in a housecoat was watering her lawn and she looked right at me.
The red truck returned and pulled into the driveway. I texted Blue again.
Heâs back. Get out.
Blue didnât reply. Lester hoisted a case of beer and a bag of groceries from the flatbed. He walked up the front steps, unlocked the door, and went inside. Blue didnât return to the car.
Where are you? Heâs in the house.
Ten minutes later, Blue slipped out of the bathroom window and casually walked to the car.
âLetâs go,â she said.
I started the engine and drove slowly out of the neighborhood and onto the highway.
âWhat happened in there?â I asked.
âI couldnât find her paperwork,â said Blue, deflated. âBut even if I did, Iâm not sure this plan would pan out. I could never get a job with her social security number, since the husband probably filed for some kind of death benefit, and without a bribable contact at the DMV, Iâd be using a license with a picture that barely resembled me. No matter how many doughnuts I ate.â
âThere has to be a way,â I said.
âIâm sure there is,â said Blue. âWe just havenât figured it out yet.â
Chapter 6
----
I NEVER quite knew what to make of Blue. I never trusted her and yet I owed her an immeasurable debt because my quality of life improved greatly under her roof. She worked nights, so I got out of her hair during the day; I couldnât yet risk being kicked to the curb. Blue never told me her life story. She was an ex-schoolteacher with a bad husband named Jack. Whenever I inquired about the rest of her history, she was cagey and vague. I asked her once what her childhood was like. I did what kids did. Played and stuff. I inquired about her family. I had some , she said. I donât remember sleeping well during those days with Blue. It always seemed possible that I could wake up with a gun trained on my head.
Blue wasnât, however, my primary cause of concern. I still had Mr. Oliver to contend with. I tried to imagine what his next step would be. Where would one begin looking for a single woman who matched the description of all kinds of single women in Austin? Sometimes being unremarkable is a good thing.
The Austin library circuit became my second home. Since I couldnât risk becoming too familiar, I never paid a repeat visit to the same branch in a week. I mixed it up as much as I could. Yarborough, Twin Oaks, North Village, Carver, and Faulk Central; I got to the computer banks before the children escaped from school. If I didnât beat the afternoon rush, Iâd roam the stacks and peruse travel books, pretending my imaginary new life was just an ambitious vacation.
I checked up on the investigation into the death of my recently departed husband. The coronerâs report claimed that Frank died from blunt force trauma to the head. In the papers, they never mentioned that blunt force could happen from the cranium tumbling toward a static object like the edge of a stair. I remained a person of interest, mostly because I disappeared right after he died. My whereabouts were still unknown. If I had stayed, maybe all of this couldâve blown over and Iâd have the house, a name, and a life without Frank. I thought about going back, but now that I had angered Mr. Oliver and painted myself as a black widow to my old neighbors, I couldnât see my return playing out as smoothly as Iâd want.
I turned back to the obituaries to get my mind off the living. I found a promising corpse named Charlotte Clark. A name I could get used to. She was survived by only her sister and a niece and nephew. I jotted down the information for the funeral and headed back to Blueâs place.
W HEN I opened the door, Blue was sitting on the couch, watching the news. Her foot pounded the rug like a jackhammer. She clicked off the remote and got to her feet.
âGood. Youâre home. Iâve
The red truck returned and pulled into the driveway. I texted Blue again.
Heâs back. Get out.
Blue didnât reply. Lester hoisted a case of beer and a bag of groceries from the flatbed. He walked up the front steps, unlocked the door, and went inside. Blue didnât return to the car.
Where are you? Heâs in the house.
Ten minutes later, Blue slipped out of the bathroom window and casually walked to the car.
âLetâs go,â she said.
I started the engine and drove slowly out of the neighborhood and onto the highway.
âWhat happened in there?â I asked.
âI couldnât find her paperwork,â said Blue, deflated. âBut even if I did, Iâm not sure this plan would pan out. I could never get a job with her social security number, since the husband probably filed for some kind of death benefit, and without a bribable contact at the DMV, Iâd be using a license with a picture that barely resembled me. No matter how many doughnuts I ate.â
âThere has to be a way,â I said.
âIâm sure there is,â said Blue. âWe just havenât figured it out yet.â
Chapter 6
----
I NEVER quite knew what to make of Blue. I never trusted her and yet I owed her an immeasurable debt because my quality of life improved greatly under her roof. She worked nights, so I got out of her hair during the day; I couldnât yet risk being kicked to the curb. Blue never told me her life story. She was an ex-schoolteacher with a bad husband named Jack. Whenever I inquired about the rest of her history, she was cagey and vague. I asked her once what her childhood was like. I did what kids did. Played and stuff. I inquired about her family. I had some , she said. I donât remember sleeping well during those days with Blue. It always seemed possible that I could wake up with a gun trained on my head.
Blue wasnât, however, my primary cause of concern. I still had Mr. Oliver to contend with. I tried to imagine what his next step would be. Where would one begin looking for a single woman who matched the description of all kinds of single women in Austin? Sometimes being unremarkable is a good thing.
The Austin library circuit became my second home. Since I couldnât risk becoming too familiar, I never paid a repeat visit to the same branch in a week. I mixed it up as much as I could. Yarborough, Twin Oaks, North Village, Carver, and Faulk Central; I got to the computer banks before the children escaped from school. If I didnât beat the afternoon rush, Iâd roam the stacks and peruse travel books, pretending my imaginary new life was just an ambitious vacation.
I checked up on the investigation into the death of my recently departed husband. The coronerâs report claimed that Frank died from blunt force trauma to the head. In the papers, they never mentioned that blunt force could happen from the cranium tumbling toward a static object like the edge of a stair. I remained a person of interest, mostly because I disappeared right after he died. My whereabouts were still unknown. If I had stayed, maybe all of this couldâve blown over and Iâd have the house, a name, and a life without Frank. I thought about going back, but now that I had angered Mr. Oliver and painted myself as a black widow to my old neighbors, I couldnât see my return playing out as smoothly as Iâd want.
I turned back to the obituaries to get my mind off the living. I found a promising corpse named Charlotte Clark. A name I could get used to. She was survived by only her sister and a niece and nephew. I jotted down the information for the funeral and headed back to Blueâs place.
W HEN I opened the door, Blue was sitting on the couch, watching the news. Her foot pounded the rug like a jackhammer. She clicked off the remote and got to her feet.
âGood. Youâre home. Iâve
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