The Other Mrs.(105)

I pull violently back, regaining full possession of the knife.

He comes at me again.

I don’t think this time. I just do. I react.

I plunge the knife into his chest, feeling nothing as the tip of the chef knife cuts right through him. I watch it happen. Imogen, behind me, watches, too.

The blood comes next, spraying and oozing from his body as all two hundred pounds of him collapses to the floor with a dull thud.

I hesitate at first, watching the blood pool beside him. His eyes are open. He’s alive, though the life is quickly leaving his body. He looks to me, a beseeching glance as if he thinks I might just do something to help him survive.

An arm rises, reaches enfeebled for me. But he can’t reach me.

He won’t ever touch me again.

I am in the business of saving lives, not taking them. But there are exceptions to every rule. “You don’t deserve to live,” I say, feeling empowered because there’s no tremor, no shaking in my voice as I say it. My voice is as still as death.

He blinks once, twice, and then it stops, the movement of his eyes coming to a stop, as do the heaving movements of his chest. He stops breathing.

I fall to my hands and knees beside him. I check for a pulse.

It’s only then, when Will is dead, that I rise and turn to Imogen, folding her into my arms, and together we cry.



SADIE


One Year Later...

I stand on the beach, staring out at the ocean. The shoreline is rocky, creating tide pools that Tate splashes barefoot in. The day is cool, midfifties, but unseasonably warm for this time of year, compared to what we’re used to. It’s January. January is often bitterly cold, thick with snow. But here it’s not, and I’m grateful for it as I’m grateful for all the ways in which this life is different from our life before.

Otto and Imogen have gone ahead to climb rock formations that extend out into the sea. The dogs are with them, tethered to leashes, eager as always to climb. I stay behind with Tate, watch as he plays. As he does, I sit on my heels, examine the rocky beach with my hands.

It’s been a year now since we threw into a hat the names of the places we wanted to go. A decision like that shouldn’t be taken lightly. And yet we had no family to speak of, no connections, no ties. The world was our oyster. Imogen was the one to reach into the hat and pick, and before we knew it, we were California-bound.

I’ve never been one to sugarcoat or to lie. Otto and Tate know now that their father isn’t the man he led us to believe he was. They don’t know all the details of it.

Self-defense, it was decided in the days after Will’s death, though I don’t know if Officer Berg would have believed it if Imogen, hiding just on the other side of the kitchen door that night, hadn’t managed to record Will’s confession on her phone.

She also managed to save my life.

Hours after Will was dead, Imogen played the recording for Officer Berg. I was in the hospital, receiving treatment for my wounds. I didn’t know about it until later.

You’re too smart for your own good, Sadie. If only you’d have let it be, this wouldn’t be happening. But I can’t have you go around telling people what I did. I’m sure you understand. And since you can’t keep your own mouth closed, it’s up to me to shut you up for good.

Imogen and I never talked about how she hadn’t recorded the entire conversation that night, the parts where Will made it clear I was the one to physically carry out Morgan’s murder. Only she and I would ever know the whole truth. No evidence of my involvement in Morgan’s murder was found. I was exonerated. Will was charged with both women’s deaths.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Months of therapy followed, with much more to come. My therapist is a woman named Beverly whose purple-dyed hair seems incongruous with her fifty-eight years. And yet it’s perfectly suited to her. She has tattoos, a British accent. One goal of our time together is to locate and identify my alters and reunite them into one functioning whole. Another is to face head-on the memories my mind has hidden from me, those of my stepmother and her abuse. We’re slowly succeeding.

The kids and I have a family therapist. His name is Bob, which delights Tate. It makes him think of SpongeBob. Imogen has her own therapist, too.

Otto goes to a private art academy, finally finding a world where he feels he fits in. Getting him there is a sacrifice. The tuition is steep and the commute long. But there is no one in the world who deserves this happiness more than Otto.

I watch as ocean waves pound the shoreline. The spray of the waves splashes Tate and he giggles with glee.

This beach was once the site of a city trash dump. Long ago, residents tossed their trash over the cliffs and into the Pacific Ocean. In the decades that followed, the ocean smoothed and polished that trash. It spit it back out onto the shoreline. Except that by then, time and nature had repurposed the trash into something extraordinary. It was no longer refuse but now beautiful beach glass that people come from all over the state to collect.

I gaze at Otto and Imogen at the peak of a rock formation, sitting beside one another, talking. Otto smiles, and Imogen laughs as the wind blows through her long hair. I see Tate splashing sublimely in the tide pool with a grin. There’s a little boy beside him now; he’s made a friend. I feel light because of it, buoyant. I close my eyes and stare up at the sun. It warms me through.

Will stole many years from my life. He stole my happiness and made me do reprehensible things. It’s taken time, but I’m finding ways to forgive myself for all that I have done. Will broke me at first. But in the process of healing, I’ve become a stronger, more confident version of myself than I used to be. In the aftermath of Will’s exploitation and his abuse, I’ve discovered the woman I was always meant to be, a woman I can be proud of, a woman my children can look up to and admire.