We Would Never

by Tova Mirvis

Genres: Marriage & Divorce; Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

A riveting literary page-turner that explores the extremes to which a family will go to protect their own—for fans of Miranda Cowley Heller and Laura Dave.

No one is more surprised than Hailey Gelman when she comes under suspicion for the murder of her soon-to-be ex-husband Jonah. Hailey—nicknamed Sunshine by her mother for her bright outlook and ever-present smile—is the peacemaker who has always tried to do what her family expects of her.

The months leading up to Jonah’s death have been fraught, including a bitter separation and a messy custody battle over their young daughter, Maya. When Hailey files a motion to relocate to Florida so she can be near her family, the divorce begins to escalate, drawing in all the members of Hailey’s family, who are determined to help her however they can.

Most invested is Sherry, Hailey’s mother who wants nothing more than to be close to her family. Then there’s Nate, Hailey’s devoted and protective older brother, as well as the patriarch, Solomon, who is keeping a secret of his own that threatens the stability and security Sherry has worked so hard to maintain. As the divorce spirals dangerously out of control, they are all forced to consider just how far they will go for each other.

Part gripping mystery, part compassionate family drama, We Would Never explores what people are capable of when they feel cornered, and how, in the absence of forgiveness, love and hate can intertwine and turn deadly.

Release date: February 11, 2025

Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

Print pages: 320

Sample

1. Maine, 2019

MAINE, 2019
I watch the video in the middle of the night, trying to understand. The ex-wife sits behind a gray table in a small police interrogation room. The walls are cinder block, the lighting is fluorescent, her hair is blond. On the video, her face appears grainy, the way you would see someone on a security camera.

“We called you here,” says the police officer sitting across from her, “because there’s been a shooting. I’m sorry to tell you this, but your ex-husband, Jonah Gelman, was shot inside his home this morning. He was taken to the hospital, but unfortunately he didn’t make it.”

“Oh my god,” the woman cries, bringing her hands to her mouth and hunching forward.

“I know this is a shock,” the officer says, his voice gentle, his words unhurried. “But I’m hoping you might be able to help us understand what happened.”

The ex-wife begins to weep, with long gasping sobs that sound more animal than human. Frantically, she looks around the room, as if she can’t believe where she finds herself.

Wide awake, I replay the news clips that I’d once tried to avoid but now watch compulsively, in the hope that one of them will yield something new. “Here’s what we know so far,” says a reporter standing in the front yard of a blue Victorian house, yellow police tape visible behind her. “Noted writer and popular professor Jonah Gelman was inside his home a block from the Binghamton University campus when he was shot once in the chest.” There are interviews with friends and colleagues, all of whom describe Jonah as serious, brilliant, and ambitious. “He was the person to turn to if you wanted to hear the unvarnished truth,” says a friend, who attended Yale with him. “He could be uncompromising, but it was out of a sense of deeply held conviction,” says another friend. His literary agent reveals that a few days before Jonah was shot, he had emailed her to say that he was nearly done with his much anticipated second novel. Standing outside his Manhattan office, his editor, a gaunt man with black glasses, blinks back tears. “Jonah had incredible promise. He wasn’t one to get distracted or let anything stand in his way.”

In the days after the murder, thousands of calls were made to the police, some to report potential clues, others to offer theories that ranged from the credible to the preposterous. A jealous colleague. A deranged fan. A student irate about a bad grade. As always, there were a handful of confessions, which turned out to be false. I wonder if those people live in a world of delusion. Maybe they feel guilty about something else.

Lying next to me, in a double bed in a small room in a cabin twenty miles outside of Bangor, Maine, my daughter is asleep. My headphones are on, and my laptop screen is darkened so the light doesn’t rouse her. Outside, dogs are barking, piercing the overwhelming quiet, but my daughter doesn’t stir, a peaceful form under the flannel blankets, which do little to keep out the cold.

On the screen, the police officer interviewing the ex-wife has cottony white hair and ruddy cheeks, and he sits impassively as she cries.

“I don’t understand. Who could have done such a terrible thing?” she is asking.

“Before I can tell you more, I need to find out where you were this morning,” he says.

The ex-wife tells the officer that she was getting a massage, a gift from her brother. She had left the spa and was walking to her car when she got the call requesting that she come to the police station. She had been alarmed, of course, but had agreed.

In the interrogation video, the officer poses more questions: where was she last night (at home, with her daughter) and had she spoken to anyone on the phone or in person today (her mother, twice, and her brother a few times as well).

“I realize this is hard, but I need to ask,” the police officer says patiently, almost disinterested. “Is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to harm your ex-husband?”

She sobs into her hands, but when she regains control, her voice is steely. “When we first moved here, Jonah used to talk about someone in his department who hated him. They got into a fight and… Jonah could be stubborn. It made some people upset, but I don’t think that—” she says and stops.

“And what about you? How did you and Jonah get along?” the police officer asks.

The ex-wife takes a deep breath. For a moment—I hit pause to capture it—she looks afraid.

“Our divorce hasn’t exactly been amicable,” she says. “It should have been over by now, but there’s been so much fighting and it keeps dragging on. My family has been upset about everything that’s happened and they’ve tried to help me, but…”

The police officer leans forward, and in what is surely an act of superhuman restraint, his tone remains casual. “Can you think of anyone in particular who might have wanted to help you by doing something like this?”

Her hand flies to her mouth and the thought occurs to her—you can see it alight in her head—that she shouldn’t be speaking so freely.

“No. Of couse not. No one I know would ever do something so awful,” she insists. She’s looking not at the police officer but directly into the camera that has been recording her this whole time—standard protocol, she was informed at the start—as if aware that she’s speaking to all of us.

On YouTube, where I watch the video, there have been 130,000 views and 2,527 comments so far.

“An Oscar-worthy performance,” says one of the comments.

“Please. She is WAY too composed for someone who just found out the guy is DEAD,” says another.

“No chance anyone could fake that reaction. She’s crying because she still loved the guy.”

An hour in, the ex-wife asks to check her phone, which she’s allowed to do—she’s there, after all, of her own volition. Not once does she ask for a lawyer or object that the interview has lasted for too long. As the questions continue, the feeling in the room shifts. She speaks less freely and crosses her arms, ceasing to see the officer as an ally. Perhaps she senses that she’s shifting in his mind as well.

“WE ALL KNOW SHE’S GUILTY,” writes a woman, who provides a link to a statistic claiming that, on average, most Americans tell one to two lies per day, and another to a study asserting that it’s the hands that give us away: those who are lying are more likely to gesture with both hands than those who are telling the truth.

I replay the video to see if she’d used both hands or one. I shut the computer and close my eyes, but there is no reprieve. Outside, the dogs are still barking. The wind is howling. I google all the names again, but no matter how intently I search, nothing helps me understand.

“I know we’ve kept you for a long time, and I apologize for that,” the officer is saying to the ex-wife.

I lean closer to the screen to study her face. Who is she, what has she done, what should she have known?

“It’s okay. I understand why you brought me here,” she says wearily, her attempt at bravado fading before she gets the words out. “It’s always the ex-wife.”

It’s impossible to believe that the woman on the screen is me.