Page 177 of The Woman Left Behind

You got what you saw.

He was not that now.

“What’s troubling you?” I asked cautiously and immediately stiffened, preparing for an emotional blow.

When I asked Willie this kind of question, the answer was usually issues with his family, which meant he got defensive, and he’d throw a tantrum, shouting about how I was trying to turn him against his kin (when I wasn’t, though I should have been—transference anyone?), and I just didn’t understand.

With Alex, I got impatience and such things as, “Well, you’d know if you’d move here, wouldn’t you?” Which led to secret keeping or twenty questions. It was exhausting.

Stormy was all about the brood. He didn’t talk feelings. He had a temper, but he didn’t lash out (at least, not to me). He didn’t make a scene. He just disappeared into himself.

I was expecting one of these three from Harry, in large part because he couldn’t talk due to his job, which had to be crazy frustrating.

And my heart was beginning to hurt because I was seeing this might be a problem for us.

But right then, being who he was, all he was, Harry proved me wrong.

He answered.

Put it right out there.

Honestly.

And fully.

“I did another death notice today. Ex-wife, two kids. The wife hated her ex. The kids had distanced themselves from their dad. But he was still their dad. They were confused, upset, and facing a life of never knowing if they could have fixed what was broken between them and their father.”

“Oh God, Harry,” I whispered.

“And this was after I walked to a man in full decomposition because his dead body had been sitting out in his car for over a week. I worked next to this guy for years. I didn’t respect him. I didn’t even like him. But I never wanted to see him like that.”

I closed my eyes as the heaviness of this overwhelmed me.

I opened them when he continued.

“I’ve also got a man who lost the use of his legs because his neighbor is a felonious asshole, and what, with probably the slightest fucking hint of decent police work, would have been an open and shut case, wasn’t. That man will live out his entire life in that wheelchair, doing it in a house next to the neighbor who it is very likely fucking shot him.”

Oh my God.

That was horrible.

Harry kept going.

“Further, I learned the FBI is after your ex-husband because he’s been laying to waste women in two different countries in the Pacific Northwest, marrying them, living off them and cleaning them out. If I ever find that asshole, I’ll have to wait to put him in one of our prisons for assaulting a man, because first, he’ll be spending time in a federal one.”

I was stunned. “Willie is doing all that?”

Harry nodded curtly. “Willie is doing all that.”

Good Lord.

How had I not seen what a mess he was?

I felt for those women, but thank God he’d never stolen from me.

Then again, back then, I didn’t have anything to steal.

Wretchedly, Harry wasn’t finished.

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