d never felt in my life before.”
“Oh, Evelyn.” Helen squeezed the woman’s hand.
“A few nights ago, I couldn’t sleep. Titanic was playing on TV, and there was the scene where Rose jumps from the lifeboat back onto the ship. I never understood that
scene before. I always thought, Stupid girl. You’re safe. Why get back on the boat? Watching it a few days ago, I finally understood.” Evelyn put her arms around Helen and said the next part softly in Helen’s
ear. “You would have jumped back on the ship for Tyler, and he for you. And I’m just so broken for you. I’m just so furious
for you, and maybe this is selfish, but I’m so furious for me too, because it took away that hope I had about love being sweet
and good and not just transactional. I’m just so mad at the whole world right now.”
Helen started to cry, right there in Evelyn’s arms.
Later, some of the guests at the wake would say that Evelyn had been crying too, but because the two women had been in the
side hallway, no one other than Helen would ever know for sure. And even though Helen thought there was nothing shameful about
crying, she had promised Evelyn—who was embarrassed by her display—that she wouldn’t tell a soul. And she never did.
About a week after the funeral, Helen saw Tyler crossing the street as she and her mother left the grocery store parking lot.
“Stop the car!” Helen cried out.
Her mother braked. “What?”
Helen was out the passenger door without an explanation and across the street, moving faster than she had since Tyler’s death.
She followed him into the post office, her heart expanding. He was unlocking a PO Box, and she ran right up to him.
He turned to face her, confusion in his brown—not blue—eyes, and she took a step back.
It wasn’t Tyler.
Back in the car, her mother asked, “What happened?”
Helen said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
So they didn’t.
After that, she started seeing Tyler everywhere.
Tyler had died on the bedroom floor without Helen there. She hadn’t been holding him in her arms when he’d passed. He’d been
alone and scared and in pain. Sometimes when she thought about that, she couldn’t stop herself from hitting something: a piece
of furniture, the wall, her own leg.
The tallest bridge in Seattle was the Aurora Bridge. It was 167 feet above the water. Not a bad height.
Her boss, Darius, waited four days past the one-month mark to call and see if she was ready to come back to work.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Hanging in there,” Helen said, pulling a fleece blanket up to her chin.
It’s what people wanted to hear and it’s what she needed to say if she wanted to keep her job, but it was past noon and she
was still in bed. She knew she couldn’t just float around her parents’ house for the rest of her life though. Perhaps work
would be a distraction. Going into the office would require washing her hair more than once a week, but she could probably
figure out a way to do that.
Darius asked, “When would you like to come back?”
“Could you give me one more week?”
“Of course.”
Helen hung up and got out of bed. It was time to go to the gun range. She had been riding her bicycle there almost every day
in sweats and a baseball cap, two energy drinks in the basket on the front of the bike. One for the ride there, one for the
ride back. They tasted like chemical shit, but they gave her a bit of a zing. She’d go to the corner market and buy any brand
except Boom Now. When she saw those cans sitting behind the glass, she knew she was supposed to feel proud that her team had
designed it, but she mostly just thought, Design #4 of 37.
There had been one time though when those cans had seized her with a crippling thought: She’d wondered if it hadn’t been for how stressful the Boom Now account had been, maybe she and Tyler would have bought a house.
Then they wouldn’t have been in the apartment that night.
Then he wouldn’t be dead. It was such a terrible concept that Helen had to write herself a text message from Tyler’s phone and send it to her own:
Of course it’s not your fault, Helen! We both decided to stay in the apartment. And remember, we were so happy again! Don’t
think silly thoughts. I love you so much, Tyler
Some days, she read that message dozens of times.
Firing a gun and hitting the target was the only thing that gave Helen real, visceral satisfaction. It galvanized something
in her, made her feel her anger more than her sadness.
The afternoon that Darius called, she returned from the gun range with the sour taste of apple-watermelon artificial flavor
on her tongue, and she phoned Calhoun to inquire about progress in the case. Calhoun gave impossibly vague answers to Helen’s
questions about suspects and evidence. Finally, Helen fell silent on her end.
Calhoun asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Anything else? She’d helped with nothing so far.
“Yes, there is,” Helen said. “I’d like to know if there’s a detective I could talk to who’s not a fucking idiot.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and then Calhoun said in a kind voice, “I know you’re upset, Helen, and
I know you want answers, but I don’t have any for you. Not yet. But I’m trying.”
“Sorry,” Helen said, feeling smaller and smaller. “I’m sorry.”
“I know. Okay, I’m going to let you go, okay?”
“Okay,” Helen echoed.
“Okay,” Calhoun repeated, still in that kind voice.
Helen hung up before Calhoun did.
When Helen had left Tyler lying on the floor of the bedroom, there was something he’d been trying to tell her. Helen, I need to tell you . . .
Now she would never know what it was.
She hadn’t even been able to give her husband the dignity of his final words.
“I’m going back to the apartment,” Helen said.
Helen’s mother lowered her fork and glanced at Helen’s father across the dinner table.
“You mean to sort through some things?” her mother asked.
No, that wasn’t what Helen meant. She lowered her own fork. She hadn’t really been eating much of the lasagna anyway. She
was down six pounds now.
Her mother said, “If you wait until Saturday, I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Helen said. “I’m going to move back into the apartment.”
“Oh, honey. I already talked to the landlord. You don’t have to finish the lease.”
“I know. But I’m going back to work in a few days, so I need to be there.”
Her mother looked at Helen’s father again to silently request help, but her father was worse at this stuff than her mother
was. He just stared at his plate.
“It will be fine,” Helen said.
“Helen,” her mother began delicately. “They haven’t even caught . . . him yet.”
Her mother thought it was possible the killer would come back to the apartment looking for Helen. It was a reasonable fear.
Helen also thought it was possible.
Which was exactly why she wanted to go back.
Because she had bought herself a Glock 9mm.
Helen was ready.