She launches into song.
LANEY
Hawrk the herald ang-gels siing
(she stops, changes to a laughing tone.) You know, with their heads thrown back and mouths all wide—
She opens her mouth hugely, uses her hands to mark an imaginary Pac-Man maw.
LANEY (CONT’D)
(singing again)
Glo-ree to, the new bowrn king.
(talking)
Remember? Remember?
Daniel’s answer is a laugh that shakes the camera.
LANEY (CONT’D)
And then they dance.
(she sings the soundtrack)
da-na-na-nanana-na-nah, da-na-na-nah . . . da-na-na-nanana-na-nah, da-dada, dadada . . .
Her dance is silly, a jig of hopping from foot to foot, arms behind her, head thrown back as she sings her own soundtrack.
LANEY (CONT’D)
Bah-dah-dah-dah! Doink-iddie doink-iddie, doink-iddie, Bah-dah-dah-dah! Doink-iddie doink-iddie—
Her voice dissolves into champagne bubble laughter. She poses for a moment, then sweeps out a deep, showman’s bow.
LANEY (CONT’D)
Yup. That’s it. That’s how they do it.
The video goes wonky, twisting sideways, then upside down. There is a clear flash of her shoulder, then a blur of hardwood floor, then something fuzzy and dark, perhaps a sweater.
The cameraman appears to be neglecting his duties in order to cop a hug.
DANIEL (O.S.)
(a melting tone)
You. Ahh, you.
(a beat)
You are one foxy chick.
Laney giggles again, and then the video freezes.
5
Daniel’s mouth stretched in a smile wide enough to hurt, but his body was tense and rigid. He felt like a man gut-shot in the middle of a joke. That was all? How could that be all? He stabbed the button to play it again.
Their kitchen sprang to life, not the morbid drunkard’s cave he’d seen, but the heart of a warm home. Red wine glowed. Laney, his Laney, laughed and sang and danced for him. Her ponytail bobbed from side to side, her feet tapped out that goofy Riverdance, her hips swayed lithe and graceful. A silly, private moment, not the kind of thing epic love poems were written about. But the kind of thing they should be written about. Not love as stormy skies and sweeping passion, gathered armies and pounding seas. Real love. Love that had to pick up the dry cleaning, and worked too late, and could swim in a moment’s laughter. Love that could fit into a life.
He set it on loop.
Again and again and again she danced for him. Joyful and unself-conscious and free. Daniel didn’t realize he was crying until he felt the slick trickle of a tear paving a route down his cheek. He didn’t stop himself. Just sat and watched her dance and bawled like a child.
Oh baby, my baby, where did you go? How could you leave me alone here?
He paused the video to check the date stamp. It had been recorded on October 18th. Laney had been murdered on November 3rd.
Just two weeks separated the woman dancing in fluffy socks from the broken body spinning in cold ocean currents.
Nausea twisted his guts like a handful of rope. He staggered to his feet, stumbled to the bathroom, collapsed in front of the toilet, barely making it before everything exploded out, sick and hot. His fingers clutched the dirty porcelain. Shoulders shaking with fever. The pain tore through him like lightning, flashes that left him blind and weak.
It was all gone. The life he had led. The thousand intimacies they’d shared. The victories and struggles and banal moments. Cooking dinner or watching television or sitting with his feet in her lap, it was gone forever.
Nothing was supposed to be this bad.
No wonder. No wonder I got in my car and took off. The only amazing thing is that I made it all the way there.
And all he had to look forward to was remembering it all again. Like a slow drip of acid, each memory would leave a wound. Each would be a reminder of what would never be again.
Daniel huddled on the cracked floor of the flophouse bathroom and wept.
He couldn’t say how long he lay there. But eventually, he forced himself to his feet. Flushed the toilet, then spun the cold water tap all the way and jammed his head beneath it, ribbons of icy water splitting his hair, rivulets pouring down his neck, into his ears. The cold was shocking after the dozy heat of the room. The sink’s porcelain was a network of hairline cracks intricate as a spider’s web. There were no towels, and he took off his shirt, used it to dry himself.
Before, he had wondered if it was possible, all the things that they had said about him. His temper and the money issues and the rumors of an affair and the unbearable possibility that he had had something to do with her death.
No matter what else he might learn, he would never again doubt that they had loved each other, that he would have done anything for her. That he would have torn the whirling world to shreds before he laid an angry hand on her.
The past was an origami puzzle, planes and edges touching here, spreading there. There would be answers somewhere about how this had happened, who had done it. But right now, even the thought of those answers was meaningless. By Christ, yes, he would find who did this, and they would pay.
But really, who cared? Not even him. The question wasn’t Who killed my wife?
It was How could this happen to us?
And, God, please, please, can you take it back?
D
aniel had jerked awake with a sick wet snort like a drowning man frantically kicking for the surface. He’d been in a concrete canyon, but woke in the hotel, dripping sweat, head throbbing. Clean sunlight through the dirty window. Laney still dancing for him from the laptop propped on the pillow, the volume off. He’d fallen asleep staring at the image of her, hoping that there would be a moment haunting the borderlands of consciousness when he might see her and not remember that she was gone. Might, for even a second, be whole again.
For a moment he’d lain still. The hollow in his chest almost enough to crush him. Then he sighed, pulled himself up, staggered to the bathroom.
Now, as he cruised in morning sunlight through the Palisades, the headache had settled to a steady thrum, the loss to an ache like a cracked tooth.
You’re not done grieving. You’ve only just begun.
But you had your time-out, your moment to pretend nothing else mattered. To howl to God and beg for a change.
Now you have to make one.
After the worst of his tears had passed last night, he’d paused the video, gone back through his e-mail. Not the ones from Laney this time, but the others, especially the recent ones. Notes from friends asking if he was okay, messages from reporters looking for a quote, dozens of Google Alerts with his name in them.