Fortunes of the Dead by Lynn Hightower Page A

wordlessly.
    â€œI’ll sleep at home tonight,” he said.
    â€œDoes that mean here or the loft?”
    â€œThe loft.”
    He was just as aware as I was that a new bed had been delivered and assembled yesterday afternoon, and that we had planned to sleep in it for the first time tonight.
    â€œYou don’t want to discuss this?” I asked him.
    He glanced down at me, hands working deftly to knot his tie. “If you’d wanted to talk about it, I assume you’d have brought it up before you took the case.”
    â€œJoel—”
    â€œHave you accepted a fee?”
    â€œA retainer. Yes.”
    â€œHow much?”
    â€œTwenty-five hundred.”
    â€œI hope it’s worth it.”
    Joel never got angry with me—even when I got angry with him. His calmness diffused things between us; kept us running on an even keel. I’d never understood how he could be so even tempered and gentle with me. I’d even wondered if it meant he was emotionally lazy or something ridiculous like that. Leave it to me to make a good thing questionable.
    But he was angry now.
    â€œSo what, Joel, you’re just going to leave?”
    He started picking up the boxes of Pad Thai, gathering up the two wineglasses.
    â€œStop cleaning up, dammit, and talk to me.”
    Joel paused, but did not look at me. He set the glasses and garbage down very gently on the floor and headed toward the door.
    â€œIf you’re going to go to the trouble of putting your tie back on for the drive home, why don’t you tighten it up a little and choke yourself with it?”
    Joel closed the front door and made a point to turn the key in the lock.
    I could not believe he was going to walk out like this, and my hands were shaking, my stomach full of butterflies. I didn’t mind arguing things out, but I can’t stand it when a man walks off and won’t deal with things. I hate uncertainty. I want confrontation and closure.
    I grabbed the front door and twisted the doorknob. “I don’t need you to lock me in, Joel. If you’re leaving, just go.”
    I knew he was standing right outside the door. Come in here , I thought. Come back and talk to me .
    â€œI’m tired, Lena. I need to go home and get some sleep.”
    â€œFine then, go.”
    I heard footsteps on the sidewalk, a car engine catch, the grind of tires on the drive.
    Would he really be able to sleep? Could he just set this aside and go on with his routine, because I knew that I’d spend the next ten hours agonizing and punching my pillow.
    At least now I knew what made him mad.

C HAPTER F OUR
    I woke up early the next morning with a tight feeling in my eyes and throat. Maynard was asleep at the foot of the bed, and he opened his eyes to slits, stretched and yawned widely and rolled over on his back. It was still dark outside, but going grayish. The phone hadn’t woken me, so Joel hadn’t called. Time to get up and go to work.
    But first I was going to have a long soak in the tub.
    There wasn’t any bubble bath, and there was only one towel and it was one of Joel’s old ones—a dingy sky blue. I turned on the faucet, wound my hair up in a clip, and padded downstairs after Maynard, trying to remember if Joel had brought cat food.
    He hadn’t. I looked down at the cat who looked up at me. “Ummm,” I said. And then I remembered the potato chips—my cat, like me, had bad eating habits.
    I gave them to him whole so he could bat them around and kill them before he ate them alive. I peeled a Styrofoam cup down to about an inch high, filled it with water, and set it down on the floor. A large, curled chip skated past my toe and stopped just under the overhang of the cabinet next to the stove. I turned and headed back upstairs.
    It is amazing how deep a claw-foot tub is. The water level rose slowly. If I’d turned the faucets on just before I went to bed last night, I’d have a bath