Page 86 of The New Year's Party
Montana is ahead. The world is ahead.
I know I’ll be alright.
I always am.
Chapter 37
Will
After hanging up with Hellie, Will still had an hour and a half to go.
He went through the twenty-four-hour drive-through at McDonald’s and got an Egg McMuffin and a large black coffee. He was the only one in line.
The person who handed him the cup and brown baggie barely looked at him.
They had no idea he’d killed someone tonight.
“Thank you!” he said before pulling away.
He ate the Egg McMuffin one-handed as he merged back onto the highway. It was almost five. The girls would still be sleeping when he got home, but he’d been practicing what to say to them once they were up, over breakfast.
Girls, somethingreally sadhappened at the party. Your mom died.
He’d call it an accident. He didn’t want to use the wordmurder.
She’s in Heaven with Jesus now, he would tell them, even though he had no idea if that was true.
His mother-in-law would have her own set of questions, and he would give her a slightly longer story: there was a drug addict at the party, someone both Jenn and he knew. They had no idea he was violent. Jenn got into an argument with him, and he pushed her down the stairs.
He wouldn’t offer more detail than that. If she pressed, Will would simply sayI don’t know. That he wasn’t there, hadn’t seen it happen. Just like he’d told the cops.
Then he would find an Indianapolis-based funeral home. Have Jenn cremated. Maybe take the girls on a special trip to the mountains, or the beach—either one would do, as long as it was far, far away—and scatter her ashes.
He still couldn’t believe she was dead. He’d gone to the basement to end things with her, but not in that way. Will merely wanted to tell her that he’d reached his decision: he wanted a divorce. The awful revelations of what she’d done to Will’s friends—theirfriends—was the push he needed to realize he couldn’t stay in the marriage. He could no longer be Will the Peacemaker.
Seeing that viral video over dinner, being toasted for being a peacemaker... it left a mark. An impression that echoed through the evening.Thatwas what Will was going to be known for? Playing it safe? Not risking direct confrontation? Will was the guy who ran his own credit card for a thief and bore the cost. And for a bike... it was worth it. But his life was worth more than a bike, and he’d let Jenn steal it from him without even putting up a fight.
The basement door wasn’t locked; he went right down. She heard him and called out,Who’sthere?and he called back,It’s me. Jenn was on the couch, looking strange, kind of out of it, like he’d just woken her up.
“Jenn,” he said, “this won’t come as a surprise, but I want a divorce.”
He would never forget the way she stared at him from the couch, her body limp, her arms dangling, her eyes wide and empty. Like she wasn’t really there.
“Jenn?” he said.
And then, she surged up, her limbs awkward, like she wasn’t in full control of her body.
“You—” She stumbled toward Will and shoved him in the chest.
“Jenn,” he said, even though her shove had been weak, “please don’t.”
But she wouldn’t stop. She kept grunting, and shoving, backing him toward the stairs. The monster inside Will was waking up, flexing its arms, but he could keep it under control—
“Jenn, we need to talk. Please stop! This is ridiculous!” His feet found the first stair.
By three stairs up, she was still coming. Her shoves were getting stronger.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said, starting to panic. The monster inside him was rolling its shoulders, clenching its fists... “People get divorced all the time, okay? We can work out a custody arrangement that makes sense for both of us.”
