Page 108 of We Are All Guilty Here

“Yeah?”

“I would’ve married you if you’d asked me to.”

He rinsed the soap off her back. “I would’ve asked you if you’d wanted me to.”

She let him lift her arm, run the washcloth along her skin. Emmy studied his face again. He was still annoyed, but she knew he was also concerned. She said, “I wanted you to be mad at me.”

“Oh, believe me. I’m mad at you.”

“Not for the shitty way I left.” She reached over to turn off the taps. “I mean twelve years ago with Madison.”

Dylan hung the washcloth on the faucet. Sat back on his heels. Waited for an explanation. Emmy occasionally did this whenthey were alone, just the two of them, the woman who never talked to anybody but her father talked to the man who was desperate to hear what she had to say.

She asked, “Do you remember when I met you at school the morning after the girls were taken?”

He nodded.

“I told you that Madison wanted to talk to me before the fireworks show, and that I blew her off, and you said you hate when that happens, like it happens all the time.”

“It does happen all the time.” He put his hand over hers. “Why would I blame you for something so fleeting and out of your control?”

“Because.” Emmy forced herself to keep going. “Jonah beat me down so hard. I chose him over Hannah. I chose him over Madison. I didn’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“Babe, you were a year younger than Madison when you first met Jonah. You guys were together for almost twenty years. You can’t choose something if you don’t know you have a choice.”

Emmy wasn’t going to let herself off so lightly. “If I had stopped to listen to her …”

“You don’t know what would’ve happened.” He wiped away her tears. “Kids pretend like the important things don’t matter, and that the things that don’t matter are really important.”

“I’m too tired to understand what you said.”

“I know,mi cielo.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll set an alarm for nine thirty. You’ve still got a uniform in Jenna’s old room. I put your things in a plastic container on the top shelf. I need to get ready for court, and you need to get some rest.”

“Is Hannah being arraigned already?”

“Not yet. They’ve got another twenty-four hours. You know how it works. Either they have to charge her or let her go.” Dylan shrugged, but she could tell it was wearing on him. He was used to handling divorces, not capital cases. “The GBI is re-interviewing witnesses to see if anyone will say that Hannah was touching the gun when it went off.”

Emmy felt her stomach pitch. Sherry Robertson wasn’t playing around. She was trying to build a felony murder case. “What about Paul? Can’t he say Hannah wasn’t touching the gun?”

“I think when he sobers up and realizes he’s looking at the death penalty, he won’t have any qualms about flipping. You know how it works. They’ll take the death penalty off the table so he’ll testify against Hannah. First rat gets the cheese.”

Emmy wanted to believe he was wrong. “She’s the mother of his child. He wouldn’t do that.”

Dylan dried his hands on the towel. “I hope you’re right, babe. We’ll see.”

Emmy leaned back in the tub, rested her head on the edge. She looked up at the ceiling. She could hear Dylan in the kitchen. Loading the dishwasher, getting his keys, walking out the front door. Bap-Bap jumped onto the closed toilet lid. He turned in three circles, then lay down. She watched him blink, then blink again, then his eyes closed, and he was asleep.

She was desperate to do the same, but Emmy didn’t think it would happen. She had spent the last six months on edge every time her head hit the pillow. Waiting for Gerald to call for help. Waiting for Myrna to start screaming. Worrying about Cole. About Tommy. About Celia. About Dylan. About Bap-Bap. About work. About the podcast. About Adam. About a noise she’d heard and whether she should get up to investigate, and now that she was up, she might as well stay up since she had to go to work in a few hours anyway.

So then Emmy would sit alone at the kitchen table, and her mind would race as she searched for new things to stress about, new situations to catastrophize, until the tension wound up and she heard Myrna creaking at the top of the stairs, and Emmy’s stomach clenched while she wondered if her mother would fall down the stairs again, or if she would manage to reach the kitchen, and would she recognize Emmy or would she call her Martha or would she scream at the stranger who was sitting alone at her kitchen table?

Emmy heard the faucet drip. Bap-Bap started to snore. Her eyelids fluttered. She couldn’t fight it.

For the first time in six months, Emmy let herself fall asleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jude sat in her rental car looking at the house she’d grown up in. Originally, the 1920s home had been no more than a two-bedroom cottage. Then the kitchen had been expanded and a second story had been added. Then a garage. Then a wraparound porch. Then an equipment shed for a small tractor to work the back sixty. Jude’s room had been on the second floor, right side of the house, overlooking the porch, which had come in handy because she was always sneaking out. Bunk beds had been wedged into the rear bedroom for Henry and Tommy. Myrna and Gerald had slept in the largest room opposite. They’d all shared the bathroom at the end of the hall.

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