Chapter 64
Mary doesn’t know what to do, only that she must do something.
She wishes she had someone to talk to, someone she could ask for advice. But Ed never liked her having friends, and she quickly grew used to her solace.
When she started dating Ed, her old friendships evaporated, and the only friend she made while they were together was Greg Behler.
She wishes she had never even spoken to him.
She wishes that when they’d walked out of a staff meeting at the same time that day she had never glanced up, never caught his gaze behind those wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes intelligent and curious and awed.
But she did. And his smile took over his face. “Hi,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve met you yet. Greg.”
He took her hand, squeezed it gently, and Mary felt thawed. He walked her back to her classroom, chatting the entire time. She’d never found it so easy to talk to anyone.
She wonders where he’s living now. If he ever got married again. He gave up on her too easily. She couldn’t have reached out to him, but if he’d tried again, more than just the once, she thinks she would have replied.
But now there’s no one to call. She stands at her kitchen sink, pressing her fingers into the corners of her eyes. Focus. The police.
She can envision their next steps.
New knives. She’s hiding something.
They’ll pull her credit card records, see the charge at Target.
They’ll get the camera footage from the dump, from Goodwill, from other places in the area that accept donations of household items. They’ll watch her drop off the box.
They’ll track down her old knife block, see that two are missing.
They’ll question her in a warm room with too bright lights.
They’ll question Owen. He might not speak, but what if they arrest him anyway? Will they have enough?
Can they arrest her? An accessory to murder. They’d threatened her with that before. They wanted her to testify against her son, and they were trying to scare her. They believed being charged with a crime would have been more horrifying to her than helping the state convict her child of murder.
But there was no need for that. Once it was decided that Owen would be charged and tried as an adult, the state offered a plea deal, and Owen took it.
Mary paid a lot for Owen’s lawyer. He used to say that Owen would still be a young man when he was paroled.
He’d have his whole life ahead of him. And Mary had clung to those words, that promise, not considering too deeply what sort of life it would be.
A life as a convicted felon. A life of silence.
It’s lunchtime, so Mary makes lunch. There’s enough cheddar-and-herb bread for three slices.
She uses two to make a sandwich for Owen, and she eats the third standing at the counter, dropping crumbs, staring at nothing.
Her thoughts trail erratically, going nowhere useful.
She can’t tame them into order. She’s too panicked, too afraid.
She adds a handful of pretzels to Owen’s plate, like she’s making a meal for a little boy, and this usually comforts her, a balm to her loss, but now it simply makes her feel intensely, irrevocably sad.
Mary leaves the plate on the counter for now and goes upstairs and into her bedroom. Her nightstand has a concealed drawer, above the more obvious drawer. It’s meant, she assumes, for hiding important documents or expensive jewelry. Mary has neither.
The note she’d found when she was cleaning out Owen’s closet is still there. She put it in her pocket after she found it, then moved it to this concealed drawer later that night, while she was getting ready for bed. She unfolds it, looks at the familiar but distant words.
Owen,
My love for you is the biggest thing in the world. Never forget that.
Love,
Mommy
Then she folds it up again and carries it downstairs.
She puts the plate with his lunch on the top step, and she rests the note beside it. She doesn’t know why, but she just wants him to understand, no matter what comes next, that she loves him.
Mary shuts the basement door.