Page 37 of A Deeper Darkness

McLean, Virginia

Susan Donovan

Susan Donovan sat in the driver’s seat of the car with the cell phone planted against her ear and listened to Betty Croswell cry. Her words were strangely surreal. Susan was thrown back three days, when the doorbell rang and she knew, just knew, Eddie was gone. It was eight at night. The sun had slipped away almost an hour earlier. The porch lights cast shadows across the driveway, shadows that she could swear held Eddie’s likeness. She’d allowed the police into the house, not listening to their words, not wanting to hear that he was dead. As if she ignored them, it wouldn’t be true.

“Mommy, why are you crying?” Ally asked, jerking her back from the precipice.

Susan sniffed, hard. “Betty, can you hold on a minute? I need…”

Without listening to Betty’s reply, she put the phone on the dashboard and pulled Ally right out of her seat into her lap. She put her arms around the girl and sank back into her thoughts.

Death comes for us all.She knew that. Understood it.

But damn it, she didn’t need to accept it.

“I miss Daddy, baby.”

“I miss him, too, Mommy.”

Ally settled comfortably against her mother’s shoulder, as if she knew they needed this physical connection to get through the afternoon.

One day at a time.

Susan took in one more deep breath and reached for the cell phone once again.

“Betty, I’m sorry.”

But Betty was gone. Another call, or annoyance, or whatever. Susan didn’t mind. She had a bad feeling about all of this.

She had no idea how long they sat there, mother to daughter—bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood—holding each other. Ally fell asleep within minutes. Susan may have slept, too, even dreamed, her daughter’s breath warm on her clavicle. Eventually she roused, and moved the sleeping Ally back into her seat. She pulled the seat belt across her frail body, knowing she should put her in the back, in her booster, but not wanting to move too much in fear of breaking the small spell they’d cast on each other. A spell of hope, mingled with love.

It was only two miles to the house on Spring Hill. She took the back road, up windy Georgetown Pike for the last bit, and managed to get into their garage unnoticed by either nosy neighbors or the police.

She shut the garage door, walked around the car, nestled the still-sleeping Ally against her breast and went into the house.

Something was wrong.

A smell, a dislocation of the air, a breeze…

The back door was open.

Had she left it that way when she rushed out to the school?

No. No way. She’d never be that careless.

Ally must have felt her tense, because she opened her eyes with a start.

“Mommy?”

Susan set her down.

“Ally, go back to the car. Get in and lock the doors. Okay?”

Ally’s eyes grew wide, but she listened to her mother without hesitation. When Susan heard the thunk of the car locks, she turned and went to the breakfront in the corner. She reached up, high on her tippy toes, to the top, and felt the hard angles of the weapon stored there.

Even with a chair and the knowledge of the gun’s existence, the girls were too small to get to it. She brought it down, checked the magazine, popped it back in, pulled the slide and felt the reassuring clink of the bullet settling itself into the chamber.

Locked and loaded, as Eddie used to say.