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They were one week married when the telephone rang.
They’d spent an embarrassing majority of their first week as newlyweds in bed. This morning, though—a Saturday—they’d managed to dress presentably and cook a real breakfast, and Daniel had been reading the newspaper while Peggy worked on some paperwork she’d been neglecting since before the wedding. Then they heard the ringing, and Daniel grabbed his crutch from where it was leaning against the table and went to the hallway, where the rented rotary phone sat on its little table.
Peggy attended to her forms for a few moments more, only half listening to Daniel’s pleasantries from out in the hall, until the tone of his voice changed abruptly and got her attention.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she heard him say sharply, and then, “No. That can’t be right,” and something in his tone frightened her, and she got up and went to him.
Daniel was setting the phone back down on its base, and Peggy saw his knuckles were suddenly white where he was gripping the table. She put a hand on his arm.
“Daniel, what is it?”
He didn’t look her in the eyes. “Jack Thompson’s dead. He killed himself two days ago.”
“Oh my god,” Peggy said without thinking, “oh Christ, Daniel.” She felt him tense at her words, and she took a step backward to give him a modicum of space, but he was already reaching for his crutch; he went to the living room and sat down heavily on the couch, and scrubbed a hand over his face, and Peggy did not know if she was expected to join him or leave him. Jack had been something like their friend, at the end—he’d even been at the wedding—and it made sense to her that Daniel would be shocked, and grieving. As for herself, she felt only a strange sort of hollow curiosity. Jack was dead, which, while terrible, was expected in their line of work more than others; but the fact that he was dead of suicide…
Christ, Carter! she chided herself, Have a little respect. A man is dead.
Decided then, she went and sat with Daniel on the couch.
“Who was it on the phone?” she asked him quietly.
“Philips. Colonel Philips. He offered me the New York position.”
It took a moment for what he had said to hit her. She put a hand to her mouth. “Daniel…”
“I know.”
“Are you…”
“Jeez, Peg, how can I, Jack’s not even buried yet!” He spat, then he looked tremendously guilty, and he took a deep breath and turned to her, meeting her eyes. “…I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, Daniel, I understand,” she said quickly, and she cautiously took his hand in her own and squeezed it, once.
“Did Philips say…” she started, but Daniel was shaking his head.
“No. He didn’t know why. Jack lived alone, he didn’t leave a note. His landlady found him, gunshot wound to the head.”
“And there’s no chance there was foul play involved?”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Peggy was upset, of course, but Daniel looked terrible. He kept running his hands through his hair and avoiding her eyes.
“Daniel… was something going on with Jack?”
The silence dragged on. And Peggy, tense, hands clenched in her lap, remembered: near the end of the night, she had found Jack outside of the wedding reception, reeking of alcohol, but he’d carried himself remarkably well; she had thanked him for coming and kissed him on the cheek despite herself.
“I wouldn’t’ve missed it for the world,” he’d said to her, eyes strange and bright, and it had given her pause for a moment, but then she had hugged him daintily and forgotten about it, swept up in Daniel’s orbit and the endless joy of the evening.
“He said something to me… the night of the wedding,” Daniel said now, slowly and very softly. “I don’t know, but…”
Peggy knew the look that had been in Jack’s eyes. He had watched her, dressed in white, prance away into the taxi cab with her new husband, and he had stood there on the steps of the reception hall and now she knew with a sudden painful clarity what he had been feeling.
“He was in love with you, wasn’t he,” she said very quietly, very clinically, to Daniel, and Daniel bowed his head and said, muffled, “yeah, yeah, I think he was, Peg,” and she held him for a long time after that, as the sun set outside, perfect and tangerine over the Malibu sands.