“No.”
I walked over to her. “I’m sorry, I asked a question but you don’t have a choice. We are both filthy, and I’m not staying here much longer. I doubt you want to wear a dead woman’s clothes. Come on.” Picking her up, I carried her to the bathroom honeymoon style.
I set her on her feet on the tile floor and started the water. I dropped my towel but she hadn’t budged. “Get naked.”
“No,” Emery barked.
“Suit yourself.” I began stripping off her clothes. She resisted until she wriggled against me, wearing nothing but a necklace, one she hadn’t had on before, on it was a diamond ring and band, I’m assuming hers. Fingering it, I asked, “Why?”
Emery wobbled her head, her wet hair not moving. “I don’t know? Something to remember him by.”
More than figuring out what happened, I had to know for once who in the hell this woman was. “If he left you, why would you care?”
Emery looked past me. “I loved him. He’s the only man I ever loved. He’s the only man I ever plan on loving?”
“But you fucking killed him?” It didn’t make a lick of sense.
She started sobbing. “It was an accident, I swear.”
I seized her face in my hands so she’d look at me. My thumb caressing her mud splattered face, I searched her eyes to see if this was all an act. I didn’t know what to believe anymore but my heart skipped a beat. Emery made me want to believe in something for once. I wanted it to be true. I wanted her not to have lied to me. “Tell me what happened.”
She backed away from me to the sink, wrapping her arms over her naked chest. “He disappeared one day, without warning. Everything was fine but he never came home. I reported him missing. The police said they had to wait before they could help me. Well, Don didn’t show for a week. I was sick, devastated. In my mind, he had to be dead. Don Jenkins was the love of my life. He was all I ever had and he was gone.”
“What about your family?”
“I don’t have any family, except I had Don. Well, I’ve got a deadbeat brother in Reno and one ancient aunt, and her three cats, closer in Miami, but they don’t count.”
I said nothing, only rubbed her arms, wanting her to go on.
“Here, I thought he was dead. My heart felt like it’d been ripped from my chest. Have you ever lost someone… someone who was your whole life?”
“Yeah,” I admitted softly. I knew that feeling all too well.
“The police finally took me seriously and that same day they told me they found him, not dead. He was alive and well. He’d left me for another woman. They suggested I hire a P.I. and a divorce lawyer. So, I found a detective and low and behold, Don had been living another life. The investigator gave me this address. This is where he’d meet his other woman. Those are her clothes, not mine.” Emery pointed to the jeans I’d gotten for her.
“And then what, you came here looking for him?”
“I came here immediately and confronted him.” Her voice cracked as she began bawling hard again. “What a fucking jerk!” She sniffed. “He laughed at me for thinking he was dead. He said I was the horrible one and he had to get away from me. That it was all my fault. I tried to storm off, to leave, but he stopped me. All of the sudden he wanted to talk about it. He grabbed a hold of me, not letting me leave.” Emery clutched her own forearm showing me. “He dragged me back inside, saying he loved me best and wanted to come home. He was frightening me. It wasn’t like him, so I searched for anything in the room I could hit him with, in case things went too far. Our argument went on and eventually, I asked him if he’d slept with her, the woman, Jackie. He said yes, adding that I wasn’t satisfying him, and I couldn’t help it, I hit him with the skillet.”
“You killed him with a skillet?” I asked in disbelief.
“No, he fell back and hit his head on the kitchen counter then on the floor. He never got back up again.” Emery’s face drooped, darkening, remembering the horror I’d felt before, something you just can’t fake. I stepped toward her, taking her into my arms again.
I kissed her forehead. “Why didn’t you call the cops?”
“It’s complicated. I buried him.” She murmured into my chest.
Resting my chin on her head, I looked at us in the mirror. Emery clung to me, and I encased her body with mine. I hurt for her. “You made him a coffin?”
“I couldn’t just put him in the ground.” Her eyes meet mine as she wiped her face of the tears, trying to pull herself back together.