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big fish Billy had reeled in when he was a boy. Too big for eating, his daddy had said. This was the kind you show off. We’d had a playful tug of war over it after we married, Billy teasing me that we should hang it over our bed, while I was determined it would reside absolutely nowhere in our house.
    Oh, God . . . if you’d just let him come back for one hour, I’d hang it anywhere he wanted. I swear. Just one hour.
    I stepped over to where Billy had kept the record player that had been with him since high school, and an 8-track tape player he kept “just in case they ever come back.” We’d bought a locker at Home Depot, a place for Billy to keep his box of LPs by Hank Sr., Loretta Lynn, and Kitty Wells—a honky-tonk heaven on vinyl if ever there was one. After he died, I hung Billy’s work jacket and his army duffel bag over the open door of the locker and set his scuffed white hard hat on the table beside them.
    On a whim, I removed the jacket, pressed it to my face, and inhaled. It was losing his scent, though I could still make it out if I tried. A single tear slipped down my cheek, whether because of my losing Billy or the jacket losing his scent, I don’t know. Maybe a little of both. I hung it up again and then allowed my fingers to skip over the scratches along the top of the helmet. I walked to the bottom of the stairs, flipped a switch, and waited the millisecond it took before the loft’s lights flickered on.
    With a sigh, I started the climb, one step at a time, feeling as though my body weight was more than I could carry. Stopping at the top, I allowed myself to take the room in. I hadn’t been here in nearly a year. Cobwebs billowed from the corners of the ceiling. Framed covers of my books and awards hung on open studs. Along one wall, my paints and pencils stood in white containers, faithfully waiting for their artist to return. Empty Mason jars for washing out my brushes collected dust in a corner. Nearby was the drawing I’d pretended to be so interested in the day Billy had come home to chickens in the coffee mug cabinet, kept warm by a thick blanket of dust and neglect. The old farm kitchen table that doubled as my work station stood scarred and forgotten. Overhead was the chalkboard where Billy had always left love notes for me.
    DANCE LIKE NO ONE’S WATCHING.
    WHO LOVES YOU MORE THAN ME?
    PLEASE, PLEASE GO TO THE BANK TODAY.
    DON’T FORGET MY JEFFERSONS IF U R GOING 2 TOWN.
    The last one he’d written had not been erased. Would never be erased.
    THIS WILL BE YOUR BEST ONE YET. LOVE ALWAYS, B.
    Pinned to the large corkboard under the chalkboard was a photograph of Billy and me. Him sitting on a hay bale, me behind him, arms draped over his shoulders. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the warmth of his skin, the soft cotton of his shirt.
    I drew in a shaky breath and let it go as I moved closer to the corkboard. Sketches I’d been working on were now covered by the ones I’d drawn the year after Billy died.
    A dark man in a red hoodie. Back turned, faceless head twisted. Looking back. Taunting me. Daring me to know who he was. Why he had killed Billy.
    A dark alley, lined with Dumpsters against block walls. Billy’s blood pooled in the center. Yellow tape cordoning off the spot where a lifeless body lay.
    The front of Murphy’s Liquor Store, where Billy had made his last work call.
    The place where I had hoped, just hours ago, to die too.

Chapter Five
    Bright sunshine spilled through the gauzy lace curtains that draped over floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows. Morning songbirds had been chirping for hours, but for the most part I’d ignored them, pulling the thick quilts up high and burrowing beneath them. The night before I’d placed my cell phone on top of a book my mother insisted would help me in my time of grief. Mostly the book was gathering dust on the small bedside table.
    When the phone rang, I pushed back