San Diego Noir

“Let’s go home,” David said. “You’re tired. You get stressed out when you’re tired.”

“I’m not. I’m not … tired. Or stressed.” She pulled her arm away from him and continued down the path.

Here were some smaller enclosures, containing little monkeys and birds.

Did you know … the sign said on one.

“Did you know,” she repeated aloud. “Like people, not all animals are … are physically perfect. It is the, the policy of the San Diego Zoo to allow … to allow these … individuals to, to live normal lives …”

“Let’s go home, Kari,” David said. “We’re going to be late.”

“I know what I want to do now, with the money,” she said over dinner.

David had just taken a sip of his wine. He held onto the glass, frozen in place. “Oh?”

“I want to, to do something … for animals.”

David put the glass down. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” she said slowly. “Like when I’m out feeding the cats. And then today, at the zoo.”

“Kari, what are you saying?” His voice rose. “You want to give your money to cats?”

“No,” she answered, her voice sharp. “I still understand a few things. I’ll have … a foundation … or a nonprofit. I’ll pay myself a salary from it. I’m not stupid.”

“Look, honey …” He took a gulp of wine and lowered his voice. “You’re doing a lot better. You’ve really come a long way … but you’re not ready to take something like that on.”

“I know,” she said, and she felt calmer again. “I’ll hire someone to help me decide what kinds of projects. I was thinking, maybe, helping animals that get hurt. Or buying land where they live so they’ll be safe.”

“Kari …”

“It’s my money,” she said. “I get to decide.”

Maybe that hadn’t been very nice.

It had been a few days, and David was still mad at her, she could tell, no matter how many times he said he wasn’t. “We just need to think about this a little more,” he kept saying. “Talk it over.”

That wasn’t all he wanted to do.

He’d called a lawyer. He thought that she wouldn’t find out. But that was one thing she remembered about David, that she was beginning to remember better: he thought he was smarter than he was.

It had been easy to find out. He liked to take long showers, so when he went into the bathroom, she checked his cell phone. There were two numbers that weren’t identified, and she wrote them both down. After David left for work, she called them.

The first was a restaurant. The second, a law firm specializing in divorce, family law, and mental health issues.

Competency.

She Googled the name of the firm, and that’s how she learned what they did.

She wasn’t what she used to be, but she wasn’t stupid.

That was yesterday.

She hadn’t said anything to David about what she discovered, not yet. She was still trying to work out what it all meant.

Today was Saturday, a day that she went to Dog Beach and then to feed the cats on the jetty. She walked down a little street that fronted the beach, lined with a row of houses, all lowbuilt with sharp angles—left over from the ’60s, maybe. In the middle of these was a house under construction. Three stories high, strange swooping curves. It looked so wrong next to the little Jetsons houses. Like a mistake. A big sign was posted on the chain-link fence surrounding it, with the headline, What’s Happening Here.

Single Family Home. Approved by Planning Commission. Approved by Coastal Commission.

Maybe he wanted a divorce. That would be okay with her, she realized. She didn’t think she liked him very much anymore, and she was starting to wonder, how much had she liked him Before? There was something, something she could almost remember, that happened before the accident, that she hadn’t liked. Something about the way he did business.

Frank, her stepdad, what had he told her?

“He plays fast and loose, sweetie. That’s my read. Gets in over his head and looks for an easy out.”

“You can do better,” her mom had said.

What’s happening here?

She thought about all this as she dressed for the gym on Monday, fumbling at the laces of her sneakers, which were still hard for her to tie.

An easy out.