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I didn’t think I’d be so emotional, turning down a job I didn’t want.
It was nostalgic, being here in this capacity. As faculty. I hadn’t taught here since my fellowship, and I’d loved every minute of time spent on this campus. It was like coming home.
And packing it up.
The memories flooded out of me, the cases. Everleigh Lundy, whose face I’ll never not see when I close my eyes. Or Joseph Bolton, the first time I’d dated remains so inaccurately it would have led police on a wild goose chase, if Jeanette hadn’t kept the pressure on me to remain skeptical to the end.
Turning down a directorship was also a huge power move. It was freeing to be finally rid of a dream I’d had for so long. After I’d met Gus, that dream had become a burden. Now that the strings were cut, I was floating.
It was flattering to be considered. I was young for the position. From what Jeanette had told me, it was clear they wanted someone long-term. To build a new facility and age alongside the building. They’d want to hang a pretty oil portrait next to the one of Dr. William Bass—a tiny brass plaque hanging underneath with their name and contribution to the University of Tennessee.
I laughed. A hearty, full-bellied one racked through me. I’d never want my picture on a wall.
Part of me had kept an open mind. But that was just youthful egotism.
Now the chains were off. I was free to go back home. To my husband. Take a look at our skeleton again and see how many of the two-hundred-six bones we have left to discover.
Something worse came only a few hours after that.
Decca
Gus had no servicestoday, so when he didn’t answer his phone for the third time, and still hadn’t called me back, a chill began to seep out from the marrow of my bones, cracking and freezing everything along its frosty path.
Something must have happened. With Jim.
Something happened.Since when did I start thinking of dying in euphemisms?
It was because we had time. There was still so much time. Wasn’t there? He hadn’t even been confined to his hospital bed. I wouldn’t have gone to this stupid non-interview if I’ve thought we were this close. Now here I was, three hours away, unable to be with him. Unable to console my family, or share what was—what might be—happening.
I called Bethany. There was no answer. I texted Soula. No response. Not from Jim, or Raynie, or even Sofia.
I called off lunch with Chris and drove straight home, making it there in record time.
When I pulled into my driveway, Bethany was waiting for me on the porch steps.
Immediately, she got to her feet and strode toward me, wrapping me in a tight hug. I pressed in and squeezed her, tears forming as we held each other, crying and unmoving.
“I knew you’d know when none of us answered our phones,” she said. “I came here, thinking you might… Gus wouldn’t let anyone call you. He didn’t want you to be alone with the knowledge and have to drive home. I agreed. I’m sorry if that made it seem like we’d forgotten you. I promise, you were the first thing on our minds.”
“Where’s Gus?”
“He’s there.” She didn’t need to explain wheretherewas.
“Is Jim…?”
“There’s some time.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “This feels awful, but it isn’t a tragedy. Jim needs people to remember that right now. So he can be at peace.”
It was dusk by the time we got to Franklin. The Victorian house blazed against the deep teal sky. Light poured out of every window. Cars packed the parking lot.
All my family was here in this house; locked together in grief in a morbid way that comforted me.
It wasn’t the time to think it, but I couldn’t help it: I had a family again.
I’d always had Bethany and Soula, and we’d always be best friends, but they’d found their partners, now. Partners that took precedence, just by default of their proximity.
Marrying Gus had given me a partner as well, even if he was currently operating under cool denial. But it had also given me a grandmother who taught me to bake her traditional recipes, amom who liked me… okay, and a Dad, who loved me like I’d always been his daughter. They’d all taken me in as an extension.
