Here She Lies

petty bastard. He had made a pass at me when I was first on staff and when I rebuffed him he made my life miserable. Then, when I got together with Bobby, he extended his spite to us both with a heartlessness that he blamed on the military culture. Kent would have loved to find a way to dismiss Bobby at the eleventh hour of a career he’d stuck with this far mostly so he could enjoy the second half of his adulthood. With me and Lexy (and hopefully more children; we’d had our plans).
    “I can’t let this go now,” Bobby said. “My benefits are going to take care of us for the rest of our lives. We’ll have health care and money and we’ll be able to put Lexy through college.”
    “We?”
    “Do you really think we should pack it all in right now, everything, without any hope at all? Without even trying?” He stared at me. My Bobby. Of course he was right.
    “No, I’m not saying that. I never said that.”
    “Can’t we take this as a trial separation? Nothing definite?”
    “I guess so.”
    He smiled, revealing the slight gap between his front teeth. That sexy smile. I felt a blossoming of heat in my center.
    “I thought I’d visit next weekend,” he said. “Or do you need more time apart than that?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, wanting him, resisting wanting him. “Can we play that by ear?”
    “Whatever you say.”
    It seemed a tepid response. Why wouldn’t he fight harder for me? I had no idea how much time we needed. Would a week be enough time for him to reassess the evidence? Would he open the Infidelity File, as I had come to think of it, as soon as he walked in the door of our house? Or would he settle back into disbelief and revert to hoping I would change my mind? What I did know was that regardless of what happened to our marriage, I would not return to work in the prison or move back to Lexington. He was right in a big way: it wasn’t for me. If our marriage somehow survived this, we would have to figure out the logistics. In a week there was a job orientation for all new employees at the Manhattan hospital that had hired me conditionally, based on a meeting with an off-site interviewer, and I planned to go. Once the higher-ups had met me face-to-face, finalized the paperwork and approved my employment, I could start looking for a suitable apartment.
    Bobby reached out and touched my cheek. It was a good-bye touch, a see-you-soon touch that left a cold spot on my skin as soon as his finger retreated. Then he leaned in and kissed my lips. I couldn’t help it: Igrabbed him. We held each other for a few minutes before I pushed him away and ran into the house.
    I went straight upstairs to my room, feeling soaked through with sorrow and confusion and regret and determination. Peeking through the yellow curtains, I saw him standing on the front lawn, hesitating. The man in the maroon car was watching him. I knew Bobby was thinking of Lexy, whether or not he should go in and say good-bye to her or just leave. She was little enough that she wouldn’t know the difference, but he would. And I would. He had almost nothing to pack and could have turned around, gotten into his rental car and driven straight to the airport. Instead he walked across the lawn and entered the house through the kitchen door. Ten minutes later I heard his car drive away.
    The feeling of loneliness was overwhelming. Bobby was gone. Lexy was downstairs with Julie, beginning a process of bonding I didn’t want to interrupt. I finished unpacking, then stood at one of my bedroom windows and looked out. Stillness. Quiet, except for the low buzz of a lawn mower somewhere in the distance. The overcast sky had developed threatening rain clouds. I moved to another window, took in another tranquil view, then went from window to window, realizing I couldn’t see the crime scene from anywhere in the Yellow Room.
    As soon as I thought of Zara’s outline, her final mark in the world, I knew the imminent rain would wash it away. I couldn’t let that happen unrecorded, so I got my digital camera and went outside to take pictures.
    I took shots from every angle, and the more I took, the more her shape abstracted. She had gone from three-dimensional woman to two-dimensional contour, a memory, in a matter of minutes; that was death. After a few minutes a cloud moved and the sun blasted. Suddenly my shadow filled Zara’s outline, wavering over the fading white edges. I managed two shots of the strange, disturbing image before