Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
ELEVEN DAYS GONE
T
onight is Nick’s much touted interview with Sharon
Schieber. I was going to watch with a bottle of good wine
after a hot bath, recording at the same time, so I can take
notes on his lies. I want to write down every exaggeration,
half truth, fib, and bald-facer he utters, so I can gird my fury
against him. It slipped after the blog interview – 
one
drunken, random interview! – and I can’t allow that to
happen. I’m not going to soften. I’m not a chump. Still, I am
eager to hear his thoughts on Andie now that she has
broken. His spin.
I want to watch alone, but Desi hovers around me all
day, floating in and out of whatever room I retreat to, like a
sudden patch of bad weather, unavoidable. I can’t tell him
to leave, because it’s his house. I’ve tried this already, and
it doesn’t work. He’ll say he wants to check the basement
plumbing or he wants to peer into the fridge to see what
food items need purchasing.
This will go on
, I think. 
This is how my life will be. He
will show up when he wants and stay as long as he wants,
he’ll shamble around making conversation, and then he’ll
sit, and beckon me to sit, and he’ll open a bottle of wine
and we’ll suddenly be sharing a meal and there’s no way
to stop it
.

---

‘I really am exhausted,’ I say.
‘Indulge your benefactor a little bit longer,’ he
responds, and runs a finger down the crease of his pant
legs.
He knows about Nick’s interview tonight, so he leaves
and returns with all my favorite foods: Manchego cheese
and chocolate truffles and a bottle of cold Sancerre and,
with a wry eyebrow, he even produces the chili-cheese
Fritos I got hooked on back when I was Ozark Amy. He
pours the wine. We have an unspoken agreement not to get
into details about the baby, we both know how
miscarriages run in my family, how awful it would be for me
to have to speak of it.
‘I’ll be interested to hear what the swine has to say for
himself,’ he says. Desi rarely says 
jackfuck
or 
shitbag
; he
says 
swine
, which sounds more poisonous on his lips.
An hour later, we have eaten a light dinner that Desi
cooked, and sipped the wine that Desi brought. He has
given me one bite of cheese and split a truffle with me. He
has given me exactly ten Fritos and then secreted away the
bag. He doesn’t like the smell; it offends him, he says, but
what he really doesn’t like is my weight. Now we are side
by side on the sofa, a spun-soft blanket over us, because
Desi has cranked up the air-conditioning so that it is
autumn in July. I think he has done it so he can crackle a fire
and force us together under the blankets; he seems to have
an October vision of the two of us. He even brought me a
gift – a heathery violet turtleneck sweater to wear – and I
notice it complements both the blanket and Desi’s deep
green sweater.
‘You know, all through the centuries, pathetic men have

---

abused strong women who threaten their masculinity,’ Desi
is saying. ‘They have such fragile psyches, they need that
control …’
I am thinking of a different kind of control. I am thinking
about control in the guise of caring: 
Here is a sweater for
the cold, my sweet, now wear it and match my vision
.
Nick, at least, didn’t do this. Nick let me do what I
wanted.
I just want Desi to sit still and be quiet. He’s fidgety and
nervous, as if his rival is in the room with us.
‘Shhh,’ I say as my pretty face comes on the screen,
then another photo and another, like falling leaves, an Amy
collage.
‘She was the girl that 
every
girl wanted to be,’ said
Sharon’s voiceover. ‘Beautiful, brilliant, inspiring, and very
wealthy.’
‘He was the guy that all men admired …’
‘Not this man,’ Desi muttered.
‘… handsome, funny, bright, and charming.’
‘But on July fifth, their seemingly perfect world came
crashing in when Amy Elliott Dunne disappeared on their
fifth wedding anniversary.’
Recap recap recap. Photos of me, Andie, Nick. Stock
photos of a pregnancy test and unpaid bills. I really did do a
nice job. It’s like painting a mural and stepping back and
thinking: