The Other Mrs.(75)

I ask what they said, and he tells me.

You know nothing.

Tell anyone and die.

I’m watching you.

A chill runs up my spine. My eyes go to the windows of homes on the street.

Is someone watching us?

“Did Morgan and your ex-wife get along?” I ask, though even I can see these threats make no sense coming from an aggrieved ex-wife. These threats have nothing to do with a woman trying to reclaim the rights to her child. These threats have nothing to do with a husband hoping for a life insurance payout in the wake of his wife’s death.

These threats are something else.

All this time, I’ve been wrong.

“I’m telling you,” Jeffrey says, becoming agitated now. Gone is the man who stood smiling at his wife’s memorial service. He’s come undone. Jeffrey is unwavering now as he states emphatically, “Courtney had nothing to do with this. Someone else was threatening my wife. Someone else wanted her dead.”

I see this now.



SADIE


“I used the last of the milk on the mac and cheese,” Will tells me when he gets home, stepping into the house only minutes after me. Tate is with him. He skips merrily through the front door, tells Will to count to twenty and then come find him. He dashes off to hide as Will unpacks a handful of items from a grocery sack on the counter.

Will winks at me, admits, “I told him we’d play hide-and-seek if he went with me without a fuss.” Will can turn any errand into an adventure.

In the Crock-Pot cooks Will’s famous macaroni and cheese. The table is set for five, as if Will bullishly believes Imogen will be home. He carries the gallon of milk he’s just brought home to the table, and fills the empty glasses in turn.

“Where’s Otto?” I ask, and Will tells me, “Upstairs.”

“He didn’t go with you and Tate?”

Will shakes his head no. “It was only a quick trip for milk,” he says.

Will turns to me, seeing me perhaps only then for the first time since he’s arrived home.

“What’s the matter, Sadie?” he asks, setting the milk on the edge of the table and coming to me. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

He wraps his arms around me and I want to tell him about the discoveries of the day. I want to get it all off my chest, but for whatever reason, instead I say, “It’s nothing,” blaming low blood sugar for the reason I shake. I’ll tell him later, when Tate isn’t just in the next room waiting for Will to find him. “I didn’t have time for lunch.”

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Sadie,” Will tenderly reprimands.

Will reaches into the pantry and finds a cookie for me to eat. He hands it to me, saying, “Just don’t tell the boys about this. No cookies before dinner. It’ll ruin your appetite.” He smiles as he says it and, even after everything we’ve been through, I can’t help but smile back, because he’s still there: the Will I fell in love with.

I stare at him awhile. My husband is handsome. His long hair is pulled back and all I can see is that chiseled jawline, the sharp angles of his cheeks, and those beguiling eyes.

But then I remember suddenly what Officer Berg said about Will having eyes for Morgan and I wonder if it’s true. My own smile slips from my face and I feel regret begin to brew inside.

I can be cold, I know. Glacial even. I’ve been told this before. I often think that I was the one to push Will into the arms of another woman. If only I had been more affectionate, more sensitive, more vulnerable. More happy. But in my life, all I’ve known is an inherent sadness.

When I was twelve, my father complained about how moody I could be. High as a kite one day, sad the next. He blamed the imminence of my teenage years. I experimented with my clothing as kids that age tend to do. I was desperate to figure out who I was. He said there were days I screamed at him to stop calling me Sadie because I hated the name Sadie. I wanted to change my name, be someone else, anyone other than me. There were times I was snarky, times I was kind. Times I was outgoing, times I was shy. I could be the bully just as easily as be bullied.

Perhaps it was only teenage rebellion. The need for self-discovery. The surge of hormones. But my then-therapist didn’t think so. She diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. I was on mood stabilizers, antidepressants, antipsychotics. None of it helped. The tipping point came later, after I’d met and married Will, after I’d started my family and my career.

Tate calls out from another room, “Come find me, Daddy!” and Will excuses himself, kissing me slowly before he leaves. I don’t pull away. I let him this time. He cradles my face in his hands. As his soft lips brush over mine, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time. I want Will to keep kissing me.

But Tate calls for him again and Will leaves.

I head upstairs to change. Alone in the bedroom, I wonder if it’s possible to dream about a place you’ve never been. I take my question to the internet. The answer isn’t so easy to find about places. But it is about faces. The internet claims that all the faces we ever see in our dreams are faces we’ve seen in real life.

It’s been over an hour, but Officer Berg still hasn’t called me back.

I change into a pair of pajamas. I drop my clothes into the laundry basket. The basket itself overflows, and I think that after everything Will does for us, the least I can do is a single load of laundry. I’m too tired to do it now, but first thing tomorrow, before work, I’ll throw in a load.