It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead Read online

  “With Suicide City, a Love Story, Julie Frayn came out of the gate with one of the best debut novels the indie publishing circuit ever produced. Then came this book — a stunning follow-up of love, redemption, hope, and hurt that can only be described as ‘Read this damn book. Now!’”

  ~ Scott Morgan, award-winning journalist and bestselling author

  “Julie Frayn shows once again how to write a novel that plays more like a movie. It Isn’t Cheating if He’s Dead is an accurate portrait of life after the loss of a loved one. The simple facts that healing has no timeline, there is no expiration date on grief, and tragedy can result in a positive outcome when those left behind choose to learn from their loss, are beautifully portrayed.”

  ~ Amber Jerome-Norrgard, poet and bestselling author

  "Ms. Frayn wields a deft hand when dealing with life's grit, yet warms the heart at the same time. Her voice is as fresh and real as her characters. Bravo.”

  ~ Kymber Morgan, author of Wild for Cowboy and Shafted

  It Isn’t Cheating if He’s Dead

  By Julie Frayn

  Copyright 2013 Julie Frayn

  All rights reserved.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook my not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or have been used strictly for fictional purposes. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author/publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

  ISBN 978-0-9918510-2-7

  About the cover

  The first cover for It Isn’t Cheating if He’s Dead was quite literal, using objects in the narrative. But it focused on the past, and on a character who, though critical to the story, is not central. The new cover comes from a metaphorical angle. It represents the main character, Jemima Stone, drowning in grief and guilt, but doing her best to surface and live on after tragedy and heartbreak. The flowing material represents a wedding dress for the marriage that never was. Jem is trying to kick it free and get on with her life. And it is beautiful, don’t you think?

  Ebook Cover Design by Dane Low of www.Ebooklaunch.com

  Contents

  more like the accursed

  six bottles of grief

  hip hop sex

  we call him chief

  Cord Fitzbottom

  defend the cretins

  she can’t have the house

  drown in cheesecake

  BLTs and PTSD

  nirvana

  the ring

  mine are dead

  what about love?

  I fixed you two

  nod and smile

  it isn’t cheating if he’s dead

  everyone has family

  three men

  it runs in the blood

  one of the unfaithful

  good enough to eat

  keep the uglies away

  three helpings of meat

  not dead yet

  life was random

  a dangerous game

  decadent choices

  someone who needs him

  green Rider pride

  before I lose everything

  close that door

  bad, bad boy

  down the rabbit hole

  Don’t. Ever. Stop

  whatever it takes

  don’t sell the house

  acknowledgement of her existence

  leap right through

  not your child

  truly wonderful

  he hates me

  is the honeymoon over?

  wild-eyed, unshaven and filthy

  without mothers

  kiss her again

  about the author

  acknowledgements

  more like the accursed

  Not every knock brings opportunity. Not the promise of something wonderful. Sometimes you have to open the door anyway, so another can be allowed to close.

  Jemima Stone balanced her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear. The accordion file she couldn’t cram into her overloaded briefcase was squished under her arm, her elbow squeezed against it while she fumbled the key into the lock. The deadbolt resisted and she gave the brass knob a hard twist until the door popped open.

  “Yes, Richard. I know you’re innocent.” That’s what they all said. She pressed the toe of her sensible black pump against the door and pushed it shut. It bounced against the warped jamb.

  “We’ve got a decent case. But I’m not sure how to get around the fact that your brother is testifying for the prosecution.” She shouldered the door closed. Her cell phone slipped against her sweaty cheek, the accordion file slid back, spurted out from under her arm and hit the hardwood. The worn cardboard broke open and spewed paper all over the entryway.

  “Damn it.” The phone fell. She let her tattered, years-old briefcase slam into the oak, and snatched the new smart phone before it cracked open against the floor like her last one. “No, no. Not you Richard. Sorry.” She ran her free hand through her hair. “I want you to be absolutely certain of this innocent plea. That video he has of you huddled over your mother’s jewelry box is pretty compelling.” She kicked off her shoes, aimed for the mat inside the door. Missed again.

  She rolled her eyes and tapped one bare foot. When would she find an actual innocent client to defend?

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Expectation of privacy. Not sure it applies when you sneak into someone else’s home.” She started up the stairs, unzipped her skirt and unhitched her bra along the way. “Yes Richard, I believe you.”

  Like hell she did.

  “I’ll try to get it excluded. Talk to you later.”

  She stepped into the bedroom, ended the call and tossed the phone on the night stand. Her grey pencil skirt fell to the floor. She stepped out of it and left it where it landed. She tossed her old black suit jacket and outdated, pink paisley blouse with the hole in one armpit towards the small chair in the corner. Her aim as true as ever, they landed on the carpet. Her support bra and black lace thong followed right behind. She flopped face first into her billowy comforter and groaned, then rolled onto her back.

  Defending the wrongfully accused in real life was nothing like in books and movies. Where was Atticus Finch when you needed him? It would help if her clients were all innocent like they claimed to be. She had to believe them. Or at least say she did.

