LITMIR.BIZ

      I didn’t consciously set out to go by Howard’s house after the service, but there are only three exits from the west side of the Trinity University campus and Bushnell Avenue was the closest. The Westermans’ estate sits on the wide shady block of that high-class street running between Shook and McCullough, the very same block that contained Richard’s penthouse away from home. According to Howard, Camille had never forgiven him for insisting they live in Monte Vista so he could bike to work, complaining for twenty years about being forced to live in exile an entire mile across the Olmos Dam from her Alamo Heights friends.

      The Westermans’ wrought-iron gate stood uncharacteristically open that day, the driveway cluttered with vans from Dinners by Design Catering and The Rose Shop. Preparations were well underway for the unofficial get-together of the people who really mattered to Camille, a list I was not on, of course. Something about the sight of those party preliminaries inspired me to do my own investigation of Howard’s workshop.

      I drove past the house and tucked my car in front of an old Chevy pickup, obvious property of one of the three Mexicans grooming the yard of the Westermans’ neighbors. The man wielding the leaf blower along the curb, a tiny desiccated hombre in a brown plaid shirt and huge straw hat, pretended not to notice me, but politely idled the motor when I passed.

      “Buenos dias,” I said.

      “Buenos,” he answered.

      I walked through the gate as though I had reason to be there. The house, near invisible from the street, loomed like a displaced British manor. The smell of charcoal and grilling beef and peppers, carried by what little breeze there was, added to the oppressive heat. As I got close, I heard the clatter of silver, the chinking of glasses and an urgent effeminate male voice shouting orders in broken Spanish. In a huge elm tree on my left, a dense flock of grackles did their best to imitate the sounds. Their cackles seemed to mock me.

      Hoping to go unnoticed. I used the delivery vans for cover until I could slink along the hedges by the side of the house. I don’t know what I expected or wanted to see. From a distance, the remodeled servants’ quarters that had been Howard’s home laboratory looked intact except for a couple of barricades and runs of yellow crime scene tape that half-heartedly segregated the place. As I got closer, I saw the blown-out windows, and an acrid chemical odor hit me. Around back, the walls were gone, revealing a devastated dollhouse done in the smoke grays of twisted metal, broken glass and melted plastic.

      The sight, the smells, the relentless fuss of the grackles overcame me. I went to my knees and ran my hands over the lush St. Augustine grass. Head down, I mouthed the opening lines of the Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer. Then I saw the bits, there at the root line. Bits of glass, stucco, wood, bits of ceramic Mexican tile. The brush of the stiff green blades on my palms vaguely comforted me. In slow motion, my thoughts went to Howard—how I’d become fond of him and hoped to help him. And then to Richard, about how I’d not always hated him. There had even been times I’d loved Richard, but I never believed he loved me. I hadn’t been able to believe that in the early days of our marriage any more than I believed it that afternoon. I knelt there, in the shadow of Howard’s demolished workshop, feeling sorry for myself and stroking the grass until a round object found my fingers. I held it up and recognized my patient’s lucky cat’s eye marble.