The Wife Upstairs(2)

There isn’t any dingy gray in Thornfield Estates.

Here, the grass is green no matter the time of year, and every house has flowerpots or window boxes, or huge bushes covered in colorful flowers. The shutters are bright yellow, navy blue, deep red, emerald green. If there’s any gray at all, it’s soft and elegant—dove gray, I heard Mrs. Reed call it. There’s a constant hum of activity from lawn services, carpet cleaners, and housekeeping vans going in and out of driveways, even on a rainy day like today.

Bear stops to pee against a curb, and I use my free hand to push the hood back from my head, cold rainwater slithering down my neck as I do. The rain jacket is old, and the seam on the left side is torn, but I can’t bring myself to buy a new one. It’s an expense that doesn’t seem quite worth it, and sometimes I wonder if anyone around here would notice if an older raincoat went missing.

Too big a risk, I remind myself, but I still spend a solid two minutes imagining walking through this neighborhood in something sleek and pretty, something that doesn’t leak cold rainwater all over me. Something like the Burberry jacket Mrs. Clark had hanging up by the door last week.

Don’t even think about it.

So instead, I think about the diamond earrings at Mrs. Reed’s, how if both went missing, well, that looks suspicious, but one? One could’ve fallen off the table. Could be pressed into the carpet at the country club. Could be loose in a pocket somewhere.

Bear stops to smell another mailbox, but I pull him on, making my way toward my favorite house.

It’s at the end of a dead-end street, set back farther from the road than the others, and it’s one of the few that doesn’t seem to have a steady stream of people going in and out. The yard is just as green as the other lawns in the neighborhood, but shaggier, and the pretty purple bushes that bloom out front have climbed too high, blocking off windows on the first floor.

It’s the biggest house in the neighborhood, rising taller, two massive wings sprouting off either side, two oak trees climbing high on the front lawn. It was clearly older than the other homes in the neighborhood, probably the first house ever built here.

The sameness of Thornfield Estates means that eventually, all the houses blur together. I like that—a beautiful blur is better than the depressing monotony of my part of town—but there’s something about this house, all alone at the end of a cul-de-sac, that draws me back every time.

I step off the sidewalk, and into the center of the road, to get a closer look.

This part of the neighborhood is always so quiet that it doesn’t even occur to me that standing in the street might not be the safest thing to do.

I hear the car before I see it, but even then, I don’t move, and later, I’d look back at that moment and wonder if I somehow knew what was going to happen. If everything in my life had been leading me to that one spot, to that one house.

To him.





2





Almost all of the cars in Thornfield Estates are the same, some version of luxury SUV. They’re basically movable versions of the houses—notably expensive, bigger than could ever be necessary. I barely notice them anymore, just register them as champagne or midnight-blue tanks that roll through the streets regularly.

The car that comes flying out of the driveway of my favorite house isn’t an SUV, though. It’s a sports car, an older one with a growling engine, and candy-apple red, bright as a wound against the gray day.

Bear barks, dancing on his back legs, and I try to move out of the way, my fingers getting tangled in the leash as the car’s bumper rushes toward us.

The asphalt is slick with rain, and maybe that’s what saves me because as I step back, my foot skids and I fall, landing hard enough to rattle my teeth. My hood drops over my face, so I can’t see anything except army-green vinyl, but I hear the squeal of brakes, then the soft crunch of metal. Bear is barking and barking and barking, moving nervously, and the leather leash bites into my wrist, making me wince.

“Jesus Christ,” I hear a man say, and I finally manage to push the hood back.

The back half of that gorgeous car now rests against one of the fancy streetlights that line the road. He hadn’t been going all that fast, but the car was so lightweight that the metal had crumpled like paper, and my mouth suddenly goes dry, heart pounding heavily in my chest.

Shit, shit, shit.

A car like that is worth more than most people make in a year. It would take me ages at the coffee shop to even afford a down payment on something like that, and now it’s seriously fucked up because I’ve been gaping at this guy’s house from the middle of the street.

The driver’s door is open, and I finally make myself look at the man standing there, one arm slung across the top of the door.

He doesn’t look like the other men I’ve seen in Thornfield Estates. They wear polo shirts and khakis, and even the ones who are young and in good shape have a sort of softness to them. Weak chins or bellies that sag slightly over their expensive leather belts.

There’s nothing weak or sagging in this man. He’s wearing jeans and boots that are meant to look lived-in, but I know are expensive. Everything about him looks expensive, even his rumpled white button-down.

“Are you alright?” he asks, stepping toward me. Even though it’s raining, he’s wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, and I can see myself reflected in them, the pale oval of my face against the dark green of my hood.