8. BRECIA

Boulder, Colorado

2 years before

I fucked up his computer twelve times over the next few days.

He spent an hour on the phone with Apple support and ultimately got a new computer overnighted because of it.

When that didn't fix the problem, he brought out an electrician, who poked through the wiring in the basement and the garage, fixed a couple of loose connections, then told him it would be another $600 to dig any further.

He declined. He was moving soon. Let the next owners deal with it.

The popping sound and black screen happened when I channeled the anger, the hate, the disgust until it felt like the wave was crashing over me. It wasn't hard to do. Not at first, with the piece of human garbage right in front of me, holed up in his basement with a Diet Coke, pretending to be buried in his job with a browser in MatchStrike open at all times. All while the little blond girls played upstairs and their mother made him food and took his empty dishes away.

Kimmie came to the basement door after the screen had gone dark for the twelfth time. Dinner time had already passed. He'd stayed in the basement, insisting he needed to catch up on work because of his "stupid computer."

She knocked. Then she jiggled the door handle. "Daddy, will you read? Mommy says you will."

When he didn't respond, she tried again. Louder. "Daddyyyyyy! Mommy said to come get you—"

He stood up and flung the door open while her little hand was still on the handle. She fell into the room and banged her elbow on the doorframe.

"Tell Mommy she knows I'm busy," he replied between his teeth, ignoring her wide blue eyes filled with tears and the way she pulled her lower lip in hard.

"Okay," she whispered, then hurried back up the stairs.

I stopped for a while after that, filled with guilt instead of anger.

Maybe it wasn't fair for me to poke the bear, when the bear couldn't hurt me anymore.

He messaged Nicole back just once while I was messing with him, muttering under his breath and raking a hand through his short, freshly cut hair about the "frickin' computer."

I tried to bring the emotion back. To stop him. But the harder I tried to summon the rage and horror, the more I felt like a wrung-out rag. The way you feel after you've been sobbing for hours and suddenly hit a wall and you just stop. I couldn't feel anything anymore. I just felt worn out and empty.

I watched long enough to see that he was writing to tell her that they were still on for Saturday—and that he was sorry he hadn't been in touch because he'd been having computer trouble.

Then I went upstairs to be with April and the girls.

April and Emma were doing a puzzle in the empty living room, while Kimmie skipped in circles on the carpet in the spaces where the couches had been the day before. The moving truck would be here Sunday. Nearly everything was packed.

Oscar the cat was sprawled across April's lap, watching her hand move pieces of the puzzle into place. When I entered the room, Oscar turned his head and looked in my direction but stayed where he was.

"Fifteen," Kimmie proclaimed as she completed another circuit. "Sixteen." She stopped to catch her breath. "Mommy, do you think I can get to a hundred?"

April smiled. She looked tired but happy. She'd been up late packing, while James "worked."

I realized she was younger than I'd thought when I saw her that first night. Like the girls, she had soft, wispy white-blond hair that fell in light waves around her shoulders. Her hazel eyes narrowed as she studied the pile of puzzle pieces on the floor. I watched her pick out the edge pieces and nudge them over to Emma, who squealed, "Mom! I found another piece."

April nodded and continued sifting through the puzzle pieces, giving Oscar a pat on the head with her other hand. "I think we're going to be finished with this one before we leave."

I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the rage and foreboding that filled me every time I saw his wife and his two babies.

He didn't deserve this. They sure as hell didn't deserve this. They just didn't know it yet.

I watched Oscar stiffen and raise his head as the feelings welled up and then crashed over me like a wave. He had stopped purring and looked ready to leap out of April's arms.

I backed away and stood at the top of the basement steps for a few minutes before going back downstairs. I couldn't help myself.

* * *

Nicole took a while to respond. I was starting to hope that maybe she'd lost interest—or gotten the message that he was flaky, if not a murderer.

Then on Friday morning, he refreshed his MatchStrike web app for the 100th time, and there it was: a new unread message from Nicole.

I shut down his computer again as soon as the screen popped up. Then again when he rebooted the computer. I already felt worn out by the third time he restarted the computer. So I let it happen, hoping that the message would be a brush-off.

It wasn't.

Sorry about the technical issues. I was starting to think it was me!! Hah. Meet at Twiggs tomorrow? 7 still good? I swear if you are 4'10" and 600 pounds in person though …

I saw his smile. He wouldn't disappoint her. With the weird beard shaved, he was as good-looking as the day I'd first met him.

He spent a few minutes composing his reply to Nicole. He finally went with,

Starting to sweat a little. Is 5'2" and 590 ok? If so, 7:00 is great.

She responded almost immediately with a bunch of laughing-face emojis.

His smile got wider.

She was back in.

When he went upstairs for lunch, he told April that he had to meet with a contractor who would be taking on some of his workload while they moved. He didn't want to be too distracted.

April, who was wrapping cups in bubble wrap and placing them into a box alongside the rest of the dishes in the kitchen while the girls skipped around the finished puzzle, nodded. "Thanks, babe. You want to watch a movie or something afterward? If it's not too late? I can't believe it's our last night here." Her face fell a little as she looked past him and down the hallway. "I'm going to miss it. I keep remembering bringing Emma and Kimmie home from the hospital."

He squeezed her arm and took one of the unwrapped cups from the cupboard to pour himself a glass of water. "Yeah, lots of memories. But we'll make new ones."

I felt sick. April just smiled wistfully and kept packing while he took his glass of water downstairs, whistling a little to himself. Probably thinking about his date with Nicole.

The lightbulb in the kitchen flickered above April's head.

I decided then that I was going on his date too.

I wasn't sure what I could do. As far as I could tell, I wasn't very powerful. A flickering light and a messed-up computer weren't going to stop him from hurting someone.

But I had to try.