The Good Widow
Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke
She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she’s always a woman to me
—Billy Joel
CHAPTER ONE
BEFORE
His fingers slithered like a snake to find hers. She opened her palm and accepted them. There was something about the commanding way he reached for her. It felt like a statement. You are mine.
The reality was less clear. Because she was and she wasn’t. And it was in this contradiction where their relationship lived, where it took its deep sighs and shallow breaths, where the highs felt like the top of the most beautiful mountain. Breathtaking. Exhilarating. Peaceful. And the lows felt like the La Brea Tar Pits she had visited as a child. Trapped. Anxious. Uncertain.
She ran her free hand through her hair, sticky from the wind that whipped through the rented Jeep after they’d decided to take the top down to feel the sun, the air, maybe even the spray of the ocean. They were both a bit quiet; it had been a long drive with so many turns, both on the road and in their relationship, so she leaned back and let the silence between them comfort her. She needed to confess something to him. And as long as the wind continued to swirl around them, as long as they kept winding their way slowly down the tortuous and twisty back side of the road to Hana, she could hold it on the tip of her tongue, where it had been resting for the last twenty-four hours. She squeezed his hand to check in, and her heart fluttered when he echoed it and made eye contact for a moment before looking back to the treacherous road.
There’s something I need to tell you. She had attempted to force the words out several times since she’d found out. As they lay in bed, wound tightly together, their faces shamelessly close. He’d shared his own secrets, their lips brushing as he spoke. But when it had been her turn, the words would not come. She had not been ready for him to know. To face what might happen after.
The lush rain forest opened up and presented the ocean, the view so magnificent that she gasped slightly. He squeezed her hand, then pointed down below the cliffs they were navigating, the creases around his eyes deepening as he smiled, his hand leaving hers again only to downshift as they reached the top of a steep incline. She often wondered why he had chosen her. Why he’d risked so much to be with an average-looking woman, the owner of a nose that was a little too small for her face, lips that were just slightly too thin. A girl who worked hard but still hadn’t found a career.
But in moments like these, this man’s love, or lust, or even his affection—she was never quite sure what to call it—buoyed her. When he looked at her just like that, she knew that she’d do anything he asked. She might have even jumped off that bridge with him, as long as he’d held her hand on the way down. Granted, these thoughts of devotion were often fleeting. She questioned him almost as much as she revered him. But right then, in the Jeep hugging the side of this mountain, the unpaved road so riddled with potholes that she was getting carsick, she felt like they could overcome anything together. That the world could be theirs.
That’s probably why she took off her seat belt. And decided to lean in close and breathe her secret into his ear. She could have simply called out her confession over the wind, but she needed to deliver the news gently. The rest of their lives together depended on it.
CHAPTER TWO
JACKS—AFTER
I’m FaceTiming with Beth for the second time today when the police show up. I swing the door open, half listening to one of my sister’s long-winded, albeit hilarious, stories about some moms at her children’s elementary school who want to petition the school board to allow them to “manage” their kids’ school projects. “They come out so much better when we’re involved,” one of them had said without a trace of irony in her voice.
“Are you Mrs. Morales? Wife of James Morales?”
I nod, dropping the phone to my side, my sister still speaking loudly as her view changes from my mud-brown hair and matching eyes to the dark denim of my jeans. I take in the static sound coming from the walkie-talkie on the female cop’s slender hip, the handle of a gun protruding from the holster of her stout partner with a thick mustache, their squad car in the background.
She rattles off their names, which I immediately forget, then points to the olive-green front door, the only thing distinguishing our modest tract home from the others on the block. “May we come inside and speak with you?”
“Why? Is something wrong? Is James okay?” I ask as I study the knotted skin between the female officer’s deep-set eyes, my mind clicking the pieces together.
“Mrs. Morales, may we come in, please?” she repeats, and I wonder, in a flash of annoyance as I stare at her partner’s thick black hair, if they’d planned this. That she’d talk to me? Deliver the bad news I sensed was coming—woman to woman? She steps closer, and I jerk my body back, the heel of my shoe catching on the doormat. I lose my balance and grab onto her arm to steady myself. She offers me a sad smile, but still, I don’t invite them inside. I want a few more seconds of not knowing.
“Jacks?” Beth says my nickname, and I silently turn the phone around so she can see the cops.