My Lovely Wife(62)

Millicent giggled. “I think we did just do it.”

“Not that. Well, yes, that, but it’s not what I meant.”

“You meant we should kill Lindsay.”

I paused. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

Millicent looked at me with a mixture of surprise and something else. At the time, I wasn’t sure. Now, I think it was interest. Or intrigue. But not revulsion. “Did I marry a psychopath?” she said.

I laughed. So did she.

The decision was made.

Millicent has never reminded me about that night, never said it was my idea. Never said it was my fault. But I know it is. If it weren’t for me, there would be no Lindsay, no Naomi, and Owen would not be back. Our daughter would still have long, shiny hair, and she wouldn’t have a knife under her mattress.

Or maybe it had been Millicent. Maybe she led me there all along.

I don’t know anymore.

But a few days later, I am once again reminded of that decision. And the unintended consequences of it.

The martial arts studios let Jenna sit in on a beginners’ class to see if she liked it. First, we went to tae kwon do. Half an hour later, Jenna shook her head at me and we left. She does not want to be in competitions, nor does she want to win ribbons and trophies. Jenna wants to fight off Owen.

The following afternoon we went to Krav Maga. Unlike tae kwon do, the Krav Maga school does not require uniforms or belts, which Jenna liked a lot better than the white gi everyone at tae kwon do had to wear. Jenna preferred to wear her sweatpants and T-shirt.

It never occurred to me that she would hurt the boy who was trying to teach her something, much less try to knock him out.

The whole thing happened so fast no one saw it. Not even me, and I had been watching Jenna from a row of chairs designated for parents. One minute, they were both standing up and the boy was showing Jenna how to form a proper punch. The next minute, he fell to the floor and screamed in pain.

A few drops of blood hit the mat, and everyone lost their minds.

“What the—”

“How did—”

“Is that a rock?”

A mom in a turquoise jumper pointed to Jenna. “She did it. She hit him with a rock.”

Pandemonium followed, along with a lot more screaming and big accusations.

It took a few hours to sort out, in part because the boy’s mother arrived and started yelling about why no one had called an ambulance. That made someone call an ambulance. And the police.

Two uniformed officers showed up and asked what happened. The boy’s mother pointed at Jenna and said, “She hit my son.”

Understandably, the officers were confused, because we were in a Krav Maga studio where people get hit on a regular basis. They also thought it was a little funny that the boy was hit by a girl. The man who owned the studio did not think it was funny at all.

In the end, the boy was fine. The blood had come from a small cut on his lip and really was just a few drops. No one went to the hospital and no one got arrested, but Jenna and I were disinvited from the Krav Maga studio.

Throughout the course of the afternoon, the boy’s mother vowed more than once that she would sue. And on top of everything else, I was forced to cancel several tennis lessons, and pissed off at least one client.

Once we were in the car, alone, I asked. “Why?”

Jenna stared out the window.

“You must have had a reason,” I said.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe to see if I could.”

“Could hit that kid with a rock?”

“Could knock him out.”

I do not point out the obvious. She did not knock him out. All she did was split his lip.

“Are you going to tell Mom?” Jenna said.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Actually, I had no idea. At that moment, I could not even look at Jenna.

She has never reminded me of Millicent. When Rory was born, he already had little tufts of red hair. Jenna was born bald. When her hair finally started growing in, it was the same color as mine: dark brown without a hint of red. Her eyes were the same as mine, too.

I was so disappointed.

It was not personal. It was not anything Jenna had done or hadn’t done. I just wanted a little red-haired girl to match my boy and my wife with the flame-colored hair. This was the picture in my mind, the image I had when I thought about my family. The real Jenna did not fit, because she looked like my mother instead of her own.

The first time she ever reminded me of Millicent was when she hit that boy with a rock. She looked just like Millicent did when she hit Robin in our kitchen.

What I found sexy in my wife was horrifying in my daughter.





Forty-four




It is late at night. Millicent and I are in her office. She works for Abbott Realty, a small pond of a business where she has been the big fish for years. The office is in a strip mall, sandwiched between a gym and a Chinese restaurant. Inside, it is empty and private, because no one is looking for real estate at this hour. The downside is the glass front, which means anyone can see inside. The open layout of the desks provides no cover, so we leave the lights out and sit in the back. If the circumstances were different, it might be romantic.

Millicent knows about Jenna. A friend told her before I could, sending her into a rage. She called and yelled loud enough to make my eardrum vibrate, because she said I should have called her when we were still at the studio. She is right.