  The clock radio glowed ten-fifteen. Another fourteen-hour day slogging through evidence and interviewing witnesses, trying to find the oomph to defend the indefensible.

  Her cell phone rang. She snatched it from the night stand and eyed the screen. “Shit, really?” Did they all think she lived and breathed their cases? Their lives? What about her own life? Screw it. She pushed the ‘ignore’ button. Edward wasn’t going anywhere, stuck in the remand centre, waiting for sentencing. Too late, buddy. The judge saw through your lies and found you as guilty as you are. Filing an appeal could wait until morning.

  Where the hell did her passion go? That drive and compulsion to prove the prosecutors wrong, get her clie
nts cleared at all costs? All legal costs. Swirling the drain with her clients’ morals and ethics, that’s where. They were more like the accursed than the accused.

  She ran the tap until steam poured out from behind the shower curtain, then stepped under the pounding water. With every scrub of loofah against her soft, pale skin and every rinse-and-repeat of sweet, flowery, herbal shampoo lather in her auburn hair, the guilty and the liars washed away. For today. It’d be same old, same old come morning. How could she be jaded and aching to retire at the ripe old age of thirty-one? She’d never make partner at this rate. Did she even want that anymore? Nothing in her life had made sense since four years ago this coming June twelfth.

  Jemima pulled on the yoga pants and tank top that lay across the end of her bed where she’d discarded them when she got dressed that morning.

  Gerald’s small mahogany chest sat on the right side of their dresser. She hadn’t opened it in two years. Hadn’t even moved it. Just tidied around it when she tidied at all.

  With the tip of her index finger she wiped a thick layer of dust from the small latch. She stared at the chest and scraped her top teeth over her bottom lip. She lifted the latch and opened the lid. The ring she’d given him to commemorate their engagement sat on top of a pile of coins. Business cards were strewn about the burgundy velvet-lined interior. A lone bottle of clozapine lay tipped on its side, the little green antipsychotic pills long since expired. He’d left behind all the things that had worked so hard to keep him sane.

  She knocked the lid closed, flinched at the crack of wood on wood so loud in the quiet house. The very quiet house. She’d known he was off his meds. But why didn’t he take his damn ring?

  She pulled the drapes and stared westward. There were no mountains in the dark. No purple silhouettes, no white capped spring peaks. She lived spitting distance from the most beautiful mountain region on earth, but she rarely bothered to leave Calgary, satisfied to just soak it all in from afar. She made a mental note to look out the window in the morning. And maybe take a drive out to Banff next weekend.

  A quiet rap at the front door shook the leaded glass in its frame. She glanced at the clock. Ten forty-five. Who on earth would be coming by at that hour?

  At the entry, she drew back the white lace curtain from the small window that overlooked her front porch. It wasn’t necessary. The curtain was sheer. She’d recognized the trim and solid form of Detective Wight halfway down the stairs, the angle of his square jaw, a mirror reflection of his jar-head haircut. He was all slants and corners and points and sharpness, his voice crisp and tight and all business. Oh what ripped muscles must live inside that well-pressed suit?

  A spasm grew in her stomach. He never showed up this late. His regular updates were Saturday afternoons or early evenings. Was today the day?

  She smoothed the front of her pants with both palms and shook her hands in a vain attempt to ease the tension from her arms. She twisted her head side to side and released a loud crack from the base of her neck. She sighed and reached for the doorknob.

  The brass was cold in her hand and took extra effort to turn. When the tumbler released the latch and the wood of the eighty-year-old door popped open, the hinges creaked.

  She really should get that fixed.

  “Hello, Detective.” She didn’t open the screen. Didn’t offer to let him in. Her heart weighed a hundred pounds.

  “Hi, Jem. It’s Finn, please?”

  He was soft spoken tonight. Even his face yielded its rigidity, his eyes soft, like his sculptor had smoothed out the rough edges of his clay.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah. Sorry, Finn.”

  He pulled the screen wide to give room for his broad shoulders to pass, and stepped across the threshold.

  She crossed her arms. “You found him. Right? That’s why the late visit? The quiet voice?”

  All the softened edges.

  “I’m sorry, Jem.”

  She shuffled to the kitchen table and fell into a chair. An old pack of cigarettes that sat untouched on the sideboard appeared in her hand. She pulled one out. There wasn’t a lighter in the house. Not even a match. She hadn’t smoked in seven months. She brought the cigarette up in front of her eyes and sniffed it. She set her jaw and flicked the cigarette onto the table. It bounced and rolled off the edge.

  Finn pulled out the chair opposite her. Its wooden legs creaked under his six-three-plus frame. He leaned over and plucked the cigarette from the floor and returned it to the pack.

  She fought back tears. “What happened to him?”

  “We’re not sure of everything yet. Lots of pieces to put together.”

  “Where was he?”

  “They found him —” He took a deep breath and seemed to hold it far too long before letting it go. “Shit, Jem. He was in a dumpster in an alley. In Montreal.”

