I don’t know why Pete invited me on his annual fishing trip. He knew I didn’t like fishing, hunting, and all that Hemingway shit.
He was my best friend but I liked his wife better. When he went on those trips I visited Sherri. And I never felt guilty — -she was beautiful and the love of my life. She just wouldn’t divorce him.
She told me it was alright to go because she was laid up with the flu.
When it was time for the nighttime expedition, Pete didn’t even want to come with the rest of us. Said he was going to stay in and read.
We returned at dawn and he was sitting in the recliner facing the fireplace. The reading lamp was burning and a book lay on the floor, like he dropped it out of his lap or something. We thought he was asleep.
I took a closer look. The book was in a pool of blood that dripped from his left arm. He’d shot himself in the left temple.
As we waited for the cops, we pondered why he would do such a thing. He seemed happy on the way up.
Somebody had to call Sherri. And then she would have to tell their kids, only seven and eight years old. Jake volunteered. I was too upset to do it.
She didn’t answer the phone and Jake had called at least six times. I told him to call Sherri’s sister. The sister always knew how to contact her.
Her sister told Jake that Sherri was visiting Tom, one of our co-workers, at his weekend place.
None of them understood at the time why my face turned green and I muttered, “I’ll kill her.”
