Confessions of a Murder Suspect

CONFESSION

There’s a famous phrase from Shakespeare you might have heard at some point: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

That was me, saying this horror couldn’t be true. Because you know what? I really wasn’t sure that Tamara was lying. At all.

After all, there had to be a concrete reason I’d never trusted Tamara; I generally don’t react to people emotionally. I analyze them.

At the same time I was accusing Tamara of lying, an image flashed into my mind. Setting: our kitchen. Suspects: my father and Tamara Gee. Malcolm is leaning in toward Tamara, gently nudging her against the fridge… or maybe she is pulling him against her; I can’t be sure. What I am sure of is that there were no unwilling participants in this affair.

If you saw your father whispering sweet nothings into the ear of your brother’s girlfriend, and if you saw her giggle in response and nuzzle your father’s face and neck, and if you saw him smile and laugh and basically encourage the whole disgusting exchange, it would freak you out, right?

What would you do? Would you pretend you didn’t see it and just barge in, saying, “Excuse me, I need to get into the fridge!” Or would you say, “What the hell are you doing?” Would you hold them accountable for their actions? Would you turn around and quietly leave? Would you tell your brother?

I didn’t know what to do. And thanks to Dr. Keyes and her great skill in teaching us to shatter our crippling memories, the flicker of this particular memory is so faded and gray, I’m not certain it ever actually happened. I could easily have dreamed it.

And since I will only ever act on the facts, I’m sure I never told Matthew.

But… I should have, shouldn’t I?