A Cold Needle

I was sitting in an interrogation room when two detectives walked in.

“Hello, Mrs. Jeffries. I’m Detective Roland Matthews, and this is my partner, Janet Frazer. I’m sorry for your loss, but can we go through what happened?”

“Yes, sure. I woke up to find Greg missing. When I checked the bathroom, he was lying on the ground. I noticed a needle next to him and knew he had been using again. All this time... How did I not notice?”

“It’s not your fault, Mrs. Jeffries. I lost my brother to drugs, too. We didn’t know until it was too late; he hid it so well,” Detective Frazer said.

“Mrs. Jeffries, have you got any insurance claims?”

“No, I don’t. Greg wanted to get a life insurance policy, but I said no; I didn’t want to think of a life without him.”

After the interrogation, I left the police station, still contemplating how to break the news to Greg’s parents. Once I arrived home, the house felt hollow. I wanted to walk out the door and spend the night at a hotel, but my body felt too heavy. I crawled into bed and passed out until the next afternoon.

I visited Greg’s parents and told them what happened; Greg’s dad had a minor heart attack, but luckily, he recovered. We cremated Greg a week later and scattered his ashes by the lake he proposed to me. The day after the funeral, Detective Matthews called me and asked if I knew someone called Melinda Nonis.

“I’m sorry, detective, but I don’t. Who’s she?”

“She was in your husband’s support group. She overdosed a day ago.”

“What? That’s weird. Do you think there’s a connection?”

“Do you think they could’ve been having an affair?”

“No, detective, Greg was not that kind of person. I’m certain he would’ve never done such a thing.”

Three days passed before Detective Frazer arrived at my house with some papers; they were records of chats and calls between Greg and Melinda. He had been cheating on me. My hands trembled as I broke down in front of her and threw the papers on the ground. He was not the man I thought he was.

A week later, I found an unmarked letter in my mailbox. It read: “It was nice working with you, Onella.”

I burned the letter immediately. As the flames consumed the paper, I remembered the day I found out about Greg’s infidelity. After all the time and energy I had spent to help him recover, that is how he repaid me? I wouldn’t have it, and neither would Melinda’s husband.