Confessing to his wife’s murder was, thankfully, enough. I had no desire to see this man. I was content that I could not remember and had no yearning to go poking around looking for lost memories.
We were also told that Wells would likely get a life sentence.
“You will keep Claire’s name out of this?” Dan asked as we prepared to leave, and the detective said he would do his best.
Then we left.
The rest of that day was surreal. Dan, the kids, and I raked leaves when school got out, and Dan ordered pizza for supper, making the evening as relaxing as he could, but he and I barely spoke to each other. Afterward, I helped Katie with her homework. The phone rang once, about nine. It was my mother. I told Dan to go into our room and tell her what had happened at the police station. I would call her the next day.
That night as Dan and I lay in bed, I couldn’t get the image of this other woman out of my mind. I kept picturing her the way I had been told I had been found. It haunted me. What I really wanted was a way to flush it all away—the image of her, the name Philip Wells, and everything else I knew about that night. I wanted to find the secret file where my brain had hidden the rest of it, dump these new contents inside, and close the lid forever.
But that was impossible.
Instead, I found myself feeling oddly grateful that Wells wasn’t some maniacal, sadistic beast; he was just completely overcome with greed. Avarice—nasty as it is—was a motive I could handle. There were so many others I could not.
Especially when I considered the life that was growing within me and who had helped create it.
I made the mistake of trying to share this with Dan as we lay there together in the darkness of our bedroom. But he was repulsed by any notion that Wells wasn’t a brutal murderer. What I said made no sense to him at all.
“How could you think he is anything but a monster?” he said, clearly disappointed in me.
It was evident to me then that though Dan and I had fallen headlong into a swirling blackness that neither one of us knew how to navigate, we weren’t struggling arm in arm in the abyss. The episode with the Christmas cards and the isolated relief I felt about Wells not being a psychopath convinced me I was in one abyss and Dan was in another one entirely.
9
Katie and I left for Ann Arbor the third week in October, on a chilly Thursday. Spencer had at first been downhearted about our going, but I managed to convince him that having four days alone with his dad was going to be wonderful. Thursday and Friday might be a little boring for him, but he would be able to go with Dan to the clinic on Saturday, which Spence loved to do. He coddled and cared for the dogs and cats in the kennels like they were his own, or like he was the kind doctor making them well. I promised him that Katie and I would be home early Sunday evening.
Dan drove us to the airport an hour before our six-thirty flight, and since Spence was asleep in the back seat, he dropped us off curbside in the predawn darkness. Katie wasn’t going to miss any school since her teachers were off that Thursday and Friday for a state convention. Nevertheless, she was unable to contain her excitement about our four-day excursion. It was the first time she and I had done anything special together for longer than a couple of hours.
I was prepared to field questions from her on the relatively short flight, but I was hoping they would be easy ones with concrete answers. I had a suspicion that being seated next to me on the plane with no other real distractions for either one of us would prompt her to take care of any lingering questions about the last seven weeks. She only asked me two questions actually. The first was if I was afraid to be alone or go anywhere by myself. I guess she thought I had brought her with me to keep me company or to ward off a potential threat. I assured her I was not afraid. Then she asked if I thought the police would
We were also told that Wells would likely get a life sentence.
“You will keep Claire’s name out of this?” Dan asked as we prepared to leave, and the detective said he would do his best.
Then we left.
The rest of that day was surreal. Dan, the kids, and I raked leaves when school got out, and Dan ordered pizza for supper, making the evening as relaxing as he could, but he and I barely spoke to each other. Afterward, I helped Katie with her homework. The phone rang once, about nine. It was my mother. I told Dan to go into our room and tell her what had happened at the police station. I would call her the next day.
That night as Dan and I lay in bed, I couldn’t get the image of this other woman out of my mind. I kept picturing her the way I had been told I had been found. It haunted me. What I really wanted was a way to flush it all away—the image of her, the name Philip Wells, and everything else I knew about that night. I wanted to find the secret file where my brain had hidden the rest of it, dump these new contents inside, and close the lid forever.
But that was impossible.
Instead, I found myself feeling oddly grateful that Wells wasn’t some maniacal, sadistic beast; he was just completely overcome with greed. Avarice—nasty as it is—was a motive I could handle. There were so many others I could not.
Especially when I considered the life that was growing within me and who had helped create it.
I made the mistake of trying to share this with Dan as we lay there together in the darkness of our bedroom. But he was repulsed by any notion that Wells wasn’t a brutal murderer. What I said made no sense to him at all.
“How could you think he is anything but a monster?” he said, clearly disappointed in me.
It was evident to me then that though Dan and I had fallen headlong into a swirling blackness that neither one of us knew how to navigate, we weren’t struggling arm in arm in the abyss. The episode with the Christmas cards and the isolated relief I felt about Wells not being a psychopath convinced me I was in one abyss and Dan was in another one entirely.
9
Katie and I left for Ann Arbor the third week in October, on a chilly Thursday. Spencer had at first been downhearted about our going, but I managed to convince him that having four days alone with his dad was going to be wonderful. Thursday and Friday might be a little boring for him, but he would be able to go with Dan to the clinic on Saturday, which Spence loved to do. He coddled and cared for the dogs and cats in the kennels like they were his own, or like he was the kind doctor making them well. I promised him that Katie and I would be home early Sunday evening.
Dan drove us to the airport an hour before our six-thirty flight, and since Spence was asleep in the back seat, he dropped us off curbside in the predawn darkness. Katie wasn’t going to miss any school since her teachers were off that Thursday and Friday for a state convention. Nevertheless, she was unable to contain her excitement about our four-day excursion. It was the first time she and I had done anything special together for longer than a couple of hours.
I was prepared to field questions from her on the relatively short flight, but I was hoping they would be easy ones with concrete answers. I had a suspicion that being seated next to me on the plane with no other real distractions for either one of us would prompt her to take care of any lingering questions about the last seven weeks. She only asked me two questions actually. The first was if I was afraid to be alone or go anywhere by myself. I guess she thought I had brought her with me to keep me company or to ward off a potential threat. I assured her I was not afraid. Then she asked if I thought the police would
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