by Marcus Sakey
The past was an origami puzzle, planes and edges touching here, spreading there. There would be answers somewhere about how this had happened, who had done it. But right now, even the thought of those answers was meaningless. By Christ, yes, he would find who did this, and they would pay.
But really, who cared? Not even him. The question wasn’t Who killed my wife?
It was How could this happen to us?
And, God, please, please, can you take it back?
D
aniel had jerked awake with a sick wet snort like a drowning man frantically kicking for the surface. He’d been in a concrete canyon, but woke in the hotel, dripping sweat, head throbbing. Clean sunlight through the dirty window. Laney still dancing for him from the laptop propped on the pillow, the volume off. He’d fallen asleep staring at the image of her, hoping that there would be a moment haunting the borderlands of consciousness when he might see her and not remember that she was gone. Might, for even a second, be whole again.
For a moment he’d lain still. The hollow in his chest almost enough to crush him. Then he sighed, pulled himself up, staggered to the bathroom.
Now, as he cruised in morning sunlight through the Palisades, the headache had settled to a steady thrum, the loss to an ache like a cracked tooth.
You’re not done grieving. You’ve only just begun.
But you had your time-out, your moment to pretend nothing else mattered. To howl to God and beg for a change.
Now you have to make one.
After the worst of his tears had passed last night, he’d paused the video, gone back through his e-mail. Not the ones from Laney this time, but the others, especially the recent ones. Notes from friends asking if he was okay, messages from reporters looking for a quote, dozens of Google Alerts with his name in them.
And seven, count them, seven, e-mails from a woman named Sophie Zeigler.
The messages had varied in length and tone, but basically came down to a plea for him to call, to get in contact, to stop running. A stern reminder that his grief didn’t end the world, and that by vanishing he was incriminating himself in the eyes of both the media and the police. He’d checked her name in his contacts, discovered that she was his lawyer, found an address for an office in Beverly Hills and a house in Pacific Palisades.
Revealing himself to anyone was a risk. But he needed help. And his lawyer had to be about the safest place he could look for it. So he’d cleaned himself up as best he could and remounted the BMW, his faithful steed.
He’d been wondering if her house would be one of the palaces nestled on the cliff face, but it turned out to be in a more accessible residential area, a neighborhood section north of Sunset, block after beautifully maintained block of broad, leafy trees and gingerbread houses. Hers was a funky Frank Lloyd Wright knockoff with elaborate flower beds and a cobblestone driveway. Paving stones placed with Zen precision led to the porch. A lacquered bench that would have been at home in a museum sat beside the door. He rang the bell, and heard faint musical tones. Daniel rocked on his toes, glanced over his shoulder, rang again.
Okay. Be prepared. Detective Waters said that someone broke into her house and held her at gunpoint. That’s going to strain things. Plus, you vanished, not something that’s going to make a lawyer happy. She might be nervous, maybe even a little bit cold.
The door opened until the chain stopped it, revealing three inches of a woman’s face. An attractive woman in her late forties, he’d guess, maybe a little bit older. Her eyes widened when she saw him.
“Ms. Zeigler,” he said, “I know this—”
The door slammed shut.
Okay. Maybe cold was an understatement. He looked behind him again. Best to get—
There was the rattle of the chain, and then the door jerked open and the woman threw herself at him, arms wide, yanking him into a hug. He stood rooted and rigid as she squeezed, feeling the warmth of her body, the hard good pressure of her arms, the feel of her hair against his cheek, all of it so sudden and surprising and strange. It was the first time anyone had touched him since he’d woken on the beach.
It felt amazing.
“Daniel, oh honey.” She squeezed him harder. “I can’t believe— is it really you?”
“I—”
Sophie released him, stepped back, eyes flashing. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I—”
“Are you okay?”
“Well, I—”
“I could kill you, if I wasn’t so happy to see you.” Her smile brought laugh lines and delicate crow’s feet. Then she looked past him, to the street, and a shadow crossed her face. “Are you—do the police—”
“I’m alone.”
“Come inside.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, Daniel. I want to talk to America’s Most Wanted on my porch.”
He laughed, mind still a whirl, body still feeling her hug, the intoxication of human contact. She held the door and he stepped in.
Polished maple floors and colorful art on the walls. Sophie closed the door, chained it, and then started down the hall, saying over her shoulder, “I can’t believe you’re here. Where have you been?”
“That’s . . . complicated. But I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Well, you did. And not just me. The whole world’s been looking for you. The sheriff’s called me twice a day.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said.” They stepped into an airy kitchen. A sunny window, a breakfast nook with the New York Times spread out, a coffeepot burbling.
“What?” She whirled. “What who said?”
“I—”
“Please don’t tell me. You haven’t talked to them.” Her tone sharp. “Tell me you haven’t talked to the police without your attorney.”
“No. I mean, well, yes. I spoke to a detective. But on the phone.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, look, I had—”
“Why would you do that? Don’t you get how serious this is?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Never, never, never talk to the police without a lawyer. Especially on something like this. Why didn’t you call me first?”
