My Lovely Wife(29)

Robin smirked at me and started to talk, beginning with when I walked into the grocery store.

Behind me, Millicent was rummaging around in the kitchen. I could not see what she was doing. I heard her heels click against the floor as she came back to us. Robin gave her an odd look but kept talking.

I did not see the waffle iron in Millicent’s hand until I heard the crack of Robin’s skull. She hit the floor with a thud.

Millicent killed Robin the same way I had killed Holly. No hesitation. All instinct.

And it was sexy.





Nineteen




The call comes as I leave the club, on my way out to check on Annabelle. Millicent is on the phone, telling me our daughter is sick.

“I picked her up from school.”

“Fever?” I ask.

“No. What’s your schedule?”

“I can come home now.”

All thoughts of Annabelle vanish. I turn the car around.

At home, Millicent is pacing around the foyer while talking on the phone. The TV is on in the family room, where Jenna is on the sectional couch, cocooned in blankets, her head resting on a stack of pillows. On the end table, a glass of ginger ale, a stack of plain crackers, and a big bowl just in case.

I sit down on the couch next to her. “Mom says you’re sick.”

She nods. Pouts. “Yeah.”

“Not faking?”

“No.” Jenna smiles a little.

I know she isn’t faking it. Jenna hates being sick.

In kindergarten, she had pneumonia and missed a month of school. She wasn’t sick enough to be in the hospital, but she was sick enough to remember it all. So does Millicent. Sometimes she acts like Jenna is five all over again. It’s a bit much now that Jenna is thirteen, but I don’t argue. I worry about Jenna, too.

“Watch with me.” Jenna points to the TV.

I take off my shoes and put up my feet. We watch a game show, yelling out the answers before they are revealed.

Millicent’s heels click across the floor. She walks over and stands in front of the TV.

Jenna hits the mute button.

“How are we? Are we good?” asks Millicent.

Jenna nods. “We’re good.”

Millicent turns to me. “How long can you stay?”

“All afternoon.”

“I’ll call you later.”

Millicent walks over to Jenna and feels her forehead, first with her hand and then with her lips. “Still no fever. Call if you need anything.”

Her heels click back down the hall. Jenna keeps the TV muted until after the front door closes. We go back to watching the game show. At the commercial break, Jenna mutes the TV again.

“Are you okay?” she says.

“Me? I’m not the one who’s sick.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

I know it’s not. “I’m fine. Just busy.”

“Too busy.”

“Yeah. Too busy.”

She doesn’t ask again.

Millicent calls twice, first interrupting a talk show and then a teenage soap opera. Rory gets home around three, and, after some initial grumbling, he joins our TV marathon.

At five o’clock, I become a father again.

“Homework,” I say.

“I’m sick,” Jenna says.

“Rory, homework.”

“You’re just now remembering I go to school?”

“Homework,” I say again. “You know the rules.”

He rolls his eyes and heads upstairs.

I should have said something earlier. It wasn’t because I forgot; it was because I couldn’t remember the last time I spent time alone with my kids.

Millicent gets home forty-five minutes later. She is brisk with her hellos and then a flurry in the kitchen, getting dinner in the oven before she even changes her clothes. The energy in the house is different when she is here. Everything goes up a notch because expectations are higher.

Tonight, we all eat chicken noodle soup, and no one complains. It’s what we do when someone is sick.

Other rules are relaxed as well. Since Jenna is set up on the couch, Millicent decides that’s where everyone will eat. We all sit in front of the TV with our plates on tray tables. By then, Millicent has changed into sweats, and Rory claims he has finished his homework. We watch a new sitcom that’s terrible, followed by a mediocre police show, and for a couple of hours everything feels normal.

After the kids go to bed, Millicent and I straighten up the family room. Although I have been lying around on a couch all day, I feel exhausted. I sit down at the kitchen table and rub my eyes.

“Did you miss a lot today?” Millicent asks.

She is talking about my real job, which I would have missed anyway, because I had planned on watching Annabelle.

I shrug.

She comes up behind me and starts to rub my shoulders. It feels good.

“I should be rubbing your shoulders,” I say. “You’re the one who worked all day.”

“Taking care of a sick child is more stressful.”

Millicent is right, though Jenna was more under the weather than sick. “She’ll be fine,” I say.

“Of course she will.”

She keeps rubbing. After a minute, she says, “How is everything else?”