Dear Wife(21)

Miss Sally’s shiny lips spread in a grin. “Girl, welcome to Morgan House.”

  I celebrate securing a new room by falling onto the bed fully clothed and conking out for five hours straight. It’s still light when I awaken, but the sun has dipped below the trees, giant pines that sway in the air above my window. My few belongings are tucked in the drawer to my right, an easy arm’s reach from my bed. When Miss Sally shoved open my door, she handed me two keys—one for the door and the second for the drawer—but if she’s the type to spy with secret, hidden cameras, then she’s also the type to have a master key. My dwindling wad of cash is strapped to a belt inside my shirt.

Somewhere below me, people are starting to trickle in. The front door opens and closes, opens and closes, and voices worm up through the floor like distant waves. I wonder about the proper etiquette here. Do I go down and say hello? Stay in my room? I hear a sudden burst of laughter, and I am overcome with uncertainty. Venturing downstairs means talking to people. Introducing myself as Beth. Answering questions like the ones Miss Sally asked. Up here in my room, behind my closed door, I am invisible.

My stomach growls, and I unlock the drawer and dig out a small bag of peanuts, the last one. I rip off the corner and think what I really want is a burger, dripping in grease and draped in bacon, smothered in mayonnaise and ketchup and a thick layer of pickles. My mouth waters, and I remember all those times I ate pickles at the fair, giant, foil-wrapped mammoths my sister and I had to hold in both hands. We’d wander among the bumper cars and farm stalls, eating them until our stomachs ached. You say pickles make my breath stink. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a jar of Vlasics and eat every single one.

For someone who is trying to shed herself of a husband, I sure do think of you a lot. Part of it is habit—all those years of tiptoeing around your moods and catering to your every whim are hard to unlearn, like a Charles Manson brainwashing. And it’s still a necessary measure to keep myself safe. I have to think of you, to imagine the steps you’re taking to find me in order to stay one step in front of you.

But I can’t stay up here, hiding in my room forever.

I reach for my phone, pull up the calculator. At twenty-four dollars a night, my two-thousand-dollar stash will last me only a couple of months, and that’s assuming the pile of crap car Dill sold me doesn’t blow a fuse or a tire. And Beth has to eat, which means Beth needs to do some seriously creative thinking. Even a job slinging burgers requires some sort of identification.

I turn the peanut bag upside down over my mouth, but all I get is crumbs. I toss the bag on the bed. Groceries and a job, that’s on the agenda for tomorrow.

I think about what you’re doing now, some thirty hours into my disappearing trick. I wonder if you’ve found my car, my cell phone, the clues that will lead you to Tulsa—the opposite direction of here. I picture you searching through my things, calling my sister and my friends, combing through the files on my computer, and my senses go on high alert. I listen for the rumble of your car, the scrape of your key in the door, the tremor of your heavy shoes coming down the hallway floor. I shoot a glance to the window, half expecting to see the pale moon of your face peering in, the flash of your gotcha smile before you point your gun at my head. My heart taps a double time, and I take deep, belly breaths, trying to calm my nervous system. Post-traumatic stress is no joke—flashbacks and nightmares and anxiety attacks like this one are the product of years of abuse. It’ll take more than a couple days of freedom for my body to uncoil.

Freedom.

I’m not there yet, not even close. I’m more in danger now than that time the waiter accidentally brushed his fingers against mine when refilling my water, or any one of the times you came home after a particularly bad day at work. Leaving does not stop the violence, and it doesn’t guarantee freedom. Why doesn’t she just leave? gets asked in living rooms and courtrooms across the country, when a better question would be, Why doesn’t he let her go?

It took me a while, but I’ve finally figured out the answer.

You’d sooner kill me than let me go.



JEFFREY

On a long stretch of stick-straight road, 1600 Country Club Lane is tucked behind a thick tuft of trees and bushes. I don’t see it until I’ve already blown past, and then I slam the brakes and screech to a stop in the middle of the road, because what the hell. Nobody’s on this street but me, and with any luck, the squealing of my tires lets them know I’m here, that I’m coming in.

I throw the car into Reverse, pulling into the driveway in a sloppy arc, my gaze lighting on an upstairs window. I picture the two of them popping up in bed behind the shiny glass, sheets pressed to their naked, panting chests. I’m here, bitches. Just in case, I lean on the horn.

The house is a renovated bungalow, sprawling and ivy-covered, the kind of place Sabine would go gaga over. A pompous thing that belongs in the rolling hills of Tuscany, not pressed up against the faded greens of the Pine Bluff Country Club. An easy sale, a house she’d already be in love with before Trevor walked through the door.

I climb out of the car and slam my door with a sharp clap that echoes down the street. Inside the house, a little dog barks, high-pitched and frantic. Good, at least somebody knows I’m here.

I stomp up the walkway and bang on the front door with a fist. “Sabine! I know you’re in there so open up. Open this door right goddamn now!”