The Other Mrs.(101)

I see my phone on the table. I quickly cross the room and grab for it, stifling a cry when I turn it over to see that the battery is dead again. It will take a couple of minutes for the phone to charge well enough to use. There is another option, the landline, which is corded. The only way to use it is here in the kitchen. I’ll have to be quick.

I walk back across the kitchen. I grab the landline, a dated thing. Officer Berg’s business card is tucked in the letter holder on the counter, which I’m grateful for because, without my cell phone, I don’t have my contacts. I dial the number on the card. I wait desperately for the police officer to answer, sipping nervously from the glass of Malbec as I do.



WILL


I follow her as she goes from one room to the next. She looks for me. She doesn’t know that I’m here, closer than she thinks.

She’s monkeying around in the kitchen now. But when I hear the spin of a rotary dial I know it’s time to intervene.

I come into the room. Sadie whirls around to face me, eyes wide. A deer in headlights is what she is, clutching the phone to her ear. She’s scared shitless. Beads of sweat edge her hairline. Her skin is colorless, damp. Her breathing is uneven. I can practically see her heart thumping in her chest, like a scared little bird. It’s reassuring to see that a third of the wine’s been drunk.

I’m on to her. But does she know that I am?

“Who are you calling?” I ask calmly, just to see her grapple for a lie. But Sadie’s never been a good liar, and so instead she’s a deaf-mute. It’s telling, isn’t it? That’s how I know that she knows that I know.

My tone shifts. I’m tired of this game.

“Put the phone down, Sadie.”

She doesn’t. I step closer, snatch the phone from her, set it back on the cradle. She tries to hold on to it, but Sadie lacks physical strength. The phone gives effortlessly.

“That,” I tell her, “was not your brightest idea.” Because now I’m mad.

I weigh my options. If she hasn’t drunk enough, I may have to coerce her into finishing the wine. But gagging and vomiting would be counterintuitive. I think of another way. I hadn’t been planning on disposing of a body, not tonight, but it’d be just the same to make Berg believe she ran away as it would to make it look like a suicide. A little more laborious than originally thought, but still doable.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife. I love my family. I’m quite torn up about this.

But it’s unavoidable, a necessary consequence of the can of worms that Sadie has opened. If only she’d have left well enough alone. It’s her fault this is happening.



SADIE


I feel woozy. Disoriented. Panic-stricken. Because Will is angry, livid in a way that I’ve never seen him before. I don’t know this man who stands before me, glaring intimidatingly at me. He looks vaguely like the man I married, and yet different. His words are clipped, his voice hostile. He jostles the phone from my hand, and that’s how I know I wasn’t imagining things. If I had any doubts about Will’s part in Morgan’s death, they’re gone. Will did something.

I take a step back for each step he draws near, knowing that soon my back will be to the wall. I have to think quickly. But my mind is foggy, thick. Will goes out of focus before me, but I see his hands, coming at me, in slow motion.

I remember the letter opener just then, tucked away in the waistband of my pants. I grope for it, but my hands are trembling, careless; they get caught up in the pants’ elastic, knocking the letter opener loose by mistake, sending it sliding down my pant leg, crashing to the floor.

Will’s response time is far faster than mine. He hasn’t been drinking. I feel drunk already, the alcohol hitting me harder than it usually does. Will leans down to the ground quicker than me, plucks the letter opener from the floor with nimble hands. He holds it up for me to see, asks, “What did you think you were going to do with this?”

The meager kitchen lighting glints off the end of the stainless-steel blade. He points it at me, dares me to flinch, and I do. His laugh is heinous, mocking me.

How well we think we know those closest to us.

And then, what a shock to the system it is to find out we don’t know them at all.

In his anger, his rage, he no longer looks familiar.

I don’t know this man.

“Did you think you were going to hurt me with this?” he asks, stabbing his palm with it, and I see that, though the edge is sharp, sharp enough to slice paper with, the point is dull. It does nothing but redden his palm. It leaves no other mark. “Did you think you were going to kill me with this?”

My tongue thickens inside of my mouth. It makes it harder to speak.

“What did you do to Morgan?” I ask. I won’t answer his questions.

He tells me, still laughing, that it wasn’t what he did to her, but what I did to her that matters. My eyes turn dry. I blink hard, a series of times. A nervous tic. I can’t stop.

“You don’t remember, do you?” he asks, reaching out to touch me. I draw swiftly back, thwacking my head on the cabinet. The pain radiates through my scalp, and I wince, a hand going involuntarily to it.

He says condescendingly, “Ouch. Looks like that hurt.”

I drop my hand. I won’t satisfy him with a reply.

I think of all the times he was so solicitous, so caring. How the Will I once knew would have run for ice when I hurt myself, would have helped me to a chair, pressed the ice to my aching head. Was that all in jest?