The Probable Future

“Promise me you’ll do something, Daddy.”

Stella looked fragile, like a piece of glass, and yet she was also intractable, absolutely sure of what he must do. How lucky he was to have her. How fortunate to be seen through her eyes.

Will Avery held his hand over his heart and vowed to accomplish what he’d never before attempted or promised. He would, indeed, do more. He kissed his daughter good-night and watched her run up the steps, and then he walked through the dark. He felt as though he were floating up Marlborough Street, as though the damp air had turned to water. He was a fish, swimming upstream. He was an arrow, aimed with trust and devotion. The sky was filled with what Jenny always referred to as dreamlight, a sprinkling of those constellations which she felt brought on more dreams for most sleepers. That was one thing he especially missed about his marriage: he used to love to hear Jenny tell him other people’s dreams. He himself had never been much of a dreamer. More and more, sleep was of little comfort to him; it had become flat, the country of regret, the empty inner landscape of a man who has lied for so long he can no longer recognize the truth.

Will wished it had been his dream all those years ago, on that morning when Jenny ran after him. He wished he was capable of imagining dark angels, fearless women, bees that would never sting. Still, there was one angel on earth who believed in him, and he’d made her a promise he fully intended to keep. This was a first for him, something he wouldn’t have imagined was in his nature. Astounding what love could do to a person. Amazing the changes it could bring. It could alter history, it could stop and start wars; it could even make an honest man out of Will Avery. By the time he reached the police station, Will was whistling, the sign of a man with a clear conscience. It was true he was a liar through and through, but even a liar could have a heart, despite what some people might think. Even a liar could convince himself he was about to do the right thing.

IV.

THE MESSAGE CAME while Jenny was out picking up lunch, round the corner at the market on Charles Street, having telephoned in her order for a Caesar-salad-to-go and a strong, black tea. That Will Avery would list her as his next of kin seemed ridiculous, considering the fact that they’d barely spoken in the past six months, but apparently he had, for there was a message on her desk informing her that he was being held on suspicion of murder. Evidently, whoever had taken the message hadn’t kept it to herself, but had spread it far and wide, from Mortgages to Securities, so that all eyes were already on Jenny as she walked to her desk; people knew she would be shocked when she read the note, which had been taped to her weekly calendar.

Jenny tossed her salad in the trash; she’d never get to eat lunch now. Her stomach had dropped into some bottomless pit and she had a tingly feeling in her fingers and toes, the way she always did before disaster struck. Why, on the day of her wedding, right on the steps of City Hall in Cambridge, her toes were so afflicted she could barely put one foot in front of the other. Anyone else would have known herself to be headed for unhappiness; that should have been apparent simply from the way she’d hesitated on the way to see the town clerk as though it were a tar pit that was waiting for her, rather than wedded bliss. Anyone else would have turned and run, whether or not she had to limp all the way. But not Jenny, she had to go forward no matter what; she couldn’t admit when she had made a mistake, a flaw her mother had always accused her of having. You will never back down, Elinor had said. Not for love or money. Not if you’re the wrongest person on earth.

Jenny would be lucky to manage a few gulps of hot tea for lunch as she waited for the police switchboard to connect her with a detective. She was soon informed that her husband was being questioned in connection with a murder that had taken place the week following Stella’s birthday. Someone had climbed in through an open window or managed to get through the door in Brighton and slit a woman’s throat. There had been no witnesses and no apparent motive. Jenny recalled being frightened by the story on the six o’clock news, a teacher, well thought of and respected, a pretty woman of thirty-three, had met this horrendous fate. Jenny had made a mental note to have a locksmith come round to check if their deadbolt needed updating.

But what had this all to do with them? Plenty, it seemed. Her husband, Jenny was now told, had come to the police before the murder with a great deal of information and was now being held for further questioning. The detectives had been particularly interested when they’d found the dead woman’s phone number in Will Avery’s possession.

“Ex,” Jenny was quick to correct.

“Excuse me?”