Secrets to the Grave

16

Sara walked around her sculpture, trying to concentrate, trying to focus and see the direction she needed to go. Nothing came.

She had a vision a week ago, when she started the project. It was supposed to be about strength and femininity. The metal—the strength—would bend but not break. From the wounded heart would flow feminine beauty in the form of hand-painted silk ribbons.

But as she looked at the piece now, she saw nothing but a mess of twisted wire and steel mesh. Car Wreck on a Stick. That was what it looked like.

Anxiety swirled through her. Fragments of the morning kept flashing through her mind like a strobe light. Detective Mendez, grim faced, mustache framing his downturned mouth. Marissa’s house. The ruined studio. The ruined art.

“Ms. Fordham is deceased.”

Oh my God.

“Ms. Fordham is deceased.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, trembling.

In her mind’s eye she could see Marissa walking, talking. She used her hands when she spoke as if she were trying to draw a picture to illustrate her point. Vibrant. Animated. Full of life.

“Ms. Fordham is deceased.”

She felt nauseous.

She reached out and tried to adjust a piece of the wire mesh, and nicked the tip of a finger. A droplet of blood rounded bright red like the sudden bloom of a flower on a cactus, then rolled off her fingertip to splash like a tear on the heavy canvas drop cloth that covered the garage floor.

They had converted the space above the garage into a studio for her some months ago. But it was no place for a sculpture as tall as this was, made from steel and requiring welding. She had commandeered this far stall of their three-car garage for the project.

Her studio upstairs was a beautifully lit space with plenty of room for painting and crafts projects, and working with the silk, her latest passion. Although in empty moments when her head wasn’t full of whatever she was working on, she could never escape the thought that the studio was her consolation prize. It was her payment for not divorcing Steve.

He had been cheating on her with Lisa Warwick, a nurse who had volunteered her time to advocate in family court for women from the Thomas Center. Just as Steve devoted hours and hours of his time—their time—to the same cause.

Sara had suspected for a long time, but had never had the courage to confront him. If she had confronted him, she would have then had to confront the reality of the next step. Did they go to counseling? Did she just divorce him? Could she ever trust him again?

The answer to the last one was no. He had never admitted to the affair. To this day, he had never accepted culpability. Typical lawyer. His accomplice was dead. There were no witnesses to testify against him. But Sara knew, and Steve knew she knew. And she got a lovely art studio out of it, but her self-esteem had taken a beating.

She accepted that and lived with it, but she wore that mantle of the betrayed wife like it was made of chain mail and coarse hair. It was heavy and uncomfortable, but she couldn’t get out of it. She told herself she did it for Wendy. She hoped that was true. She hoped that was right.

Wendy loved her father. She very much enjoyed being the center of her parents’ world. She didn’t need to know that her parents’ marriage no longer existed in a true sense of the word. At least, that was what they all pretended.

Sara tried again to focus on her work, walked around to see it from a different angle. It didn’t look like anything.

She wondered if it would have looked like something to Marissa.

“Ms. Fordham is deceased.”

Murdered.

Oh my God.

A car door slammed in the driveway, making her jump. She pressed her bleeding hand to her heart and glanced at her watch. Must be car pool. Wendy coming home. Time to pull herself together. She forced a smile as she turned. It froze and cracked as her husband came into the garage.

“Oh. I thought you were Wendy. You’re early.”

“I heard some bad news,” he said. “About Marissa Fordham.”

“Where did you hear it?” she asked stupidly, as if no one else would know by now. As if it were somehow her terrible secret to keep.

“Detective Mendez told me you were there, at her house.”

“Marissa and I were supposed to work this morning. I got there and ... he told me.”

“Are you all right?”

“No. Of course not. Are you?”

Steve had known Marissa. As part of his volunteer work for the center he had helped with setting up the copyright on the poster so the proceeds of sales would go directly to the Thomas Center.

She had wondered if that was all her husband had done with Marissa. The curse of the woman scorned: to look at every woman her husband had contact with and wonder if he was sleeping with her too. Marissa was beautiful, headstrong, sexy—a description people had used for Sara what seemed an awfully long time ago ... How strange that was, she thought now, remembering that she and Marissa were close to the same age.

Her husband shook his head, hands on his hips. He was standing not three feet away from her. There had been a time when they both would have closed that distance and she would have been in his arms.

“No,” he said. “It’s terrible.”

“What’s going to happen to Haley?”

“I don’t know.”

She went to push a chunk of hair out of her eyes and smeared blood across her cheek.

“You’re bleeding,” Steve said.

Once he would have taken her hand and kissed her wounded finger.

“I cut myself.”

“Why don’t you wear gloves when you’re working on this thing?” he asked, more annoyed than concerned.

Suffering for your art? Mendez had asked her.

She wondered what either of them would think if she told them the physical pain was a relief.

Another car door slammed out on the street, and the opportunity was lost—not that she ever would have taken it. Her daughter was home. Time to put on a happier face.