The Other Mrs.(77)

I upend the basket and laundry comes tumbling out, onto the floor. I sort the laundry, separating the whites and colors into piles. I grab armfuls of it and begin thrusting it into the washing machine, too much for one load. But I want to get it done. I’m not thinking about any one thing in particular, but many things, though the thing that trumps all is how I can get my marriage, my family back on track. Because there was once a time when we were happy.

Maine was meant to be a new beginning, a fresh start. Instead it’s had a detrimental effect on everything, Will’s and my marriage, our family, our lives. It’s time that we leave, go somewhere else. Not back to Chicago, but somewhere new. We’ll sell the house, take Imogen with us. I think of the places we could go. So many possibilities. If only I could convince Will to leave.

My mind is elsewhere. Not on the laundry. I’m hardly paying attention to the laundry at all, other than this quick, forceful way I jam things into the machine, slamming the door. I reach for the detergent on a nearby shelf. Only then do I catch sight of a few items that sneaked out, escapees from the washing machine lying limp on the laundry room floor.

I bend at the waist to retrieve them, ready to open the door and toss them back in. It’s as I stand, hunched over, scooping the items into my hand, that I see it. At first I blame the poor lighting in the laundry room for what it is I see. Blood, on a washcloth. A great deal of it, though I try to convince myself that it’s not blood.

The stain is not as red as it is brown because of the way blood changes color as it dries. But still, it’s blood. Undeniably blood.

It would be so easy to say that Will had cut himself shaving, or that Tate had a scraped knee or—worst-case scenario—Otto or Imogen had picked up a habit of cutting, save for the amount of blood on the washcloth. Not merely a dab or a trace, but the washcloth has been wet through with it and allowed to dry.

I turn it over in my hand. The blood has seeped to both sides.

I let the washcloth fall from my hand.

My heart is in my throat. I feel like I can’t breathe. I’ve had the wind knocked out of me.

As I rise quickly to stand upright, gravity forces all the blood in me down to my trunk. There it pools, unable to make its way back up to my brain. I become dizzy. Everything before me begins to blur. Black specks dance before my eyes. I set my hand on the wall to balance myself before lowering slowly to the ground. There I sit beside the bloodstained washcloth, seeing only it, not touching it now because of all the DNA evidence that must be on that rag.

Morgan’s blood, her murderer’s fingerprints. And now mine.

I don’t know how this bloody washcloth came to be inside our home. But someone put it here. The options are few.

I lose track of time. I sit on the laundry room floor long enough that I hear the sound of footsteps galloping around the house. Light, quick footsteps that belong to Tate, followed by heavier ones: Will.

I should be in the shower by now. I should be getting ready for work. Will calls out quietly for me, having noticed that I wasn’t in bed. “Sadie?”

“Coming,” I call breathlessly back, wanting to show Will the washcloth, but unable to when Tate is there in the kitchen with him. I hear Tate’s voice asking for French toast. The washcloth will have to wait. I hide it for now in the laundry room, laying it flat beneath the washing machine where no one will find it. It’s stiff with blood and easily slides under.

I rise from the floor reluctantly and creep back into the kitchen, overcome with the urge to vomit. There is a killer living in my home with me.

“Where’ve you been?” Will asks at seeing me, and all I can tell him is “Laundry.” It comes out in one forced breath, and then again, the black specks appear, dancing before my eyes.

“Why?” he asks, and I tell him there was so much.

“You didn’t need to do that. I would have done it,” he says, reaching into the refrigerator for the milk and eggs. I know he would have done the laundry eventually. He always does.

“I was trying to help,” I say.

“You don’t look good,” he tells me as my hand holds tightly to the crown molding of the door so that I don’t fall. I want so much to tell him about the blood-soaked washcloth that someone left in the laundry basket. But I don’t because of Tate.

I hear Tate, beside him, ask, “What’s wrong with Mommy?”

“I don’t feel good. Stomach flu,” I force out. Will comes to me, presses a hand to my forehead. I’m not running a fever. But I feel hot and clammy nonetheless. “I need to go lie down,” I say, clutching my stomach as I leave. On the way upstairs, the bile inside me begins to rise and I find myself rushing to the bathroom.



MOUSE


Mouse froze. She waited for the sound of the bedroom door to open on the first floor, for Fake Mom to come for her. Mouse was scared, though it wasn’t Mouse’s fault she’d made noise. It’s not like a person can stop themselves from sneezing.

Her legs shook in fear. Her teeth began to chatter, though Mouse wasn’t cold.

How long she waited there on the stairs, Mouse didn’t know. She counted to nearly three hundred in her head, except she lost count twice and had to start all over again.

When Fake Mom didn’t come, Mouse thought maybe she hadn’t heard her. Maybe Fake Mom had slept right through that sneeze. She didn’t know how that was possible—the sneeze had been loud—but Mouse thanked her lucky stars if she had.