Remembering Me Read Online Free PDF

herself to fit in Laura’s lap.
    The police officer studied Emma for a moment and seemed to decide against questioning her.
    “And you were out?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know why the jewelry box and its contents were on the floor?”
    “I knocked into it after I found him,” she said. The image of the jewelry spilled across the floor seemed like something she’d seen days ago, not mere minutes.
    “There was a note in the bedroom,” the officer said. “Did you see it?”
    “A note?”
    “Yes. Taped to the dresser mirror. It read, ‘I asked you not to go.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
    Laura squeezed her eyes shut. “I had to visit someone this morning and he didn’t want me to go.”
    “Ah,” he said, as though he’d found the missing piece to the puzzle. “There was a big age difference between you and your husband, huh?”
    The question seemed rude, but she didn’t have the strength to protest. “Yes,” she said.
    “So, was this ‘someone’ you had to visit another man?”
    Laura looked at the policeman in confusion. “Another…? No. No. It was a woman. An old woman. But he asked me not to go, and I went, anyway. I was always leaving him. Always working. I left him alone too much. It’s my fault.”
    “Now, don’t jump to conclusions, ma’am. Did your husband suffer from depression?”
    She nodded. “Terribly. I should have realized how bad it had gotten, but—”
    “He has an old scar obviously made from a bullet in his left shoulder,” the officer said. “Was that from some previous botched suicide attempt?”
    “No. He got that fighting in Korea.” He had survived Korea. He had not survived his marriage to her. Guilt rested like a boulder in her chest.
    The police officer nodded at Emma. “Do you think I could ask her a couple of questions?”
    Laura leaned back to shift Emma’s head from her shoulder. “Honey,” she said, “can you tell the policeman what happened? Can you tell me? ”
    Emma looked at them both in silence, her eyes glazed. And that’s when Laura realized that her daughter had not spoken a single word since she’d gotten home.

5
    L AURA SAT NEXT TO S TUART , R AY ’ S YOUNGER BROTHER AND only sibling, during the memorial service at Georgetown University. Ray had taught at Georgetown for many years, and the chapel was completely full. People stood in the rear of the building, some of them forced into the foyer by the crowd. Many were his former sociology students and fellow professors. Ray had left his mark at the university.
    He’d left his mark in the streets, as well. A busload of homeless people and the staff from several shelters were already sitting in the chapel by the time Laura arrived. The news of Ray’s death had brought an outpouring of sympathy from the entire metropolitan D.C. area. Ray had been loved and respected. She hoped he had known that. He’d been so wrapped up in his inability to get his book published these last few years that he’d lost sight of all the good he’d accomplished. Seeing the somber crowd in the chapel made her heart ache. She wasn’t sure how she would get through this service.
    She glanced at her brother-in-law. Stuart gazed straight ahead, and she could see the tight line of his jaw as he struggled to maintain control. She wrapped her hand around his arm. The hardest call for her to make after Ray’s death hadbeen to Stuart. He lived in Connecticut, and as a marketing representative for a textbook company, he traveled frequently. She’d worried he might be on the road, but she’d found him at home. Stuart had cried when she told him. Big gulping sobs that frightened her, they were so out of character for him. He’d adored and admired his older brother. Ray was all the blood family Stuart had.
    Stuart was staying in the town house while he was in Leesburg, but he was staying there alone. Laura had barely been able to set foot in the house since finding Ray’s body. All evidence of his death had