by E H Davis
Life and death, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
________
It had all come full circle for Daniel. His flesh and bone cremated, reduced to the spiky ash that each of them took a turn sprinkling into the brisk wind in little puffs, taken from a brass canister, as they thought about the stranger’s soul they’d come to honor. Each took a turn, passing the urn along.
Teddy, sad, mourning two passings. Nola, tresses waving in the breeze, Botticelli’s Venus, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Ferdie in dress uniform, stiff from her back wound, stoic as always.
Jens — one arm around Teddy, the other around Nola.
When his turn came, he scooped his fingers into the urn and sent his portion of Daniel’s ashes into the wind. Each celebrant held balloons — red, blue, yellow, and white — on strings.
“On three, release your balloons — carrying our thoughts of Daniel on high.”
“Mom, too,” cried Teddy, his voice choked with emotion.
Jens was the last to let his go.
________
They buried Vivian a few days later in Jens’ family plot in Lee — where Nils was buried. Now Jens had another grave to stand before, feeling guilty.
The funeral had been well-attended by Vivian’s fellow artists and consultants from the Art Association, and by friends and collectors, who, surprisingly, numbered in the high double digits. After the service, they’d spilled out from the Lee Congregational Church, chatting about her art and hinting at how it would likely evaluate, now that she was gone.
Jens, disgusted, had spirited Teddy away from the animated pockets of congregants more interested in Vivian’s salacious relationship with a convicted murderer, than her contribution to the art world.
Jens knew that Teddy would have to come to terms with Vivian’s death on his own, as would he, but now was not the time or the place. He hoped the healing balm of time would seep into the corners of Teddy’s memory of her, suffused with her unconditional love for him. Nola would be a comfort to them both.
Jens was relieved that Teddy had not taken a life to save his father’s.
Jens had been the one to take a life, again.
This time in defense of his family.
________
When no one came to claim Laurent’s body, he was cremated at the largesse of the Township of Conway, his ashes unceremoniously disposed of in a pauper’s grave. Where Daniel would have found his final resting place if Nola hadn’t intervened.
Jens was approached by book publishers to recount their sensational story, of life imitating art, but turned them down for Teddy’s sake and Vivian’s memory.
One day, Teddy, tears in his eyes, told his father that he was done with guns. Soon after, he dropped his Xbox and games off at Goodwill.
As for Jens, his making peace with Vivian and their complicated marriage would come more slowly. Especially since she took the bullet meant for him. Letting go was not something he did well. Maybe his new family would help him with that.
Afterword
Why I Wrote My Wife’s Husband: A Family Thriller
Years ago when my son was a teenager, we were walking in the woods in New Hampshire’s White Mountains when a dark blur off-trail caught the corner of my eye, boggling my senses. What was a man in a black coat and trousers doing perched in a tree, and why was he leaping onto the ground, hands first? There was something odd about the way he slinked through the woods, his movements stealthy, animal-like. Hmm. My hackles went up. Bear, screamed my primitive brain.
I shushed my son, who was blithely chattering away, and pointed in the direction of the fleeting figure. Without thinking, I had picked up a rock, ready to do battle. But by then, the bear, a black bear, Ursus americanus I later learned, was gone. My son chided me for seeing things. But the image stuck, along with my certainty. Having come to fathering late in life, I took my role as my son’s protector quite seriously; his Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD or Learning Different) added to my protectiveness. Dangers lurked beyond the muffled patter of our Dunhams on the pine-carpeted trail and in life — especially for a boy so preoccupied.
Months later, the image of that dark blur racing through the woods with primitive grace wouldn’t go away. I knew I had to write about it, rife as it was with archetypal potency. What would have happened if the bear attacked? Could I have defended us? All I needed now was a story.
________
A tale of love, loss, and death evolved from that initial “what if,” spilling characters from my imagination that kept upping the ante. My first novel since graduate school, My Wife’s Husband: A Family Thriller was written over the course of a year-and-half during time stolen, evenings, weekends, and holidays, from my full-time teaching job.
Needless to say, it was a story I had to write. Not committing myself to it body and soul would have been bad faith. I taught literature, so why wasn’t I contributing? Frankly, I’d reached that age when one begins to worry about a legacy. Aside from the lives gratefully touched in the line of duty teaching, this book and a handful of published poems, articles, and stories would be it.
Long a fan of the literary mystery-thriller genre, I chose the challenges of this sub-genre as the conduit through which I might explore the existential questions that had pre-occupied me for decades: life after death, the transformative power of love, and the tyranny of past traumas to shape our psyche and thwart our best instincts and intentions.
On a personal level, the book was dedicated to and written for my son — a sort of modern day Pilgrim’s Progress — for him to gain insight from later in life. Elements of the book are autobiographical in so far as they serve the larger story and its themes. I know he’ll recognize himself in the character of Teddy, some of his ticks and tropes, but more importantly I hope he sees how my craft and love have transformed him into a vessel for the story’s universal ideas.
________
I hope you found My Wife’s Husband: A Family Thriller satisfying, and the characters stick with you, as they’ll be back in book two of my Jens Corbin trilogy, tentatively called The Forsaken, in which female State Trooper Ferdie Morrison shares the stage with Jens Corbin. Together they race the clock to free Jens’ lover Nola from a serial killer spotlighted by Jens’ research into his next book, about a pair of actual, unsolved murders of New Hampshire women from the 1980s.
EH Davis
Boca Raton, Florida
This book would not have been possible without the rigor of West Boynton/Wellington Writers Group’s weekly meetings and the model set by its leader Caryn Gross-Devincenti, an accomplished writer. Heartfelt thanks to Claudia Marcus, friend and guardian angel, the book’s Alpha reader, along with early reader Lindsay Aegerter. Finally, kudos and thanks to Tom Holbrook, publisher, for bringing his sharp editorial eye and keen story instincts to My Wife’s Husband.
My Wife’s Husband: A Family Thriller
Copyright 2019 by Eugene H. Davis
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and plot are pure invention and not intended to represent either biography or an historical record. Except for review purposes, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission.
For more information please contact [email protected]
ISBN: 978-1-950381-27-2
This book is set in Sabon LT Pro
Printed in the United States
Published by
Piscataqua Press
32 Daniel St.
Portsmouth, NH 03801
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