His jaw tightened.
“Can we not turn this into an interrogation?”
I actually laughed.
“I left a wall here when I went to work, Brian. I came home and there was no wall.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
“I was trying to deal with a problem.”
“What problem?”
“The outlet.”
I folded my arms.
“I feel like there’s more to this.”
Brian looked annoyed now.
And somehow, that made me even more suspicious.
“There’s nothing else to tell.”
“Then why didn’t you call me before you started cutting into the living room?”
“Because I knew you’d make a big deal out of it.”
I gestured toward the enormous hole.
“You removed part of our house.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“You keep saying that like drywall grows back.”
Brian looked toward the ceiling and exhaled.
“I’m tired. You’re tired. Can we just eat and talk later?”
“You promised me an explanation.”
“I’ll explain after dinner.”
That was when our daughter, Maddie, came downstairs.
She was twelve years old and normally incapable of ignoring anything unusual.
If I moved a lamp from one side of a table to the other, she’d notice.
So I expected her to stop halfway down the stairs and immediately ask why our living room looked like a construction site.
She didn’t.
She glanced at the wall.
Then at Brian.
Then she quietly walked into the kitchen.
That caught my attention.
“Maddie.”
She stopped.
“Yeah?”
“Were you home when Dad did this?”
Before she could answer, Brian spoke.
“She was upstairs most of the afternoon.”
Maddie looked at him.
“Yeah.”
There was something strange about the way she said it.
I frowned.
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“Just a little.”
Brian picked up his drill.
“Can we clean this up before dinner?”
Maddie opened the refrigerator.
“Can I have a yogurt?”
“Sure.”
She grabbed one and disappeared upstairs.
I watched her go.
Then I looked back at Brian.
“Why did she look at you before answering?”
“Because you’re acting like we’re both suspects.”
“Are you?”
“For destroying a wall?”
“You said it was an accident.”
“It was.”
“You planned an accident with a tape measure?”
His face tightened.
“Please. Can we just eat?”
Dinner was one of the strangest meals we’d had in years.
Brian talked too much.
That was how I knew he was nervous.
Every time I brought up the wall, he redirected the conversation.
“I’ll call someone tomorrow.”
“What exactly are you going to tell them?”
“That we need the drywall repaired.”
“Because?”
“Because there’s a hole.”
I stared at him.
Maddie pushed peas around her plate.
I looked at her.
She looked at Brian.
He gave her a tiny shake of his head.
I saw it.
I was almost certain I saw it.
“What was that?”
Brian frowned.
“What was what?”
“You just looked at Maddie.”
“She’s sitting across from me.”
“No. You gave her some kind of signal.”
Maddie froze.
Brian put his fork down.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
“Then explain what happened.”
“I already did.”
I laughed.
“I don’t believe you.”
Maddie kept staring at her plate.
Brian said, “Can we not fight in front of her?”
That irritated me even more.
Suddenly, I was apparently the one causing the problem.
I finished dinner mostly in silence.
Afterward, Brian went downstairs to collect his tools and vacuum the drywall dust.
I went upstairs to our bedroom.
My mind began running through increasingly ridiculous possibilities.
Was there something inside the wall?
That thought wouldn’t leave me alone.
Our house had been built in the 1960s.
People found strange things inside old houses all the time.
Maybe Brian had discovered something.
Maybe there was an old safe.
Maybe money.
Maybe some forgotten construction problem.
At one point, I even caught myself imagining that my husband had found buried treasure behind the drywall.
Then someone knocked on the bedroom door.
“Come in.”
Maddie slipped inside.
She closed the door behind her.
She stood there with her hands tucked into the sleeves of her sweatshirt.
“Is Dad downstairs?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She listened for a moment.
The vacuum had started.
Then she lowered her voice.
“Mom, Dad wasn’t fixing an outlet.”
I stared at her.
“I knew it.”
She looked nervous.
“What did he do?”
“Don’t be mad.”
“At you?”
“At either of us.”
That did not make me feel better.
Maddie sat on the edge of the bed.
