Her Final Confession

Chapter Nine

MAY 1993

Seattle, Washington

Clarity came in pieces. Luisa Munroe didn’t understand what was happening at first. She didn’t even realize something was happening at all. Arriving home from her three to eleven shift at Northwest Hospital, she was more concerned with the ache in her lower back than the fact that the porch light wasn’t on. She let herself inside and through to the darkness of the living room.

“Josh?” she called.

She flicked the light switch next to the front door. Nothing. A tired sigh escaped her. How long had the power been off, she wondered. Long enough for all the food in their freezer to have gone bad? Throwing her purse onto the couch, she made her way to the kitchen, where a slant of light cut across the room, illuminating the space in a dim glow. Luisa looked left toward where her neighbor’s backyard floodlight shone, as it always did, through their kitchen window. She’d been nagging Josh for months to put up miniblinds, since the jerk next door refused to turn the light away from the side of their house.

“Josh?” she called again.

She crossed over to the back door, upsetting the hot air balloon–shaped wind chimes that hung over the door on the back porch as she opened it. She peered outside, noticing for the first time that lights glowed from the windows of the neighboring houses, meaning it was only their power that was out. Heading back inside, she noticed the drawing stuck to the front of their refrigerator. A slip of white paper with awkward stabs of color that jerked back and forth across it; a child’s rudimentary drawing of a red house, complete with a clunky yellow sun and four stick figures.

“Josh!” This time, Luisa’s voice held a tinge of panic.

They didn’t have children. They didn’t have friends or coworkers with children. None of the neighbors they were friendly with had small children. They didn’t even have any nieces or nephews. One of the things that had drawn them together and solidified their commitment to one another was their decision not to have children. They were happy. They had enough. It was a decision most people couldn’t understand, but it made sense for them.

Luisa worked in the ICU—where it was painfully apparent just how fragile life could be—but more importantly, she had no contact with children unless you counted the adult children who sometimes lost their parents. Josh worked as an auto mechanic, and he was usually under a vehicle, not out dealing with customers—or their kids. Staring at the drawing, Luisa racked her brain for a scenario in which her husband might receive a drawing from a child—and then hang it on their fridge.

The drawing—wherever it had come from—did not belong to them.

Suddenly she heard the silence of the house like a thunderclap. Racing to the bedroom, she threw the door open. She had a split-second glimpse of Josh on his knees at the foot of their bed, the naked skin of his back, his hands bound behind him—and then the beam of a flashlight blinded her. A voice she didn’t recognize said, “Oh good, you’re home. Now we can get started.”