She told me about the phone calls first. How he started taking them outside in the backyard, which he'd never done before. How she'd see him standing near the garage in the evenings, phone pressed to his ear, speaking quietly. How if she came to the door, he'd either stop talking or walk further away. I thought she paused.
I thought what any wife would think. When your husband starts taking private phone calls in the backyard, but it wasn't that. I don't know what it was. I never found out what the phone calls were about. She looked back out the window.
He also started keeping the workshop locked. He had a small workshop in the garage tools, a workbench, a little space he'd had since we moved in. He'd always left it open. I'd go in there sometimes just to bring him a sandwich. And then one day the padlock was on and when I asked him about it he said he was working on a surprise.
Did he ever give you the surprise? Her jaw tightened. He died before he got the chance. She talked for a while. I let her.
I drank the coffee and I listened and I didn't rush her toward the part I was waiting for because I got the sense that Clare Bennett hadn't talked about Daniel really talked not just mentioned him in a long time maybe in 6 years. Daniel had died of a heart attack, sudden cardiac arrest. The coroner's report said he'd been in his early 40s. No. 39.
She'd said, and while it wasn't unheard of, it had shocked everyone who knew him. He was fit. He was healthy. He'd passed his departmental physicals without a note. Did he have any history of heart problems?
Family history? His father had a bypass at 65. That was it. The cardiologist said it was probably an undetected arrhythmia, an electrical problem. He said sometimes they just don't show up until she put her coffee down.
Until they do. Were you with him when it happened? I was at my sister's. He was home alone. He collapsed in the backyard.
They think that's where they found him when the neighbor called it. In a neighbor had seen him through the fence on the ground. He was already gone in the backyard near the garage. We both let that sit for a moment. Claire, before he died, did he say anything to you?
Anything that seemed strange or didn't make sense at the time. She looked at the table. About 3 weeks before he died, we were sitting out on the deck after dinner. It was a warm night. We were just sitting, not really talking.
And he said out of nowhere, no context at all. Clare, "If anything ever happens to me, don't trust the ground." The kitchen was very quiet. Don't trust the ground," I repeated. I thought he was I don't know what I thought. I thought he was being strange.