Chapter 36 - The Husband I Buried

Now

The knock came just after eight on Saturday morning.

Not the polite, tentative knock of a well-meaning neighbor.

Three firm taps.

Whoever it was sounded impatient.

I went to the window first to see what I was dealing with, expecting Murphy and Davidson’s patrol car to be sitting out front. Instead, there was a sporty-looking Honda Civic I hadn’t seen before.

‘Who could that be?’ I asked Tess, but she looked as stumped as I was.

I opened the door and found Sofia standing there, coat still on, hair pulled back tight, eyes already scanning past me into the house.

My eyes widened. She wasn’t who I was expecting. ‘That your car?’ I asked, thumb pointing toward the Civic.

‘Yeah,’ she said, slowly noticing my surprise. ‘What? I like cars and when you’re driving a baby around all night trying to get them to sleep, sometimes changing gears is all you’ve got to keep you awake.’

I smiled. Luis liked cars too. It had obviously been a shared interest of theirs. ‘I didn’t picture you as a rev head,’ I said.

‘Yeah, well . . . You alone?’ Sofia asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

She stepped inside without waiting for an invitation and shut the door behind her, clasping her hands.

‘I should have told you something before,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t want to cause any more trouble. You seemed like you had enough going on.’

I went to the kitchen and reached for two mugs. ‘Tea or coffee?’

She didn’t look thrilled by either option.

‘Mimosas,’ I amended, pulling two champagne flutes from the cupboard and filling them with Prosecco and OJ.

Sofia smiled and took hers. ‘Thanks.’

‘Thanks for stopping by,’ I said once we were settled at the island bench. I didn’t remember mentioning where I lived. In my line of work, I was careful where my information was shared and who might access it. ‘What’s up?’

She didn’t answer right away, looking around the room. At the couch, the window, the framed photos of Luis and me. I looked outside to where Tess was exploring the backyard, a chew toy in her mouth. When I looked back, Sofia was staring out the window, fidgeting nervously with the stem of her glass.

Whatever she had to say, she wasn’t sure she should be saying it.

‘Sofia, are you all right?’

She nodded unconvincingly. ‘When Luis and I were together,’ she began, then stopped. Swallowed. ‘Things went from a kind of fairy tale to a nightmare.’

There was sadness in her tone, not just sadness for herself and what she’d lost, but for Luis too.

‘I told you that after he came back from service . . . he was different?’

I nodded. We’d gone over this before, but I could see Sofia needed to ease herself back into it before she could tell me the rest.

‘He was angry,’ she continued. ‘Not all the time. That’s the thing. It came in waves. I didn’t notice it at first. He started therapy, but it was almost like that made it worse.’ She stopped, resting her hand against her mouth. ‘I guess it brought it all up again. Made him relive it. Maybe it was too much. I don’t think he was ready for it.’

‘So, you’re saying his behavior changed after he left the army?’

She looked at me, like she didn’t want to say it, like she wasn’t sure what it meant. ‘He’d be calm, charming even. And then something would snap, like a switch had been flipped. He hit me once.’ She glanced at the framed photograph of Luis and me on the wall, but didn’t comment on it.

My chest tightened.

‘He’d never done that before. He was looking for ways to cope,’ she said. ‘He was drinking every night.’

I knew exactly what she meant. I had been through it with him too, some of his darker moods making me feel disoriented, like the life I thought we had had been flipped on its head. It left me feeling like I didn’t know who I was, trying to justify to myself why I stayed. I hadn’t known him before the army, but I could imagine Sofia’s shock at the change. He’d never hit me, though.

‘He hated the idea of being broken,’ said Sofia. ‘It made him feel weak.’

I shifted my weight, suddenly very aware of how still the room had gone. I couldn’t ask Sofia to trust me with her story if I wasn’t offering something of my own.

‘Sofia, my friend is a psychologist,’ I said carefully. ‘We were talking recently about military conditioning, what repeated exposure to violence or torture can do to someone. She said it can make people more susceptible to manipulation, or push them to act out of character.’

Sofia considered that, her gaze fixed on something past my shoulder.

‘I don’t think Luis’s behavior had anything to do with the military,’ she said finally. ‘I think it was whatever happened after that changed him.’

