The Wife They Burned novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: No Father
At Junie's burial Ada tells the funeral director her daughter has no father, then walks into Marshall's lunch for Fallon and leaves her ring on Fallon's plate, and a fire investigator tells her there was no space heater in the cottage.
The funeral director held out a clipboard and asked if I'd like him to call the child's father.
"She doesn't have a father," I said.
He looked down at the form, then at me.
It was a small grave.
It barely needed the green carpet they had rolled out around it.
The casket was white, with brass handles made for hands much bigger than anyone who'd ever need to carry it.
One of his staff, a young man in a black suit, stepped closer.
"You're Mrs. Kendrick, aren't you?"
I didn't answer.
"Mr. Kendrick is up at the main house. I saw his car. Should I run and get him?"
I shook my head.
The main house was a quarter mile away, across the lawn.
From the family plot you could see its chimneys over the trees.
Marshall had told me at breakfast that he'd be here at ten.
It was ten forty.
Joy Hazelton had begged to come with me.
I'd told her the families at Lantern House needed her more, and she'd sworn at me and then hugged me for a full minute.
After Junie died, I had stopped doing every little thing my husband hated.
He hated an empty dinner table, so I stopped coming home by six.
He hated my hair up, so I wore it up.
His summit in Zurich ended on the seventh, so I booked a shift at Lantern House for the eighth and didn't ask him first.
He wanted his nights with Fallon, so I moved my things up to the attic and left them the master bedroom.
He hadn't noticed any of it.
The funeral director cleared his throat.
"We can wait a little longer, Mrs. Kendrick."
"No," I said. "She hated waiting."
They lowered her.
I watched the ropes go slack.
I had brought one of her orange rain boots in my coat pocket, because she'd refused to go anywhere without them.
I set it on the lid.
Then I turned and walked up the hill.
The young man called after me that I'd ruin my shoes on the wet grass.
I let them.
The front door of Highmoor was open.
I could hear the clink of good silver from the dining room.
Marshall's mother had told everyone the burial was "family only."
Apparently the lunch wasn't.
Twelve people sat around the long table.
Marshall's partners from Kendrick Marine. Two women from the foundation board. The priest who was supposed to be down at the grave.
At the head of the table, in my chair, sat Fallon Ives.
She was wearing cream cashmere and holding a cup of tea with both hands.
Marshall sat beside her with his hand on her back.
"She had an attack this morning," his mother was telling the table. "She heard the word fire on the radio. Poor thing could barely breathe."
"It brought it all back," Fallon said softly.
"Brought what back?" I said.
Every head turned.
There was mud up to my ankles.
Marshall stood up fast.
"Ada. I was just coming."
"It's done," I said. "She's in the ground."
The priest looked at his plate.
Fallon's eyes filled right on cue.
"I'm so sorry, Ada. I just couldn't. I can't be near anything sad right now. Marshall didn't want to leave me alone like this."
"No," I said. "He never does."
Marshall's mother set down her fork.
"Ada, you're upset. Go upstairs and lie down. We'll talk about this later, in private."
I had spent seven years going upstairs and lying down.
I opened my purse and took out the funeral card.
Junie's school picture was on the front. The gap in her teeth. Her curls doing whatever they wanted.
I walked down the length of the table and set it on Fallon's plate, right on her salmon.
Then I twisted my wedding ring off.
It took a second. My hands were cold.
I put it on the card, over Junie's chin.
"What are you doing?" Marshall said.
"Leaving you."
His partners went very still.
He laughed once, the way he did on calls when a client said something stupid.
"You're grieving. Nobody's going to hold you to anything you say today."
"Then I'll say it again tomorrow," I said. "In front of a lawyer."
"With what? You'll have nothing, Ada. You signed the prenup."
"I know what I signed."
I looked at his hand, still resting on Fallon's back.
"She called you twelve times that night. The nanny. Did you know that? Twelve times, from the lawn, while your daughter's room was on fire."
The foundation women looked at Marshall.
"My phone was on silent," he said.
"I know," I said. "Fallon doesn't like it ringing."
Fallon put her face in her hands and started to sob.
Marshall's mother rose and went to her at once.
Not one person at that table came toward me.
I walked out the way I came in.
Nobody stopped me.
I sat by the grave until the light went orange behind the trees.
The diggers had finished hours ago.
Somebody had put her rain boot on top of the fresh dirt.
I heard boots on the gravel path and didn't turn around.
"Mrs. Kendrick?"
A big man in a canvas jacket stopped a few feet off, with a black Labrador sitting at his heel.
"I'm Abel MacBride. County fire investigator. I was the first one to walk your cottage that night."
"The report said space heater," I said. "I read it."
"I know what it said. My boss signed it."
He looked at the grave for a while before he spoke again.
"I walked that bedroom at two in the morning, ma'am. There was no space heater in it."
I finally looked up at him.
"By nine there was one," he said. "And by ten I was off the case."
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