Dead to Her(21)

She opened her eyes in the dark, her heart thumping. Why hadn’t she just asked him who it was from? What instinct had kept her quiet? It was probably a work text. People don’t text about work in the middle of the night. Unless it was an email. Yes, maybe one of the junior partners was working late and wanting advice on something. Not that she knew whether that was likely or not. She wasn’t interested in Jason’s work, mainly because she didn’t understand it. Legal language was designed to make people like her not understand it.

But still, that pause. The furtiveness of his movement. Another layer of unease cloaked her. What was so urgent he had to deal with it at—she lit up the screen on her own phone—two in the morning? She sat up in the darkness, wide awake, and looked over at the grainy shadow of the bedroom door that he’d so carefully closed as he left.

Despite the cool whirr of the AC, sweat prickled her hairline as she got up and went after him, and her mouth was dry. Why was she so nervous? So what if he found her looking for him? That’s what wives did, wasn’t it, if they woke up and their husband wasn’t in bed? Checked he was okay?

It wasn’t him she was afraid of, she knew that. It was whatever secret thing he was doing. What she might find out. More strands of the rope that tied them together fraying in her hands as he pulled away. Rope like his father hanged himself with. The creaking, that’s what Jason said haunted him most after finding the body. That terrible sound that told him he was only moments too late. The stillness of death hadn’t completely settled after the frantic movement of dying. Had Jason now echoed his father and put a noose around their marriage, choking the love out of it?

He was in her dressing room. She could see the light through the crack under the door. Her heart thumped harder and she almost laughed—albeit slightly hysterically—at the irony. The dressing room was where she housed her secrets. No. Not exactly secrets. Her private things. Stuff that had never impacted Jason—and never would. Nothing he needed to know about. Reminders of how far she’d come for when she found it all so overwhelming. And, of course, her pills. She felt a twist of guilt. Those did concern him. But right now, as she pressed her ear against the door and heard his voice, almost a whisper, too infuriatingly quiet to make sense of, she was glad she had them. Why lock himself in her dressing room to make a call? Why not just go to his study? This was not a work call. There was too much urgency in his tone.

She stayed a moment longer, goose bumps rippling across her skin, and then turned back, resisting the urge to push open the door and demand to know who he was talking to. It would be pointless. He’d lie, they’d fight, and she’d end up feeling bad and paranoid and still be none the wiser. She was smarter than that.

The five or so minutes between rearranging herself into a sleeping position and Jason creeping back into bed felt like forever. As he pulled the sheet back over him she murmured, as if only half-awoken, “You okay, baby?”

“Just needed the bathroom,” he said quietly, as he lay with his back to her. “Go back to sleep.”

She rolled away slowly to her side of their vast bed, her breath surprisingly slow and steady as she faked sleep, and she could almost feel the tension in his back as he pretended to do the same. She was numb. Shell-shocked. Just needed the bathroom. He’d blatantly lied to her. She felt sick. She felt hot. She didn’t know what she felt. Betrayed? Lost? Fucking angry?

Her fingers gripped the edge of the pillow, the only outlet for her pounding emotions as they both lay there, in a farce of sleep. Who would want to speak to him at this time of night? Who would he take a call from? Who?

Keisha is a night owl.

The thought had been bubbling since the flash of light had woken her, but finally she gave it voice. Keisha stayed up late and got up late. William would be asleep, just like Jason had thought she was. Her stomach turned to water. Surely she was being paranoid. It was one thing to suspect flirting and maybe a little bit of want, but this was affair territory. Did she really think that was what they were doing? How would Keisha have gotten Jason’s number anyway? They hadn’t— Her stream of thought stopped dead. The car. Jason went with Keisha in her flashy red car. They were gone for what, fifteen, twenty minutes? A lot could be said in that time. Even if they didn’t do anything, how easy would it have been to find a reason to exchange numbers? Especially if you wanted to.

Once a cheat, always a cheat.

Her love was evaporating in the heat of her jealousy and she wanted to turn over and flay him alive with her nails. She forced herself to lie still, trapped under the blanket of night, alone with her dark thoughts. What was Jason thinking on his side of the bed? Quietly planning how he could escape her? Is this how Jacquie, the first wife, had felt? When had her moment come, that second when trust slid into mistrust and love cracked wide, emptying, leaving only the brittle shell?

Jacquie had confronted Jason, and he’d told her it was all in her imagination, stringing her along until he was finally ready to leave. That wouldn’t happen to Marcie. She wasn’t going to let loose with hysterical accusations. Evidence. She needed evidence. There’d be no gaslighting her. She was way smarter and tougher than that.

Of course, the caller might not even have been Keisha. Now that Marcie had opened the door of suspicion in her mind, other shadowy suspects emerged onto the stage. Sandy, the secretary? No, surely not. If Jason had wanted to bang her, he’d have done it years ago.