The Whispers: A Novel by Ashley Audrain

Author:Ashley Audrain
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

27

Mara

Her front door is still propped open from the paramedics, and from the porch, she can hear the phone ringing again in the living room. There’s a dullness to the daylight now, the sun getting lower. They’ve been calling her all day. The hospital, she assumes, or the morgue. They’ll want her to make decisions and probably pay them something. She thinks about Albert’s wallet, about the bank, about what to do next. They’ll want her to collect his damp clothes. His watch. How long can she wait? What do they do when there’s nobody to call?

She’s been out here for hours, trying to decide how the aloneness feels. She doesn’t notice Ben until he’s right in front of her.

“How are you?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for the answer. “You’re probably wondering what’s going on.” With my husband’s body? she thinks. With his soul? Do I believe in the pearly gates of heaven anymore? But, no, he’s talking about next door. About the boy. He’s saying there was an accident last night. He’s mentioning Rebecca being at work and something about the father on a flight from London and something else about brain surgery. He has no idea that Albert is dead. That the ambulance took him away today. That tiny fraction of time can be erased in one rub with the end of a pencil. Mara only nods. She’s thinking of how small her kitchen felt with the stretcher in there, like a dollhouse. And then it’s like Ben is floating away, off her porch and into his own home. She can’t remember what she said to him.

That poor child.

And then she realizes she forgot to check the backyard this morning for the paper airplanes, although they might be damp from the wet ground last night. She must not forget to look. They’re important to her.

She holds her hands in front of her. They’re trembling.

She wants to be downstairs, in the basement. In Marcus’s old bedroom.

She pulls the cord on the bedside lamp. He’d always left it on at night, although she’d tell him to turn it off for the sake of the electric bill. But she’d liked to come down once he’d dozed off, to study his face when he slept. Sometimes she sleeps here when she’s restless at night and thinking in circles about him. She imagines how it would feel to see sixty-one years on his face beside her.

She’d set up this room in the basement for Marcus when he turned thirteen. She’d hoped some physical distance in the house from Albert would help him feel less anxious. Albert never even saw the room. He only stomped around above, his footsteps like a drumbeat that raised her son’s heart rate while he read comic books under the covers. The airplane models are still on the dresser, sky-blue paint on the walls. She never cleaned out the dresser drawers. In the closet is a box with his favorite things, some trinkets, a rubber-band ball, a Hardy Boys book.

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