The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D Read Free Page A

seemed called for, but he seemed closed to either one. Instead, she fell back on the most mundane thing he’d said.
    “So you read them?”
    She knew it was wrong even as she said it. He looked up at her, his broad face inscrutable, none of his usual amiability there.
    “Not really. Just a little. It’s always been a given, you don’t touch the journals.” The way he drew out the word
—jyouuu-nuls
, with weight on the first syllable—gave it an emphasis that was quaint, even sarcastic. Sarcasm, from Dave Martin.
    He turned to the coffeemaker even though Chris and Kate had declined his offer and began to load scoop after scoop, far too much for one pot.
    “These past months it’s been there sitting in the nightstand drawer, this last one, plus a whole trunk of them locked in the closet. She was different last summer, wiped out from the baby, probably. But I just wanted to know whether she left the house feeling a little sad that she’d miss us, or if she was too damned glad to be getting away to care. I expected it was probably a little of both.” He closed the filter hatch on the coffeemaker and pressed the red button. “On the last page I saw something about her looking forward to seeing this Michael guy, and more about him a few pages before that. I just thought I’d mention it in case you opened the notebook and got all worked up.”
    Kate looked out the window. The sound of squabbling filtered through, kids who had reached the height of goodwill and were headed down the other side. The pot groaned as water struggled through impossibly dense grounds to make coffee no one wanted.
    “Dave,” she said. “This is
Elizabeth
.” The emphasis on her name conveyed the absurdity of anything inappropriate.
    He turned away from her to rinse out the pasta bowl. Huge amounts of leftovers went down the disposal, days of potential lunches. Then the rest of the green salad. From the counter, a freshly cut quarter of tomato, a wedge of red pepper. Elizabeth would have folded each into a neat ziplock bag, saving it for the next meal.
    “The little bit I read didn’t sound much like Elizabeth. Not that it was ever intended for my eyes, anyway.” He shoved a length ofcucumber down the drain. The unsaid thing hung in the air:
Or she would have left them to me
.
    When Dave had called Kate to tell her about the addendum to the will, he had not offered her any direction as to what she was supposed to do with the journals.
It’s not exactly something Elizabeth and I discussed
, he’d said, voice flat. Then he’d fallen silent waiting for her to say something insightful, something that would show her to be this deserving of his wife’s trust. She could not imagine what might be in the journals, but very likely he could. Or, perhaps, the problem was that he could not.
    Dave ran the disposal for a long minute, its whine rising through the produce and letting Kate off the hook even if she’d known what to say.
    Chris walked into the kitchen holding two pairs of pajamas. “I’m going to get the kids changed before we go. It’ll be easier once we get to the motel if they fall asleep on the drive.” He looked from Kate to Dave, taking in their proximity and silence.
    Kate put a hand through her hair and willed him not to ask. “If they’re changing upstairs, tell them to say hi to their old goldfish.”
    “Goldfish?”
    She rubbed her eyes, weary. “Remember? We left them here with the kids instead of trying to move them to D.C.” Chris raised his eyebrows but she didn’t say more, and he left to change the children.
    She looked to the wall, to the girl with ice cream, the tense discordant brownstones. Dave broke the silence.
    “It’s funny, Elizabeth couldn’t stand goldfish. They gave her the creeps. But she took care of yours like it was her mission, and Jonah’s kept it up pretty well.”
    The night before the Spensers had moved to Washington, D.C., Kate had shuttled between the broom-swept emptiness of her own