Chapter 3

After a while I found myself on the love seat in my study. Cecelia's arm was around my shoulders and my head rested against her. I'd cried myself out, for the time being at least, and the tears had dried on my face. Cecelia's hand rubbed gently on my shoulder, and every once in a while she'd pull me tightly against her. Darlia had come in, following the sound, and now sat in my chair facing us, with my desk and its computer at her right hand.

I tried a smile. "You okay, 'Lia?" I asked.

"I'm okay, Daddy, but I'm worried about you."

I took a deep breath, my lungs shuddering as I drew in the air. "I'll be okay, 'Lia. Eventually."

"Mommy told me your friend died." While we don't try to overload Darlia with adult stuff, we've never shielded her from reality. She's a Christian and understands heaven as well as any nine-year-old, but we don't tell her someone's "gone to heaven." We say "died," the bald word. After all, not everyone who dies actually goes to heaven.

"Yeah."

"It hurts you." She was trying puzzle things out; this was the worst any of us had hurt since I'd married Cecelia. Well, maybe the near breakup of our marriage when Darlia was two had hurt as bad, but she didn't remember that.

"Yeah."

"Would I hurt like that if Gazelle died?"

I thought how to put it. "Well, Larry wasn't my best friend." I searched my mind for the name of one of Darlia's friends; it was like wading through molasses. My brain was feeling the overload, just as my body had felt it. "It would be more like if Shellie died, I think."

"I would cry if she died."

"I know you would, 'Lia. And I cried because Larry died. But I'd cry more, and longer, and harder, if Rudy died, and you'd cry more and longer and harder if Gacela died than if Sherrie died." I used the Spanish version in referring to Darlia's best friend; she's the only one who uses the English word.

"I think I understand, Daddy." She climbed out of the chair and came to where I sat. "I love you, Daddy." She hugged me tightly, then looked up into my face. "Will you be okay?" Her normally husky voice had an extra rasp of concern in it.

"Eventually, yeah, I'll be okay. But it won't be right away."

Darlia took my hand. "If you need me, just call me, okay?"

"Okay, Weightlifter." And I tried a smile again ... more successfully this time.

After Darlia had gone out I said to Cecelia, "I hadn't realized it was so late. How did she get home, anyway? I didn't even know she was home till I saw her in the chair."

"While you were out I arranged for Sara to pick her up." Sara is Cecelia's best friend, the ex-wife of my best friend, and the mother of Darlia's best friend. It's more complicated when I say it than it is in reality; the bottom line is we all love her and she loves us.

"I guess I was thinking of everything else."

"Not 'everything' else, Darvin. I know where your thoughts were. I'm more sophisticated than Darlia, having lived longer; I know how I would feel if I were in your shoes. I would not be fit to open a bottle of Coke, much less maintain my attention on external events."

I sighed and sat up straight. Cecelia kept her arm around me, but more loosely. I rubbed my hands down my face, feeling the dried tears and the bristles of my mustache. "Larry didn't kill himself, C."

"But the police officer who called told you he did – at least I presume that was the source of your information, though I was not privy to that conversation."

"Yeah, and he repeated it at the scene. But that's not what happened."

"How do you know?"

For the first time in our marriage I wanted to hold off on answering. A plan was forming in my mind, and I thought I knew who I wanted to give the info to. But my emotional reaction wasn't right; it was pointing me in the wrong direction. My wife is more important than someone I might ask to help me out. I took a deep breath, not as shuddery as the last one. "I know the guy."