I am the one who killed Jonathan.
I will hear my husband saying those words in my head until the day I die.
Until this moment, Cecelia has seemed utterly confident and in control of the situation, but this confession has shaken her. “Enzo, are you saying ”
“I am so sorry,” he says quietly. “I did a terrible thing. I am sorry that I lied about it. But now I will make it right. I will confess.”
“What are you talking about?” I am nearly shrieking—loud enough for the kids to hear—but I can’t help myself. “Why would you do that?”
He drops his eyes. “I am so sorry. I did it for us for the insurance money. We were so broke and ”
Cecelia is at a loss for words. And, for that matter, so am I. I have so many questions. If he did this for the insurance money, does that mean Suzette was involved? Will she be arrested too? I can’t even think of where to start, but then the doorbell rings, and I realize that I don’t have time to ask even one question.
Cecelia snaps back to attention. “That’s the police,” she says.
Enzo’s face fills with panic. “Millie, can you please bring the children upstairs? I do not want them to see.”
The doorbell rings again, followed by pounding on the door. I don’t want the kids to see either. But it doesn’t seem like I have much time.
Oh, Enzo, what were you thinking?
I nearly trip over my feet on the way to the kitchen, where the kids are still eating their pancakes. God, I wish I could let them finish those pancakes. But there’s no time. “You guys,” I say. “I need you both to go to your rooms and shut the doors. Now.”
There was a time when a request like that would have been met with whining and objections. But right now, they get it. They abandon their plates and run upstairs. Two doors slam in succession.
When I return, Enzo and Cecelia still have not opened the door— they’re waiting for me to give the all clear. Enzo looks like he’s going to be sick, but he squares himself and opens the front door. It’s no surprise that Detective Willard is standing there, that same grim expression on his face that I have come to despise.
“Enzo Accardi,” he says. “You are under arrest for the murder of Jonathan Lowell.”
When the detective snaps the cuffs on my husband’s wrists, I am so glad the kids are upstairs so they don’t witness this. I know how it feels to have handcuffs on your wrists. I remember the way the metal bites into your skin, and when you walk, you almost feel off balance. I know what it feels like to be taken away by the police in handcuffs. I see that pain in Enzo’s eyes.
And he has a lot more handcuffs in his future. A lifetime.
“I love you, Millie,” Enzo calls out to me just as they are taking him away.
He doesn’t make excuses. He doesn’t pretend he’s innocent anymore.
All he has to say for himself are those four words.
“Enzo!” Cecelia calls after him, sticking her head out into the rain. “Do not say one word to them without me there! Do you hear me? Not one word! I’m going to meet you there!”
I watch the detective lead my husband to the police car. They shove him in the back seat, and something inside me just breaks. I’m never going to come home to my husband again. The next time I see him, he will be in custody.
He will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Cecelia closes our front door and leans against it, shaking her head. She brushes a strand of wet hair out of her eyes. “I can’t believe that just happened. I am stunned.”
“Yeah,” I manage.
“We’re missing something.” She stares intently out the window at the police car carrying my husband away from us—as if that might somehow hold the clue. “He’s not telling us everything. He wouldn’t kill someone for money. I don’t believe that for one second. He had another reason.”
“Maybe ”
Except she doesn’t know how badly we wanted this house. Even at ten percent below asking, it wasn’t in our price range, but we bought it anyway. We celebrated when our mortgage got approved, but now I wish the bank had rejected us. We could have kept looking. We could have found something just as good where we weren’t constantly struggling to pay our bills.
“Do not panic, Millie,” she says to me. “I will handle this.”
I shoot her a look. “My husband just confessed to murder, Cecelia.”
It’s hard to gauge what the worst part of this is. It’s awful in every way imaginable. But the hardest part is imagining Enzo doing that to Jonathan. It’s not like Jonathan was shot from across the room. Enzo walked right up to him with his pocketknife and slashed his throat from ear to ear. What kind of person does that?
But there’s a lot Enzo has done in his life that I would not have believed. I couldn’t have imagined my husband breaking fingers for a mobster, but it turns out that’s part of his history too. He’s apparently very much the sort of man who could cut another man’s throat.
After all, he did it. He confessed.
A door slams upstairs. One of the kids must’ve come out of their room to witness their father being taken away by the police. Now I have to deal with that. I have to tell both of them what happened.
“I better get over to the police station,” Cecelia says. “Will you be all right, Millie?”
Absolutely not. But there’s nothing she can do for me right now. “Go to the station.”
She nods. “Remember—this is not over. I will help him.”
“Thank you,” I say, although what can she really do for us at this point? It wasn’t self-defense. It was either first-degree or second-degree murder. Either way, he’s lost his freedom for good.
Cecelia hugs me goodbye, and she promises to stay in touch with any updates. Once she’s gone though and the house is silent once again, I take in the reality of my situation.
Enzo is gone.
And now I have to tell the kids.
As I walk up the creaky stairs to the second floor of our house, it hits me that there is no way we will be able to afford the mortgage payments anymore. The first thing we are going to have to do is put this house back on the market. I don’t know where we will be able to afford to live on just my income.
I start for Nico’s room first, because he has been the more troubled of my two children, but then I hear the sobs coming from Ada’s room—that girl always takes everything so hard. And in this situation, I can’t blame her. I knock on the door, and when she doesn’t answer, I come in anyway.
Ada is lying on her bed, sobbing into her pillow, her narrow shoulders shaking violently. Actually, her whole body is shaking. I saw somebody have a seizure at the hospital last year, and this looks not entirely dissimilar to that. Ada has always been a daddy’s girl, and it’s going to destroy her world to find out what he did. Just watching her cry makes the tears I’ve been holding back spring to my eyes.
Enzo, how could you do this to us? How could you?
“Ada.” I sit on the edge of her bed and stroke her soft black hair. “Ada, honey I told you not to come down.”
She says something into her pillow that I can’t quite make out. “It’s okay.” I stroke her hair again. “It’s going to be okay.”
I don’t know who I am trying to convince. If I’m trying to convince her, it’s not working. And I’m not convincing myself either. I should just shut up.
Ada shifts on the bed, turning to look at me with her puffy, bloodshot eyes. “They think Dad killed Mr. Lowell.”
My instinct is to lie, but what is the point? “Yes. They do.” Tears stream down her cheeks. “But he didn’t!”
This next part is going to be hard for her, but she’s going to hear it sooner or later. Better she hears it from me than reads it online or hears
it from a friend. “Ada, honey, he confessed,” I tell her. “He admitted to them that he killed Mr. Lowell.”
“He didn’t though!” she cries. “I know he didn’t!”
I try to put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs me away. “How do you know?”
“Because,” my daughter says, “I was the one who killed him.”
