“My sister is coming to stay with me. She’s arriving tonight.”

“That’s good.”

“No, it’s not. You asked me how I was doing. I just told you that my sister is coming to stay with me, probably for a week. That’s how badly things are going. And it looks like somebody was in the tool shed last night.” I pointed at the open door. “One of your guys?”

“I doubt it.” Mel walked to the shed and looked inside. The shed has two small windows. One faces the garden, the other faces the house. I watched Mel scan the interior, then the shed’s wooden floor. He bent to examine the area beneath the window facing the house, then stepped inside and looked through the window and up at the house. “Have you noticed anybody in the shed?” he asked when he returned.

“No, but I come out here some mornings and find the door opened or unlocked. I told Gabe about it. He didn’t think it was a big deal.”

Mel looked back at the shed. “It might be.” He looked at me. “You have a secret admirer. A pervert. Somebody’s been standing at that window and masturbating. That’s what it looks like.”

“Some mornings I lie on the cot over there,” I said, nodding my head toward the corner of the garden. “Sunbathing. People going by on the boardwalk can’t see into the corner because the trees and the shed block the view.”

“Anybody standing at the window in the shed could watch you,” Mel said.

“Great.” I felt sick.

“I’ll have a technician take samples from the stains on the floor. We might get his DNA profile from them.”

“See if you can get his phone number too. My sister’s on her way.”

Mel knelt next to the chair. “I know why you’re making jokes. Makes it easier to handle things.”

“You think it’s a joke? You’ve never met Tina.”

Mel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Josie, there are only so many things I can do for you.”

“One thing you can do for me is tell Walter Freeman that Gabe did not shoot himself with his own gun.”

Mel stood up. “We’ll send the bullet that the coroner took out and another one from Gabe’s gun to forensics, and the paraffin test from his hand. We’ll get the results back next week.”

“Won’t prove a thing.”

“Hey.”

I looked up at Mel and was reminded how good he looked when he was angry. Some men are like that.

“If it makes it easier to believe somebody murdered your husband, go ahead and believe it,” he said. “But the rest of us, the people who have to deal with this stuff every day, we know a suicide when we see one. And I’m sorry if it’s painful for you.” He walked to the gate opening onto the boardwalk. “The technician should be here this afternoon. I’ll tell him to knock first.”

After Mel left, I went inside and had a slice of Maude’s banana bread with a spoonful of her marmalade on it. It made me feel so much better that I had another one. I had resumed eating. I had not ceased crying.

I answered the messages from friends who had called, beginning with Hans and Trudy, building their German castle on the beach strip as though it were on the Rhine. Gabe and I had enjoyed their company the few times we got together. Hans likes the same kind of jazz as Gabe, and Trudy bakes a killer strudel, which she always brought along. What wasn’t to like? “You come by, have strudel and tea,” Hans said in something between a command and an invitation. I promised I would.

Debbie, a friend from my days at the veterinary hospital, called from Toronto, inviting me to stay with her in her high-rise condo on Bloor Street, thirty-six floors above the muggers. I politely declined.

I called Dewey Maas, the last man I dated before I met Gabe. Dewey burst into tears at the sound of my voice. He had heard the news about Gabe and called once, but didn’t want to bother me by calling again until … well, until I called him. Dewey is a sweetheart of a guy for whom I felt every attraction but sexual. I have never fully understood that. Neither has Dewey, whose name is actually Byron, which is silly enough to make a nickname like Dewey preferable.

I met Dewey while working at a veterinary office, as receptionist and bookkeeper. Dewey was an animal groomer, working out of a storefront beneath his condominium. In the morning, people brought Dewey their dogs to be washed, trimmed, brushed, and manicured, and Dewey spent his day talking to animals and listening to opera. Most people assumed Dewey was gay, which made some of the older women warm up to him in ways they wouldn’t if they believed he was straight. Dewey was neither gay nor straight. He dated both sexes, which made him more interesting but, as far as I was concerned, somehow less appealing. I mean, a divorced woman in her thirties has enough competition as it is from her own gender. Why double the odds against you?

Dewey had cried on the telephone when he heard I was marrying Gabe, which was the last time I had heard from him, and he cried into my ear now that Gabe was dead. “Please tell me you’ll let me help you through this,” he said between sniffs.

I told him I would.

“I’ll come and see you whenever you say,” he added.

I explained that my sister was on her way, and that she would be all the company I needed. Then I thanked him for his concern and said goodbye.

Humans engage in a lot of silly things, but platonic relationships between two single people of similar ages and different genders has to be among the silliest. Or maybe just the most uncomfortable.

THE FORENSICS TECHNICIAN ARRIVED after three o’clock, an overweight man with a fringe of hair that, in his dreams, might have been as thick as his moustache. I led him around the house to the shed. He snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, scraped the floor in front of the window, sealed the shed door with a strip of plastic tape with crime scene printed all over it, and left me alone to face Tina.

7.

That afternoon I made tea and walked through the house with the cup in my hand, looking at things that reminded me of Gabe. They were everywhere, especially in our bedroom. A piece of jade I had bought to help him relax. He was to rub it in the palm of his hand when he was tense. I picked it up and stroked it now. It may have worked for Gabe. It did not work for me.

A favourite mug for his coffee, garish yellow and red, with a picture of a hand-painted chicken on the side and a small chip on the rim. His collection of jazz CDs, a nail clipper he had owned since he was sixteen years old, and an earthenware plate we had brought from Mexico. Gabe used the plate to hold spare change from his trouser pocket when he got undressed at night. I counted the amount in the plate, penny by penny, nickel by nickel. Eight dollars and sixty-three cents.

And his shirts and his ties and his underwear, hanging in his closet and folded neatly in the drawers of his dresser cabinet. I touched them all with one hand and held my teacup in the other, alternately smiling and crying at the memories and images they created. What was I to do with them now? I would decide some other time. Maybe in some other life. Then I returned downstairs, poured the cold tea in the sink, climbed back up to our bedroom and fell on the bed. I believe I cried before falling asleep. Yes, I did.

I woke in the summer dusk greyness that I have always considered poignant, thinking of Mother and remembering I was to visit her and explain what happened. The clock said it was almost eight. It wasn’t guilt about not seeing Mother that had awakened me. It was knocking, fast and light, like a drummer in a marching band. But I awoke feeling guilty anyway.

I managed to stand up, fluff my hair, and open the front door. Tina gave me barely a glance before turning to the limo driver, whom she had left standing at the open trunk of the car, and said, “She’s here. Bring them up.” Meaning her luggage, four matched pieces in caramel-coloured leather. “Oh, Josie.” She hugged me and I counted to three before she released me. “Are you sure you’re okay?” She stood back, glanced over her shoulder to ensure that the limo driver was on his way with her luggage, smiled her approval at his progress, then looked at me again, tilted her head, and let her eyes fill with tears. Tina is several interesting people.