Stay With Me by Alison Gaylin Page B

Brenna’s boyfriend hadn’t been calling for social reasons. Quite the opposite, actually. “I thought you should know that Grady Carlson is dead,” he had said. “He told me what really happened to your husband. He left me the police papers. I gave them to Brenna.”
    Who does that? Who calls a lonely seventy-five-year-old woman past suppertime and smashes her whole life to pieces without warning? Who does that, without even having enough sensitivity to say, “I’m sorry”?
    Evelyn had wanted to say so many things to him. She’d wanted to shatter that righteous tone of his, to teach him a lesson about minding his own business, to tell him, Some secrets are secrets for good reason . But her own politeness forbade it. “Thank you for calling,” Evelyn had said.
    Would it have killed him, this young man she’d invited into her house and served a dinner she’d spent the whole day preparing? Would it have killed him to offer a seventy-five-year-old woman a few words of apology before destroying what was left of her family, all in the ridiculous name of “honesty”?
    Evelyn had never liked Brenna’s ex-husband, Jim, very much. He had a sarcastic streak, plus she’d long suspected he’d been seeing that anchorwoman before he and Brenna got divorced. But even Jim Rappaport would’ve had the social skills to say, “I’m sorry to have to do this, Evelyn . . .”
    The one thing Evelyn did know: Brenna and her boyfriend—Nick, that was his name—were perfectly matched. Both of them so young but not knowing it, both so convinced they were right about everything when they still had so much to learn.
    Brenna had always been like that, even when she was a little girl. Forever arguing her case until she wore you down, until it was easier to just give in and say, You know what? You’re right. So convinced of her own correctness, Brenna was, even before coming down with that memory disease. After, of course, she’d become insufferable.
    If you only knew, Brenna. If you only knew the real truth about your father. If you only knew, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge.
    The young these days were far too confident. Evelyn couldn’t recall a time in her life when she thought herself so above it all, so damn moral and perfect that she’d do what Nick had done . I thought you should know , indeed.
    And don’t even get Evelyn started on Detective Carlson. Because of him and his deathbed confession, she’d spent the last two weeks trapped in this slow boil of a panic. A woman her age who probably should be on high blood pressure medication—an artist too exhausted to create, a slab of granite in her studio, untouched for two weeks because she’d been waking up every morning at three, her daughter shrieking at her in her mind: How could you, Mother? How could you lie to me? Detective Carlson had shortened Evelyn’s lifespan by years , she was sure. Detective Grady Carlson, who couldn’t even die without causing her trouble.
    What drove this selfish desire to confess? Evelyn didn’t understand it. She could keep a secret until her very last breath if she had to, if she knew that things would be better that way . . . Envision a small, metal safe in a windowless room. Place the secret inside. Lock it up. Close the door to the windowless room. Never open that door again . Was Evelyn that much stronger than everyone else?
    Don’t forget to say good-bye first .
    The phone rang.
    Evelyn realized that it had been ringing all along; it hadn’t been a dream. Her heart beat hard enough to shake her whole body. My God . . . It’s time.
    She picked the phone up fast. “Brenna?”
    But she heard only static.
    “I think we have a bad connection,” Evelyn said. “I can’t hear you.”
    More static, then, for a half second, a break in it . . . a peal of a woman’s voice, a girl’s . . . “Please . . .”
    “Brenna?”
    The line went silent.
    “Hello?” Evelyn said. “Hello? Brenna? I’m sorry. Please don’t