Marlowe
I found Marla in the backyard hanging laundry, and she went pale the second she saw my face, some instinct clearly warning her exactly what conversation I'd come to have before I said a single word.
"He wouldn't tell me anything," I said, no preamble left in me after the porch. "Just kept saying to leave it alone. I need you to tell me what actually happened, Marla. Please."
She set down the basket, slow, and looked at me for a long moment with an expression I'd never once seen on her in ten years under her roof — something that looked almost, impossibly, like guilt of her own.
"He's never forgiven himself," she said finally, quiet, choosing each word with visible care. "For a choice he made that night. That's all I can tell you."
"What choice?"
"That's not mine to say." She