“I—”
“When did you talk to them?”
“Yesterday.”
“On the phone?”
“Yes.” Softly, like a scolded child. It felt oddly good.
“Detective Waters?”
“Yes. He said—”
“And where have you been?”
“I—”
“I mean, you just vanished. You call me late at night, drunk, and then you disappear? How do you think that looks?” She banged in a cupboard, brought out two coffee mugs, gestured with them wildly. “You realize what a hash you’ve made of this?”
“Sophie, I—”
“Where have you been?”
Daniel stepped forward, took her forearms in his hands. “It’s complicated. I need to explain—”
“So explain already—”
“Which means,” he said, “I need you to shut up for a couple minutes.” He cocked his head, said, “Pretty please?”
She snorted a laugh. “Same old Daniel.” Sophie pulled her arms from his, poured the coffee, handed him a mug. “Okay, kiddo. Explain.”
5
“Is this a joke?”
Daniel sipped at his coffee. It had taken half an hour to fill her in, starting with the beach and running all the way through to last night. Sophie had listened with quiet, focused attention. There had been something cleansing in confessing, and he’d left nothing out. “No joke.”
“You have amnesia.”
“Or something like it. You know those weird news stories you hear about? A guy on a train wakes up and can’t remember who he was, a girl goes jogging and vanishes for weeks, she doesn’t recall anything? A fugue state. I think it’s something like that.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Hell if I know. I’m just telling you how it feel
s. I remember how to drive, I can talk, write. It’s just the personal stuff that’s gone.”
“Completely?”
He shook his head. “It’s coming back. Sometimes in small bits, sometimes more. Sometimes I won’t even notice until later. When I went home, that brought a lot back. And my dreams. I don’t think it’s really amnesia. More some sort of . . . blackout. Temporary shock.”
“Shock wouldn’t last this long.”
“Well, maybe not just shock. I think it was a combination of things. Laney’s . . . Laney, then driving all the way across the country. I think I did it in one run, amped on caffeine and speed. Booze too. And then when I got there, I.” He hesitated, realizing what he was about to say, how it sounded. “I tried to kill myself.”
“Kill yourself.”
“Maybe I just wanted the pain to stop. But maybe once it came down to it, some part of me didn’t want to die. I came damn close, though. I think the memory loss was my subconscious mind’s way of protecting me. Keep me from trying again.”
Sophie picked up her mug, held it in both hands, elbows on the table. “And you don’t remember me.”
Daniel hesitated. He’d come here expecting a professional meeting at best, and wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had to flee again. Instead he’d found someone who loved him. “I’m sorry. It’s not personal. I don’t even remember Laney well. I mean,” he said, trying a laugh that came out sick, “when I first woke up, I thought she was Emily Sweet.”
Sophie’s gaze was cool, a card player’s stare. “From a legal standpoint, you know what this looks like? A premeditated defense. The timing is too convenient.”
“Says you. From where I’m sitting, it couldn’t be less convenient.”
“What do you mean?”
Daniel stared at her. “I had to lose my wife all over again.”
Sophie paused. “I’m sorry.” She looked away, fingers tapping on the table.
“So what do you think?”
“What’s the best part about sex with twenty-seven-year-olds?” “Huh?”
“It’s a joke. What’s the best part about sex with twenty-sevenyear-olds?”
“I don’t . . . care, Sophie. I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
She stared at him with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. “Your memory really is gone, isn’t it? You’re not kidding.”
“No. I’m not.”
“And you don’t remember me at all.”
“No.”
“There’s twenty of them.”
“What?”
“The best thing about sex with twenty,” a beat, “seven-yearolds. There’s twenty of them.”
To his surprise, he felt his lips curl in a smile. “That’s awful.”
“That’s what I said every time you told that joke. Which was about once a month.”
Sunlight bounced through a crystal in her window to paint the walls in dancing spectrums of color. After a long moment, Daniel said, “We were friends, weren’t we?”
“Down here on Planet Earth, we still are.”
“Yeah, I mean, of course. I just.”
“Don’t remember.”
He nodded. “It’s so strange. Without context, everything is equal. I don’t even remember who I am. Take Laney. I know I loved her. I can feel it, physically feel it. When I realized that she was gone, it just. I mean, I wanted to die all over again. And that will only get worse as I remember more. Everything that comes back will change love from a feeling to an action, a verb, something that happened. The moments when we loved each other. We were together for years, right?”
“Six or seven.”
“Seven years. Of emotions and decisions and moments. But with her dead and my memory gone, what do they mean? What is love without history? Like Alzheimer’s. A husband and wife live their whole lives together, make love, buy a house, raise kids. Then one of them gets sick and can’t remember the other. Are they still married? Are they still in love? Did the time they had mean anything on its own, or is everything just . . . temporary?”
“Life is a raindrop.”
“What?”
