Chapter 3

The date was three years ago.

I touched my ring finger, where a faint pale band still circled the skin.

"You're my husband?"

Stan James stared at me, hard.

"Yes."

"Were we happy?"

He barely paused.

"Very."

My mother stood by the window and didn't turn around.

I saw her press a hand to her mouth.

Stan sat down on the edge of the bed, rushing to tell me the story of our lives.

"We lived across the hall from each other. We walked to school together, all the way from middle school."

"You were scared of thunder. Every time it rained, you came and knocked on my door."

"When you finished college and started at the sound restoration center, I went with you through three cities collecting old cassette tapes."

"On our wedding day, you cried until your makeup was ruined."

He told it in detail.

So much detail that I could almost piece together another Viola Delgado in my head.

But in every picture, his face was blank.

I tried to take his hand.

My body recognized something before I could. The instant my fingers touched him, my stomach heaved.

I turned my head and threw up.

Stan's hand froze against the sheets.

While the nurse cleaned me up, he stayed outside the door the whole time.

The door wasn't shut all the way.

I saw him with his head down, one hand pressed hard over his eyes.

The next day, he brought a whole box of things.

School-uniform photos, movie ticket stubs, the wedding album, and letters I'd written him.

On top sat a blue voice recorder.

"You use this for work."

"You like to keep the sounds that matter."

I pressed the switch.

Inside was my own voice.

"Stan James, you left your socks on the couch again."

In the background, a man laughed lazily.

"Mrs. James, a recording isn't evidence."

My voice was laughing too.

"Then your punishment is doing the dishes for a week."

Stan watched me, a small, careful hope surfacing in his eyes.

"You hear that? That's us."

I listened to a few more clips.

The woman in the recording loved him.

But her happiness couldn't reach me.

All I could do was listen the way I'd listen to a stranger's life, judging whether she'd been far from the mic that day, whether the background noise had run over the limit.