Faithless

Sara continued, “Hep B is different. It can come and go, or it can be chronic. About ten percent of the people who are infected with it become carriers. The risk of infecting another person is one in three. AIDS has a risk of about one in three hundred.”

Jeffrey certainly didn’t have Sara’s mathematical abilities, but he could calculate the odds. “You and I have had sex more than three times since Jo.”

She tried to hide it, but he saw her flinch at the name. “It’s hit-or-miss, Jeffrey.”

“I wasn’t saying-”

“Hep C is generally passed through blood contact. You could have it and not even know it. You usually don’t find out until you start showing symptoms, then it can go downhill from there. Liver fibrosis. Cirrhosis. Cancer.”

All he could do was stare at her. He knew where this was going. It was like a train wreck and there was nothing he could do but hang on and wait for the wheels to skid off the rails.

“I’m so angry at you,” she said, the most obvious statement that had ever come from her lips. “I’m angry because it’s bringing all this up again.” She paused as if to calm herself. “I wanted to forget it happened, to start over, and this just throws it back into my face.” She blinked, her eyes watering. “And if you’re sick…”

Jeffrey focused on what he thought he could control. “It’s my fault, Sara. I fucked up. I’m the one who ruined things. I know that.” He had learned a long time ago not to add the “but,” though in his head he went through it. Sara had been distant, spending more time at work and with her family than with Jeffrey. He wasn’t the kind of husband who expected di

Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Did you do things with her that you do with me?”

“Sara-”

“Were you unsafe?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“You know what it means,” she told him. It was her turn to stare, and he had one of those rare moments when he could read her mind.

“Jesus,” he muttered, wishing like hell he was anywhere but here. It wasn’t like they were a couple of perverts, but it was one thing to explore certain acts while you were in bed, quite another to analyze them in the cold light of day.

“If you had a cut in your mouth and she was…” Sara obviously couldn’t finish. “Even with normal intercourse, people can get tears, microscopic injuries.”

“I get what you’re saying,” he told her, his tone sharp enough to stop her.

Sara picked up the tube of his blood and labeled it with a ballpoint pen. “I’m not asking this because I want the gory details.”

He didn’t call her out on the lie. She had drilled him before when it happened, asking him pointed questions about every move he made, every kiss, every act, as if she had some sort of voyeuristic obsession.

She stood, opening a drawer and taking out a bright pink Barbie Band-Aid. He had kept his elbow bent the entire time, and his arm felt numb when she straightened it. Peeling back the edges, she pressed the Band-Aid down over the cotton. She didn’t speak again until she had thrown the strips into the trash.

“Aren’t you going to tell me I need to get over it?” She feigned a dismissive shrug. “It was only once, right? It’s not like it meant anything.”

Jeffrey bit his tongue, recognizing the trap. The good thing about beating this dead horse for the last five years was he knew when to shut up. Still, he struggled not to argue with her. She didn’t want to see his side of things, and maybe she had a point, but that didn’t take away the fact that there were reasons he did what he did, and not all of them had to do with him being a total bastard. He knew his part in this was to play the supplicant. Being whipped was a small price to pay for peace.

Sara prompted, “You usually say that I need to get over it. That it was a long time ago, that you’re different, that you’ve changed. That she didn’t matter to you.”

“If I say that now, will it make any difference?”

“No,” Sara said. “I don’t suppose anything will.”

Jeffrey leaned back against the wall, wishing he could read her mind now. “Where do we go from here?”

“I want to hate you.”

“That’s nothing new,” he said, but she didn’t seem to catch the levity in his voice, because she nodded in agreement.

Jeffrey shifted on the table, feeling like an idiot with his legs dangling two feet above the floor. He heard Sara whisper, “Fuck,” and his head snapped up in surprise. She seldom cursed, and he did not know whether to take the expletive as a good or bad sign.

“You irritate the hell out of me, Jeffrey.”

“I thought you found that endearing.”

She gave him a cutting look. “If you ever…” She let her voice trail off. “What’s the use?” she asked, but he could tell it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, and he really meant it this time. “I’m sorry I brought this on us. I’m sorry I screwed things up. I’m sorry we had to go through that hell- that you had to go through that hell- to get us here.”

“Where’s here?”

“I guess that’s up to you.”

She sniffed, covering her face with her hands, letting out a long breath of air. When she looked back up at him, he could tell she wanted to cry but wouldn’t let herself.

Jeffrey stared down at his hand, picking at the tape on the bandage.

“Don’t mess with that,” she told him, putting her hand over his. She left it there, and he could feel her warmth penetrating through the bandage. He looked at her long, graceful fingers, the blue veins on the back of her hand making an intricate map underneath her pale white skin. He traced his fingers along hers, wondering how in the world he had ever been stupid enough to take her for granted.

“I kept thinking about that girl,” he said. “She looks a lot like-”

“Wendy,” she finished. Wendy was the name of the little girl he’d shot and killed.

He laid his other hand flat over hers, wanting to talk about anything but the shooting. “What time are you going to Macon?”

She looked at his watch. “Carlos is going to meet me at the morgue in half an hour.”

“It’s weird they could both smell the cyanide,” Jeffrey said. “Lena’s grandmother was from Mexico. Carlos is Mexican. Is there some co

“Not that I know of.” She was watching him carefully, reading him like a book.

He slid down off the table, saying, “I’m okay.”

“I know.” She asked, “What about the baby?”

“There has to be a father out there somewhere.” Jeffrey knew that if they ever found the man, they would be taking a hard look at him for the murder.

Sara pointed out, “A pregnant woman is more likely to die as a result of homicide than any other factor.” She went to the sink to wash her hands, a troubled look on her face.

He said, “Cyanide isn’t just lying around on the shelves at the grocery store. Where would I get it if I wanted to kill somebody?”

“Some over-the-counter products have it.” She turned off the sink and dried her hands with a paper towel. “There have been several pediatric fatalities involving nail glue removers.”

“That has cyanide in it?”

“Yes,” Sara answered, tossing the towel into the trash. “I checked it out in a couple of books when I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“And?”

She rested her hand on the exam table. “Natural sources are found in most fruits with pits- peaches, apricots, cherries. You’d need a lot of them, so it’s not very practical. Different industries use cyanide, some medical labs.”

“What kinds of industries?” he asked. “Do you think the college might have some?”

“It’s likely,” she told him, and he made a note to find out for himself. Grant Tech was primarily an agricultural school, and they performed all sorts of experiments at the behest of the large chemical companies who were looking for the next big thing to make tomatoes grow faster or peas grow greener.