“What’re you talking about?” she’d asked, but he hadn’t answered her, that’s the way Jacky was sometimes, he’d move from one thing to another before she had time to catch up. He’d ignored her question and helped her pack, and she didn’t remember that he’d said it until he called her from jail. She had spent a lot of time crying in the early years of their marriage, but after Jacky was arrested, she didn’t cry at all.
But the house. Her house. Jacky had bought it because the restaurants were doing well. He said it was an investment in the future, that living in a rental was like flushing money down the toilet. It wasn’t a nice house to begin with—the carpets were filthy, the walls were covered in tacky wallpaper, and there were spiders living in the highest corners—but Jacky said that was her job, to spruce up the house, to call in the contractors and the cleaners, to shop for furniture and curtains and knickknacks. Fluffing their nest, that’s what Jacky called it. She’d thought they’d spend the rest of their lives in that house, they’d finally have kids and grow old and complain about having a second floor because of their stiff knees and they’d talk about selling, that’s all it would be—talk. But none of it happened. There was never a baby, no matter how hard they tried or how many doctors they visited, and here she is now, forty-nine years old, living in a dumpy furnished apartment while her husband sits in prison and her beautiful house is empty. It wasn’t the life she’d imagined for herself, but it’s what she has, and nothing is going to change it.
She’ll never live in her house again, the police say. She’d spent so many years planning, so much time bringing home paint samples and walking slowly through furniture showrooms. It hurts her to think that she’ll never have a home that works so well at Christmas, when the dining room would be crammed with friends and family, the fifteen-foot tree glittering in the front window. Or those times during the summer, when they’d barbecue out back and neighborhood kids would be tearing around the yard, catching frogs in the pond and jumping off the dock Jacky had built, their tongues stained red from Popsicles. Her pastor always said that a person should let good memories of better times help them get through the bad, but that was before Jacky was arrested, before Pastor Ed had taken her aside and quietly suggested that it might be best for her to worship at home, that He would always listen to her, no matter where she was. Turn the other cheek, that’s what she’d always been taught, so she didn’t go back to church again; she stayed at home and watched televised sermons on Sunday mornings and prayed quietly before every meal and bed, but she would’ve liked nothing better than to see them all dead, to see Him smite them all for turning their backs during her time of need. But she waited, bided her time, because He repays. Sooner or later, everyone gets what they deserve.
“When will I be able to move back in?” she’d asked a few weeks ago. She was tired of the apartment. Corporate housing they call it, but it was as bad as staying at a motel. Worse. It kept her up at night, wondering how many people had slept in the bed, had used the chipped dishes in the cupboard and sat on the stiff sofa.
“What do you mean?” the cop had asked. There were two of them, and they always traveled in pairs, like a matched set. They were the ones who’d sat in front of her house, and one was younger and handsome, but the other was mean. She could never remember either of their names, didn’t even try. She didn’t like them. “You can’t move back in there.”
“What’re you talking about? That’s my house. I own it.”
The two men looked at each other, seeming amused. She hated them for that. Like she was a child demanding a toy she couldn’t have, because she didn’t know any better.
“The house is going to be torn down, Mrs. Seever,” the young one said. At least he was polite, not like the other one, who was always watching her, a weird smile on his face. “Completely demolished.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, I’m afraid it is.”
“Jacky said I could live there, even if he was in prison.”
“Jacky doesn’t get a say in things these days,” the old one said. Loren, she remembered. Detective Loren. He was grimacing, his lips pulled back far enough that she could see every tooth in his head, and most of his gums. “You lose your vote when you murder a bunch of people.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The house has been sold.”
“But I live there.”
“I guess your sweetie-pie husband never told you that you’re dead broke,” Loren said. “He had his lawyer sell everything to pay for his defense. The house. His car. All your assets. You didn’t think that fancy lawyer-man was defending Jacky out of the goodness of his heart, did you?”
She tightened her hands on her purse, her nails sinking into the leather.
“But those all belonged to me too,” she said. “He couldn’t have sold it all without me knowing.”