Sophie smiled. “Something my grandmother used to say. ‘Life is a raindrop.’ It never made sense to me when I was young, but the older I get, the more it means.”
“Life is a raindrop. Whoa.” The line was so simple, and yet so beautiful it tugged at his chest. It felt like there was a truth at the center of it, that, like a Zen koan, you could meditate on it forever and still find fresh meaning. “Life is a raindrop.”
Through the walls there was the roar of a car engine, something coming fast. Daniel stiffened. The car grew louder, then quieter as it passed. He glanced over to Sophie, ready to explain himself, and saw that she had tensed as much as he.
Why? What’s she scared of? It took a moment to click. “The sheriff told me that someone broke into your house.”
She nodded, shoulders knotted under her light top.
“Someone asking about me.”
“That’s right.” Sophie stood, took her coffee to the sink.
“I— Did he hurt you?” The heat in his belly was back.
“I’m fine.” She dumped her mug, began to scrub it.
“Can you tell me about him?”
“Why? Not like you’ll remember anyway.”
Ouch. Daniel eased out of the breakfast nook. She didn’t turn around, just kept washing dishes. “Soph.”
There was a tiny hitch in her movement. Then, over her shoulder, “Funny. That’s what you always called me. Do you remember, or is it just there?”
“Soph, I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
I’m sorry some sick fuck came into your house. I’m sorry he did it looking for me. I’m sorry that as strong as you obviously are, it shook, maybe even broke, something in you. He sighed. “Everything, I guess.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” She shut off the faucet and turned around. “He didn’t hurt me. Scared me, is all.” She picked up a towel and began to dry her hands, her voice slow. “He was so calm. Smiling, always smiling. That was the worst part. I think he could have done anything to me, and then gone on about his day. Not felt a thing about it.”
He opened his mouth, closed it. Didn’t know what to reply. Finally he said, “I hope you told him everything.”
“I didn’t know very much.”
“This guy. He must have been the one who . . .” Say it. You have to face it. “He must have killed Laney.”
“Do you think so?” Her tone flat.
“Someone comes and threatens you with a gun right after she’s been driven off the road?”
“But he wasn’t asking about her. He was asking about you.”
“Yeah, but. You don’t think I had anything to do with it?” She didn’t answer, and he sighed. “Look, I understand. I wondered myself. In fact, I was even starting to believe it. But I know now. I know it’s not true.”
“Then what did you mean—” She tossed the dish towel on the counter, shook her head.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Sophie.”
She sighed. “You called me. Very drunk. You kept saying you were sorry. When I asked what for, you wouldn’t tell me. You just kept saying you were sorry, and . . .”
“What?”
“That it was your fault.”
“My fault?” He braced a hand on the counter. “I can’t . . . I didn’t.”
“What were you talking about, Daniel? What were you sorry for?”
“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes. Tried to remember. Let the words float in front of him, and when that didn’t work, tried to force it. Nothing came. “I don’t know. But I know I didn’t kill her. Damn it, Soph, I spent all last night looking at video of the two of us. There are pictures from two weeks ago that would break your heart, we look so happy. Why would I kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not going dow
n this road again. Whatever I said that night, I know I didn’t kill Laney. We were happy, goddamnit. Everything was perfect. You know that. You remember that. Right?”
“Perfect?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Well, okay, but the point is, we were in love, and there’s no way—”
“Christ, Daniel, it was a marriage, not a fairy tale. It wasn’t perfect. And don’t get it in your head that it was just because she’s gone. Relationships don’t work like that.”
He took a breath, made himself pause. “We fought?”
“Of course you fought.”
“Over what?”
“The things people fight over. Money, sex, children, who did the dishes last.”
“But like you said, people do that.” He saw her expression. “What? We were bad?”
“Laney was an actress, hon. They’re all crazy. And you,” a snort, “you’ve got a temper. When the two of you went at each other, you went for blood. You’d scream yourselves hoarse. The last time, she spent the weekend in a hotel, and you spent it at the bottom of a bottle.”
He had a sick feeling, a primal, caught-jerking-off shame. The same way he’d felt in Robert Cameron’s trailer the morning prior, listening to the actor describe the way he’d seen Daniel: A mediocre writer in a town thick with them. Not particularly talented, not particularly smart, not particularly brave. The top of the middle of the bell curve. It killed him. Why couldn’t the past be perfect? If he couldn’t have it anyway, couldn’t he at least have that certainty? “Did it happen a lot?”
“What’s a lot? My marriage didn’t work out, so who am I to judge?” Sophie sighed. “You fought, and your fights blew the roof off. But you always made up. And when you did, you shook the walls down. That’s just the way the two of you were. It was a tempestuous relationship. When you were happy you were giddy. When you fought, you fought hard. My point is just that you’re not doing yourself any favors believing it was perfect.”
Daniel nodded, the queasiness not any better. He grabbed his mug from the table, poured a cup of coffee he didn’t want. His mind a whirl, too many things to keep track of, too many pieces that didn’t fit. “You didn’t answer my question.”
