The Other Mrs.(26)

In that moment, my heart sank so low it slipped right out of me.

Violence throughout the city was on a rise. That meant more and more patients showing up in my emergency room with bloodied bodies and gunshot wounds. My everyday routine started to resemble the sensationalist portrayal of ERs you see on TV, and not merely all fevers and broken bones. Add to that the fact that we’d been understaffed. Back in those days, my twelve-hour shifts looked more like fifteen, and it was a constant marathon during which there was little time to empty my bladder or eat. I was in a fog when I was home, tired and sleep-deprived. I forgot things. A dental cleaning, to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home from work.

Had Otto told me he was being bullied and I’d dismissed it?

Or had I been so lost in thought that I didn’t hear him at all?

Will’s eyes had turned to mine then, inquiring in that single incredulous stare whether I had known. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, made him believe that Otto hadn’t told me. Because maybe he had and maybe he hadn’t. I didn’t know.

What made you think it was okay to take a knife to school? Will had asked Otto then, and I tried to imagine the logic that went through his mind that morning when deciding to take the knife. Would there be legal recourse for what he had done, or would a slap on the wrist suffice? How could I possibly stand to send him back to the classroom when this was through?

What did you think you were going to do with it, buddy? Will asked, meaning the knife, and I braced myself, not sure I was ready to hear his reply.

Otto gazed over a shoulder at me then and whispered, his voice breathy from crying, It was Mom’s idea. I blanched at his words, turning all shades of white because of the preposterousness of the statement. A bold-faced lie. It was Mom’s idea to take the knife to school. To scare them with, Otto lied, his eyes dropping to the floor while Will, the police officer and I watched on. She’s the one who put it in my backpack, he said under his breath, and I gasped, knowing immediately why he said it. I was the one who always had his back. We’re cut from the same cloth, Otto and me. He’s a mama’s boy; he’s always been. He thought I would protect him from this, that if I could take the blame for what he’d done, he’d get off scot-free. But he didn’t pause to think of the ramifications it might have on my reputation, on my career, on me.

I was heartbroken for Otto. But now I was also angry.

Until that moment, I didn’t know he was being picked on at school. And far be it from me to suggest he bring a knife, a knife!, to school to threaten teenage boys with, much less slip it inside his backpack.

How did he possibly think anyone would fall for that lie?

That’s ridiculous, Otto, I breathed out as all eyes in the room moved in unison to mine. How could you say that? I asked, my own eyes starting to well with tears. I pressed a finger to his chest. I whispered, You did this, Otto. You, and he winced in the chair as if he’d been slapped. He turned his back to me and once again began to cry.

Soon after, we took Otto home, having been informed that there would be an expulsion hearing before the board to see if Otto could return to school. We didn’t wait for an answer. I could never send Otto back there again.

Later that night, Will asked me in private, Don’t you think you were too harsh on him?

And there it was. The first rift in our marriage.

Until that moment, there’d been no breaches in our relationship, no gaps, none that I knew about at least. Will and I were like diamonds, I thought, able to withstand the crushing pressures of marriage and family life.

I felt sorry for the way things had unfolded in the principal’s office. There was an awful pain in the pit of my stomach knowing that Otto had been enduring the bullying and abuse for so long and we didn’t know. I felt sad it had come to this, that my son thought taking a knife to school was his only option. But I was angry that he tried to lay the blame for it on me.

I told Will no, I didn’t think I was too harsh on Otto, and he said, He’s just a boy, Sadie. He made a mistake.

But some mistakes, I soon came to learn, couldn’t so easily be forgiven. Because it wasn’t two weeks later that I discovered Will was having an affair, that he’d been having an affair for quite some time.

Next came the news of Alice’s death. I wasn’t sure, but Will was. It was time to leave.

Happenstance, he called it.

Everything happens for a reason, he said.

Will promised me we could be happy in Maine, that we just needed to leave behind everything that happened in Chicago and start fresh, though of course it struck me as ironic that our happiness came at Alice’s expense.

As we sit now at the table, eating the last of our dinner, I find myself staring out the dark window above the kitchen sink. Thinking about Imogen and the Baines family, about Officer Berg’s accusation this morning, I wonder if we can ever be happy here, or if bad luck is destined to follow us wherever we go.



CAMILLE


After that first time together, my meetups with Will became a regular thing. There were other hotel rooms, ones that became more fancy the more I begged. I didn’t like the hotels he first took me to. They were dank, dingy, cheap. The rooms had stuffy smells to them. The sheets were scratchy and thin. They had stains on them. I heard people on the other side of the walls; they heard me.

I deserved more than that. I was too good for budget hotels, for the criticism of a minimally paid staff. I was special and deserved to be treated as such. Will should have known that by then. I dropped a hint one afternoon.