The Best Way to Bury Your Husband by Alexia Casale

Author:Alexia Casale [Casale, Alexia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

34

Catastrophe

The following day starts with a flurry of progress. I wake to find a thank-you note with the keys to Nawar’s back gate and kitchen door on the mat when I come downstairs. Setting them aside, I hurry to follow Janey’s instructions about the litter and the photo.

Next, over breakfast, I send off the email to the council with a disproportionate sense of accomplishment, which I promptly enhance by baking a batch of exceptional snickerdoodles. I deliver a portion to Edwina’s doorstep, finding a paper bag with my name scrawled across it waiting for me. Inside are several muddy lumps. I tear into the note tucked down the side.

More irises—black ones this time. Follow the same planting instructions. E

Grinning, I take the bulbs home, planting them behind my little seedlings, then I settle at the kitchen table. Despite my determination that today I will figure out how to explain the disappearance of our husbands, every idea brings its own stumbling block.

“What’s that creature where, if you cut one head off, extras grow back?” I ask Rosemary and Petunia. They either don’t know or won’t tell me. “Where can a bunch of people go, then just disappear—without their phones with them?”

Skydiving? Bungee jumping? No, those would involve other people. Boating?

“But where would the boat come from?” I ask the Jim-parcel. “And why would everyone on board disappear simultaneously, unless it sank?”

While I’m sure we could arrange that, ensuring the damage to the boat is plausible for an accident is another matter. Determined not to let my progress stall, I take Nawar’s keys and let myself through her back gate, then into the kitchen. With the plants watered and the fish dining happily, I check the wifi code is on the back of the router so I can log in on Lionel’s old tablet next time.

The buzz of a phone makes me smile in anticipation—Charlie’s song of the day is due—but it’s Jim’s mobile ringing, not mine. With a jolt of panic, I see the call is from “Yafir.” I’ve barely tapped the button when Samira’s speaking.

“Sally, there’s a man outside. I think he’s one of Yafir’s cousin’s sons. I’ve put the TV on really loud to pretend we can’t hear the door if he rings the bell, but he keeps moving over to the garage as if he’s trying to listen for someone moving about inside. He’s on the phone now, pacing the street, but I think he might try knocking at the garage or calling through the door and I don’t know what to do!”

Before clobbering Jim with Granny’s skillet, I’d have frozen in panic. Now, I barely pause before grabbing my keys.

Locking up the house, then the gate, I rush back home.

“I’m on my way,” I pant as I pound upstairs. “See if Leila can put some music on in the garage. I’ll be there soon.”

The second I hit disconnect, I snatch up a large hair clip, twist my unbrushed mop into a messy bun, then pull on my smartest cardigan.

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