Leather gloves still pressed to my face—(“two seconds, maybe three”)—I leave Nick, what’s left of him, and walk directly to the guesthouse. My phone is in my pocket, and I’ll call. I’ll dial the number in less than a minute, but dead is dead, so a minute won’t make a difference. One minute won’t help the paramedics, or the authorities, who’ll spend too much time as it is going through Nick’s things. Those printouts about bad news and trauma might mislead them or create drama where there isn’t any, an investigation where there needn’t be one. He’s dead. He’s over. He isn’t a person anymore. He’s a bundle of meat and marrow shrouded in gym shorts and faded gray cotton, doing its best to become dust-to-dust.

I let myself into the guesthouse and am met with the rich, fecal stink of rotting flowers. I grab the pages I printed, still neatly folded on the small table by the door, and get the hell out of there just as Elizabeth opens the sliding glass door across the yard.

“Hey,” she calls out, “I found that number. Robert?” She steps outside, walks toward me. “Robert, what is it?”

“Get in the house,” I command, pointing to the door. She obeys, and I take off my gloves so I can hide these folded papers in my back pocket. I’ll shred them. I’ll destroy them after dialing 911. I’ll dial 911.

“What’s going on?” Elizabeth asks, barely a whisper. She grips her neck, pressing the insides of her wrists together just under her chin. I grab her arm and I lead her upstairs to our bedroom—as far from Nick’s dead body as we can be without fleeing the premises—and I tell her what I found, who I found, what I saw, where. (“Why?” No one knows.)

Her eyes glaze and she falls to her knees, technically conscious but sufficiently incapacitated to signal that I’m the one obligated to hold it together, maintain composure, offer assurance, to pretend I believe everything’s under control, everything’s going to be just fine.

Elizabeth whispers, “Get Jonah. Tell him to stay inside.”

20.

No one lets you sleep after a thing like this. They’re not quick to say, “So sorry for your trauma, Doctor. Go rest, we’ll clean up this mess.”

Instead, a troupe of experts makes and leaves new messes. They expect me to be sharp and willing and accessible, but nobody ever says, “One last thing, then we’ll let you sleep.” The deputy medical examiner separates me from Elizabeth from Jonah from me, and they take turns squeezing minutiae from our memories before first releasing me, then Elizabeth, who offers to make tea for our unwelcome guests. I meet her in the pantry under the guise of helping her find Earl Grey.