Page 59 of Downfall

“Why?”

The question I knew was coming. The million dollar question that everyone in this room didn’t know they wanted the answer to but now it’s like their lives depend on it.

“I don’t remember.”

He narrows his eyes. If he weren’t so professional I think he would scoff. “You don’t remember?” He repeats.

“No.”

“You remember arguing, you remember your husband strangling you but you don’t remember any actual details?”

I can hear it, the tone of disbelief. I have to be convincing now, I have to win him and everyone over with this answer or I’m fucked. I lick my lips, feeling the cracked skin. I need a lip balm. I need to take better care of myself.

“Like I said, Paris and I argue a lot.” I reply, keeping my voice steady. “He has a temper. Had a temper.” I correct myself. “I don’t remember what that argument was about because it could have been anything, any little thing set him off. But I remember his hands around my throat. I remember him choking me, and the screech of tyres and then I remember nothing.”

He sits back in his chair. “Would it be fair to say this isn’t the first time your husband injured you physically?”

I drop my gaze, frowning before I quickly recover myself. I won’t admit to that. Not because I’m protecting him, not because I’m protecting Paris, but because I won’t be seen as some battered wife. That I’ve stood by, that I’ve allowed this. That I’m the weak pathetic person I really am. My pride won’t have it.

And I can feel from the way my mother and father seem to bristle at that question that they don’t want me to admit it either. These are our family secrets. They’re not for all Verona to know.

“Ms. Capulet?”

I let out a low sigh but still he gets nothing.

“Ms. Capulet was your husband often physically violent with you?”

“Again, how is this relevant?” My father asks standing up. I look across at him meeting his gaze and it’s the same hard look of a man more concerned with what the world perceives him to be instead of what his actions actually make him.

“Mr. Capulet, you have spoken out of turn a number of times today. Consider this your last warning. This is not showtime TV. This is not a soap opera and you are not a lawyer. If you speak again I will have you removed.”

My father turns bright purple. He clenches his fists and it’s clear he wants to reply but he doesn’t dare. This is probably the first time in his entire life that he’s been put in his place. If it wasn’t so serious I think I might laugh.

The coroner turns back to me. “I appreciate this is not an easy question. I appreciate that you and your husband were married for a number of years and that his death must be affecting you but I need you to answer the question.”

“Why?” I half whisper it. I don’t want anyone else to hear though I’m certain they do.

He gives me a look that could almost be mistaken for one of compassion. “This is about the nature of his death. I need to ascertain whether his actions in anyway prior to the accident precipitated it.”

“They didn’t. We were fighting but that didn’t cause the truck to hit us. They were two separate events.”

He runs his eyes over my face, then stares for a moment at the bruising at the cause of all of this. “Would you say your husband was a kind man?” He asks quietly, as if it’s just us having a quiet conversation, as if we are two friends, divulging secrets.

“He was sometimes.”

“In what ways?”

I shrug. How was Paris kind? Maybe in the beginning when he was trying to seduce me but that side of him has long since vanished. “He used to surprise me with things, inconsequential things.” I state, bringing up old memories. I’m not exactly lying, just embellishing the truth, using artistic license and all that.

“Like what?”

“Like my favourite cake.” I don’t add that he’d then used it against me after I ate it, calling me a fat whore and all but forcing me to throw it up on command. “He bought me flowers too.”

“And jewellery?” He asks. It’s well known that Paris bought me jewellery. A lot of it. Everyone saw it as a demonstration of a loving husband when it was far from the case.

“Yes, he bought me a lot of jewellery.” I murmur.

“So he was generous?”

---