  She clenched her eyes shut. Tears won the battle and squeezed out from all sides. “How?”

  “He’d been beaten. Shot. Probably robbed. He had nothing on him, no wallet, no money, no jacket. Not even shoes.”

  She opened her eyes. Finn was misty too. Almost four years had passed since Gerald went missing. With all the updates from Detective Wight, the phone calls, the meetings, there’d been no sign of chinks in his cop armor. It was good to know he had some. Good to know he was human.

  “Who killed him? Why? How did he get to the other side of the country? And where the hell has he been for four damn years?”

  “All questions I can’t answer today. The Montreal police are working on it. It’s a murder case now, in their territory.” He reached across the table and covered her trembling hand with his big paw. “Jem. I’m going to find out everything. I promise.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “We know where he started. We know where he ended up. We’ve got some clues to fill the gap, like when you saw him downtown that time. We’ll figure it out.”

  “I have to call his mother. And his research partner. And. And.” She pulled her hand away and chewed on her thumbnail. “And a bunch of other people I don’t want to talk to.”

  “I’ll get out of your way.” He stood and turned towards the door.

  “Wait.” She pushed herself to her feet, balanced on her tiptoes, threw her arms around his neck and placed a light kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”

  He gave her a gentle squeeze. When she relaxed her hug he held on for an obvious second before letting her go. “I’ll keep in touch. We’ll keep up the weekly reports too. This won’t go cold.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  She walked him to the entryway and watched him descend the crumbling concrete steps to his unmarked car parked on the street. The faint scent of cologne sweetened the still air. The detective was a big man, but she could see no sign of flab. It was obvious from how his clothes hung that he was muscular, but that hug proved he was solid. He must scare the shit out of the bad guys.

  His car pulled out from the curb and turned up the street. She put her shoulder to the door and forced it into the jamb.

  She passed the table and snapped up the cigarette pack on the way by. She tapped it once against the heel of her palm and a cigarette slid out. She lit a burner on the gas stove. Seven months smoke-free. She’d sworn it was the last time she would quit. Even started exercising to combat the weight gain. Fat lot of good it did her. Fifteen pounds on and then off again with each win and eventual loss against the addiction.

  Screw it.

  She held the tip to the blue flame and sucked in a long drag. Her lungs filled with glorious poison, nerves relieved and senses heightened all at once. She let the smoke slip from her lips and pass in front of her eyes, then tilted her head back and blew the rest straight up to the ceiling.

  The stench of stale cigarette smoke had finally been cleansed from her home, from the drapes and the upholstery. Gerald would’ve made her take it outside. She glanced at the back door and the chilly, black night. She pulled a tumbler out of
the cupboard and filled it with merlot from the open bottle that sat at the ready on the faux-granite countertop, then dragged herself into the living room.

  The under-stuffed sofa that Gerald had picked out the year they moved in together accepted her into its rigid discomfort. Her forearm landed in its usual spot on the balding armrest. She placed the tumbler on the coffee table next to a stack of dusty coasters and sucked on her cigarette until the long ash fell into her lap. She flicked the ash onto the area rug and wiped it in with her feet. The wine went down in one long gulp. She pitched the smoldering butt into the glass, its heat hissing in the skiff of red liquid that remained. She tucked her legs beneath her, dropped her forehead to her forearms, and sobs overtook her.

  Four years. Searching. Hoping. Wondering. Anticipating. And for nothing. Gerald was gone. More often than not she’d thought they wouldn’t find him alive. How could they? But she held onto any shred of optimism she could find. If he’d stayed on his meds maybe he could have gotten his schizophrenia under control. Or at least been able to manage it. Stay with her. Marry her. Keep his promises.

  But he didn’t. He couldn’t. What other outcome could there have been?

  She crossed the room to the bookshelf next to the television and picked up a pewter frame. In the picture, Gerald shook the hand of the dean of medicine, accepting an award for excellence in cancer research. Gerald. Mussed-up sandy hair resting on his shoulders. Ebony eyes. Jeans and a black tee under that damn lilac corduroy sport coat. Those silly boat shoes.

  How ironic that he published papers on the dichotomy between theory and practice. He was a walking dichotomy. A living, breathing contradiction. Or at least he used to be.

  When he started hearing voices, letting “the others” dictate the direction of his research, change the direction of his theory, it all went to shit. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia a year after it started. And the year after that he was gone. His mind, his life, his work. Him. All gone.

  She put the frame down and glanced at the wall. The hole he’d made when he ripped the old television cable out stared at her like a one-eyed monster. She’d fixed the cable not long after Gerald disappeared but had never gotten around to patching the hole. A reminder of one of the scarier moments. When the characters on the screen started watching him. Whispering about him. When he’d had enough of their interference and their spying and he killed them all with one angry yank of the cord. The television lay dormant those last two weeks. No radio was allowed either. And the phone, well that was off limits in his presence. The real world was watching. The make believe world was watching.