Chapter 32 - Sarah

                                    

                                          
Sarah
Present 
When I heard the anguished cry and then that echoing sound of William's body slamming against the water, my world stopped.  My head swiveled back to take in the sight of the horror that was my husband knocked completely unconscious in our pool.  The blood seeping from the top of his head created ripples of crimson in that body of water, like an eerie ink drop.  The scream that escaped my throat could awaken the dead.  
I wasted no time rushing over to him.  Pulling him out of that water was one of the most challenging things I've ever done.  William weighs maybe 225 lbs., but transform that weight into dead weight, and it may as well have been a ton.  
Slippery.  His body was so fucking slippery in that water.  My hands and fingers gripped desperately at him, trying everything I could to help him.  To save him.  This man.  The father of my children.
By the time the paramedics got there, they took over while I watched from the sidelines.  Frantic, my heart never steadied its rhythm.  All it knew was incessant, pounding speed.  And where was it racing to?  I suppose to a place where William survives and doesn't make a widow out of me or orphans out of our children.  
While William hitched a ride with emergency services, Rochelle, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky.  She was declared dead at the scene.  I sobbed as they zipped her up in that black bag.  Rochelle was a relatively small woman, but still, it's crazy to think how an entire person's remains could fit into a bag like that.  It's belittling in a way.  As appalled as I was with what she had done to me and to our marriage, she didn't deserve this.  
I watched as law enforcement strung yellow caution tape across my backyard.  What I once called my home, a sanctuary for my children, was inconceivably turned into a crime scene that chilly February morning.  
Elijah.  All I could think about was him and the horrors he would have to endure from this nightmare of a loss.  It's my understanding that he and Rochelle were in the process of trying to rekindle their relationship.  Now that dream has been cut so devastatingly short in the most permanent way.  I wish I could make this go away for him.  I wish I could make all of it go away.
I also wish I could send a basket of shit sandwiches to whoever leaked the story to the press.  Seeing his story flash across my phone was surreal:
William Weiss, Fantasy Book author, unresponsive at his home after nasty fall in family pool.  Monica Parker, daughter of Above the Arts Film Producer, Elijah Davis, found dead at the scene. Story developing. 
I don't think I've ever been on the phone as much as I was in the first few hours following.  I must have talked to dozens of officials.  Police, emergency personnel, doctors, nurses, lawyers.  Then of course Joseph, Carol & Daniel, Elijah & Erica, my mother, my children, Nora.  
Carol advised me not to say anything to the police until the family lawyer was present.  I already knew that.  I knew what had happened here today may look suspicious to outsiders.  In this often impetuous world, I could see how fingers would point to me.  Jilted wife takes out famed book author's lover.  The paper would practically sell itself.  But I was so far removed from the faithlessness that was William and Rochelle.  So over it that the idea of killing her out of jealousy?  Ridiculous.  But killing her to protect myself or my family, that was another story.  Except that didn't happen.  
In this circumstance, I didn't kill her.  I didn't even wish her dead.  The only one I'd wished dead was him.  William.  But only in my fantasies.  Never for real.  Never like this.  In some cosmic fatal accident.  
After I'd given my statement to the police about everything I witnessed, with my lawyer present of course, I was exhausted.  What comes next from them is an actual investigation.  I'm told they'll subpoena our security cameras, search the property for evidence, check phone records, the whole nine.  I told the press nothing, except to respect our privacy.