Jess’s words surfaced unbidden. The combination of conditioning and trauma can rewire someone. Then what Keith had said. Maybe someone broke him down.

Maybe Luis hadn’t snapped. Maybe something had unraveled him. One piece at a time.

‘One night,’ Sofia said, her voice dropping, ‘a couple of months after he got back, he came to bed late.’

My breath hitched. At what she was about to say, or at the thought of them in bed together?

‘I was already asleep,’ she continued, ‘but when I heard him, I woke up. I didn’t realize it was him. It didn’t feel like him.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘The sound of his footsteps. The . . . presence. I lay there, completely still, trying to work out if someone had broken into the apartment.’

Fear crept up my spine, cold and intimate. Dread at what was coming next.

‘I spoke to him,’ she said. ‘I said his name. I still don’t know if he ignored me, or if he couldn’t hear me at all. It was like he was somewhere else. Like he’d left his body behind.’

Exactly like how he had been at the train station.

Sofia tightened her grip on the glass. ‘He took a pillow,’ she said quietly, ‘and pressed it over my face.’

The room lurched.

For a moment I couldn’t breathe. My vision narrowed, the edges dimming, like my body had decided this was too much to process at once.

‘I don’t even know how I got free,’ Sofia went on. ‘Instinct, maybe. I rolled. Kicked. I ran. I left that night.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I don’t let myself think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t.’

The words settled heavily between us, pressing down on my chest until it hurt to inhale. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said numbly. The apology felt inadequate. Useless. But my instinct, which had guided me more times than I could count, told me she wasn’t lying.

‘Mackenzie,’ Sofia said, ‘I don’t know what Luis was involved in, but I think whatever it was, it was dangerous.’ She hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t go digging into it.’

I didn’t respond.

She watched my face, trying to read my expression, deciding on her next move. ‘I hoped if you spoke to Keith, he might put you off,’ she admitted. ‘But then I remembered the look on your face when you came by my house. Nothing was going to stop you.’

I didn’t deny it.

Her mouth tightened. ‘I hope this does.’

There was a roaring in my ears now, my pulse thrumming loudly. Images collided – Luis’s calm smile, his steady hands. But beyond that, the way he’d always insisted on order. On being strong. Underneath it all, was there a broken man, the man Sofia was describing? Luis had never seemed broken. He was always so collected, so put together.

‘I haven’t stopped thinking about the photo you showed me,’ Sofia said. ‘The woman at his grave.’

My stomach dropped. I hadn’t stopped thinking about her either.

‘I think I might know who it is.’

Something sharp cut through me – fear, yes, but also something else.

‘Luis used to have this friend,’ Sofia continued. ‘They were . . . close.’ She searched for the right word. ‘I wondered if they were more, but he always denied it.’

My hands curled into fists at my sides. It would explain why she appeared to be crying at his grave.

‘What was her name?’ I asked.

Sofia hesitated.

‘Elena Farrell.’

I hadn’t heard that name before. ‘Luis never mentioned her,’ I said. ‘Maybe they had a falling-out.’

‘Maybe,’ said Sofia. ‘They were best friends, but Luis was good at compartmentalizing. To the point of being secretive. And I was never invited into their friendship.’

I pictured the woman again. The bowed head, the stillness of her body, the way she’d stood just far back enough to avoid being noticed.

‘If you knew about her . . .’ I asked. ‘Why wouldn’t he have told me?’

Sofia’s answer was quiet. Careful.

‘Because whatever she shared with Luis,’ she said, ‘wasn’t meant for his wife.’

The room felt colder.

I thought of the life I’d built with him. The parts he’d let me see. The parts he hadn’t.

I wondered whether Luis’s secrets were kept out of deception, or out of necessity.

*

After Sofia left, the house didn’t feel empty. It felt like there was someone close by, watching.

I went to the drawer, where I’d left the invitation, not sure I’d find what I was looking for.

It wasn’t at the top, so I dug deeper, turning over bits and pieces I’d accumulated when I couldn’t think of where else to put them. Pens. Books. Old mail. A sewing kit I’d never used.

I pulled the drawer from its runner and tore everything out.

The invitation wasn’t there.

Whatever Luis had been a part of didn’t end when he died.

It was still watching.