“I don’t think he wanted the first one,” I admit.
Gabe Hoffman stands before me in a camel-hair blazer that I’m certain cost him an arm and a leg. He wears a sweater beneath that and a dress shirt beneath that and it’s beyond me how he’s not sweating. “You’re very formal today,” I say, standing before the Christmas tree, sporting my silk pajamas. I can taste morning breath on my tongue. In that moment, the sunlight pouring in the living room windows and obscuring my view, he looks chic and suave.
“Court. This afternoon” is all he manages to say and then we silently stare.
“I love my daughter,” I say to the detective.
“I know you do,” he responds. “And your husband? Does he love her, too?”
I’m overcome by the brashness. But what should offend and turn me away, somehow pulls me closer. I’m fascinated by this no-nonsense Gabe Hoffman, one who doesn’t beat around the bush.
He stares and my eyes drop to the ground. “James loves James,” I admit. On the far wall is a framed photograph: James and me on our wedding day. We were married in an old cathedral in the city. James’s parents covered the extravagant cost, though according to tradition, it should have been my father who footed the bill. The Dennetts wouldn’t have it. Not because they were trying to be nice; rather, they believed James and my wedding might be chintzy otherwise, a humiliation in front of their affluent friends.
“This just isn’t the life I envisioned when I was a child.” I let the Christmas tree branches drop to the ground. “Who am I kidding? We’ll have no Christmas this year. James will maintain he has to work, though I’m certain work is not what he’ll be doing, and Grace will be with the parents of this man she’s apparently begun to date, though we have yet to meet. We’ll have a meal, James and me, Christmas day, as we do many other days of the year, and it will be as mundane as it can possibly be. We’ll sit in silence and choke down a meal so we can retire to separate rooms for the night. I’ll call my parents but James will encourage me to hurry up because of the cost of the international call. It doesn’t matter anyway,” I conclude. “All they’d want to know about was Mia, and I’d be reminded as I am every waking minute of every single day...” I try to catch my breath. I hold up a hand: enough. I shake my head, turn my back to the man who is staring with such pity in his eyes, I’m ashamed. I can’t go on. I can’t finish.
I feel my heart race. My flesh is clammy; my arms begin to perspire. I can’t breathe. There’s an overwhelming need to scream.
Is this what a panic attack feels like?
But as Detective Hoffman’s arms close around me, every bit of it fades. His arms wrap around me from behind, and my heart rhythm slows to a steady jog. His chin rests on the top of my head, and my breath comes back to me, oxygen filling my lungs.
He doesn’t say that it’s going to be okay, because maybe it’s not.
He doesn’t promise to find Mia, because maybe he won’t.
But he holds me so tightly that for a moment, the emotions are at bay. The sadness and fear, the regret and the loathing. He bottles them up inside his arms so that for a split second I don’t have to be the one carrying the weight of them. For this moment, the burden is his.
I turn to him and bury my face against his chest. His arms hesitate, and then they wrap around my silk pajamas. He smells of shaving cream.
I find my feet rising to my tiptoes and my arms reaching up to pull his face to me.
“Mrs. Dennett,” he protests gently. I tell myself that he doesn’t mean it as I press my lips to his. It’s new and exciting and desperate, all at the same time.
He clenches a fistful of my pajamas in a hand, and draws me to him. I wrap my arms around his neck, and run my fingers through his hair. I taste his coffee.
For a moment he returns the kiss. Only a moment.
“Mrs. Dennett,” he whispers again, his hands moving to my waist to gently pry my body from his.
“Eve. Please,” I say, and as he steps back, he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. I make a final, failed attempt, pulling him into me with the shirttails of his blazer in my hands.
But he won’t have me.
“Mrs. Dennett. I can’t.”
The silence lasts a lifetime.
My eyes are lost on the floor. “What have I done?” I whisper.
This isn’t something I do. I’ve never done this before. I am the one who’s wholesome and virtuous. This...this is the behavior that James specializes in.
There was a time in my life when the eyes of men followed me. When men thought I was beautiful. When I passed through a room on the arm of James Dennett and every man and his covetous wife turned to stare.