It wasn’t especially nutritious, but I guessed the flourless chocolate cake was pretty low on carbs—which was a good thing because unlike Paige, I wasn’t getting a whole lot of exercise those days. Vacuuming was as good as it got most of the time, and I really didn’t vacuum all that often. The slice of cake was indecently large. The cappuccino I ordered had a cinnamon-colored heart swirled into the foam.
“So what did my mom eat when you two would come here?” I asked the detective. I was curious, but it was also among the most innocuous questions I could think of. “A big cupcake?”
“Usually a slice of the maple cake with vanilla icing and walnuts. And, like you, a cappuccino.”
I nodded. “I’m not surprised. She loved maple. And not just maple syrup.”
“I once saw her inhale a maple creemee.”
“So you didn’t just come here or the coffee shop.”
“Busted. Yes, one time we went across the street from the hospital and down the road to the ice cream place for creemees.”
“Okay.”
“Would you like a list of every single place we ever went?”
“Maybe. Not today.”
“Fair enough.”
“What did you two talk about? Clearly it wasn’t just sleepwalking and dreams.”
He was eating a chocolate and peanut butter cupcake that had to be the size of a softball. He took a bite with a fork and murmured, “Most satisfactory.” Then: “We talked a lot about you and your sister. I was serious when I told you how much she loved you two. I mean, she told me all about your magic and Paige’s skiing. I gather the kid was practically skiing before she could walk.”
“An exaggeration,” I said, a sibling reflex that I regretted as soon as I had spoken.
“And she was thrilled about Amherst and so proud that you were going there.”
“I was a freshman when you were transferred, right? When you two stopped seeing each other?”
“That’s right. You had just started your junior year of high school when we met.”
“My mom ever talk about my dad?”
“Little bit.”
“But not really.”
“That’s correct.”
“So she didn’t, I don’t know, exude love for him the way she did for my sister and me.”
“Oh, I never doubted she loved him. It never crossed my mind that she didn’t love him.”
“Then why do you think she didn’t talk about him?”
“Talking about your husband to another man implies the two of you are lovers or confidants. We weren’t—at least not in that way. We were sleep confidants, and I mean sleep in the literal sense.”
“It’s still kind of intimate,” I said carefully.
“Arguably.”
“And, as you said, a woman having an affair doesn’t talk much about her husband, either.”
“Maybe. I’ve never slept with—excuse me, had sex with—a married woman.”
I had about a third of the cake left before me, but put down my fork. I was pretty sure I would finish it if I were stoned. But now? I had eaten plenty. “I just want to make sure I understand the chronology. You saw each other eight or nine times over a year and a half and then, when you were transferred to Waterbury, you just stopped seeing each other.”
He smiled a little boyishly. “Still don’t trust me?”
“I trust you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you. I just want to be sure I get this—this relationship you had with my mom.”
“It was all about sleep and sleepwalking. We were sounding boards. We were our own little sleepwalking support group.”
“I want to believe that.”
“You can.”
I thought about my mother’s computer, which had been returned by the police. If my mother and the detective had simply grown apart because he had been transferred to Waterbury, why wasn’t there any correspondence? Or, perhaps, why wasn’t there evidence of a fight?
“See those two?” he was saying. He was pointing at a pair of uniformed police officers walking slowly but with great assurance down the street.
“Yeah.”
“I know them. Two of Burlington’s finest. And a baby step above felon. Both of them.”
“Seriously?”
“A lot of cops are. For some people, it’s a razor-thin line between good guy and bad guy.”
“How did you wind up a state trooper?” I asked.
“Wondering if I could just as easily have gone to the dark side?”