The Wives(20)
“She’s my wife. What do you think I’d do?”
I bite my lip, gripping the sheets in my fists; such a stupid thing to say, especially after things had been going so well all evening.
“It’s just...you left me. You found her after...”
He stares straight ahead, not really seeing anything. I see the muscles in his jaw jump.
“You knew I wanted children. And I’m here. I’m right here with you.”
“But are you?” I argue. “You need two other women—”
“Enough.” He cuts me off. He gets out of bed and reaches for his pants. “I thought we were done with this.”
I watch as he steps into them, not bothering to button them when he pulls on his shirt.
“Where are you going, Seth? Look, I’m sorry. I just—”
He walks toward the door and I swing my legs over the side of the bed determined not to let him leave. Not like this.
I throw myself at him, grabbing onto his arm and trying to pull him back. It happens in an instant, his hand shoving me away. Caught off guard, I fall backward. My ear clips the nightstand before I land on my rear on the wood floor. I cry out but Seth has already left the bedroom. I raise my hand to my ear and feel the warm trickle of blood on my fingertips, just as I hear the front door slam closed. I flinch at the sound, not because it’s overly loud, but because of the anger behind it. I shouldn’t have done that, woken him up in the middle of the night and put thoughts of dying babies in his head. What happened wasn’t just hard on me; Seth had lost his child, as well. I stand up, wobbling on my feet. Squeezing my eyes closed, I cup my bleeding ear and wait for the dizziness to pass, then I walk slowly to the bathroom, flicking on the light to assess the damage. There is a centimeter-long cut on the outside of my ear, running parallel to the cartilage. It stings. I clean it with an alcohol wipe and dab some Neosporin on the wound. It’s already stopped bleeding, but not hurting. When I return to the bedroom I stare at the bed for a long time, empty, the sheets rumpled. Seth’s pillow still holds the indentation where his head rested.
“He’s under so much stress,” I say out loud as I climb into bed. I think my problems and insecurities are extreme, but I only have one man to keep happy. Seth has three women: three sets of problems, three sets of complaints. I’m sure we all pressure him in different ways: Monday and her baby, Tuesday and her career...me and my feelings of inferiority. I pull my knees up to my chest, unable to close my eyes. I wonder if he’ll go back to Hannah. Or maybe it will be Regina this time.
I tell myself that I won’t search for them online, that I’ll respect Seth’s privacy, but I know it’s not true. I’ve already crossed a line, befriended his other wife. Tomorrow, I will type their names into a search box so I can see who they claim to be. So I can study their eyes, search for regret, hurt...or anything that looks similar to what’s in my own eyes.
NINE
Regina Coele is tiny, maybe five feet on a good day. I walk away from my laptop where it rests on the kitchen counter, and pull open the freezer. It’s only ten o’clock, but I need something stronger than the Coke I poured to drink with breakfast. I pull a bottle of vodka from where it’s wedged between a bag of frozen peas and frostbitten hamburger patties. I study the photo of her on Markel & Abel’s website: a family law firm with two offices, one in downtown Portland and one in Eugene. In the website photo, she wears dark-rimmed glasses perched on a slightly upturned nose. If not for the smear of red lipstick and her sophisticated hairstyle, she’d easily be mistaken for a girl in her late teens. I top off my juice with the vodka and add a few cubes of ice to the tumbler. Most women would feel fortunate to have such a youthful appearance. But I imagine that in Regina’s line of work, she needs clients to respect her, not question if she’s old enough to drink. The orange juice does little to disguise the heavy pour of vodka. I suck my teeth, deciding what to do next. I told myself that I just needed to see her, just one quick look. I’d made the silent promise even as I typed her name into the search box, but now that I’m looking at her I just want to know more. I throw back the rest of the vodka and the juice and pour another before carrying my laptop to the living room.
I uncap my pen and lean my notebook on the armrest of the couch, ready to work. In neat letters, I write Regina Coele at the top of the page and then the name of the law firm where she practices. I follow that with her email and the firm’s phone number and address. Recapping my pen and setting it aside, I leave the law firm’s website and go to the most obvious place to look for a person. Facebook has never heard of Regina Coele—not the one I’m looking for at least. There are a dozen profiles of wrong Reginas, none of them matching the details my sleuth skills have already uncovered. But no, I think ruefully; she wouldn’t use her name on social media, not if there was a chance her clients could search for her.
I type in Gigi Coele, R. Coele and Gina Coele with no results. I lean back on the sofa, linking my hands and lifting my arms above my head in a stretch. Maybe she’s not on Facebook; there are plenty of people who steer away from the intrusive probing fingers of social media. But then I see the freckles in my mind, the round nose—and I remember a little girl who lived on my street when I was growing up. Georgiana Baker—or Barker—or something like that. She was a tomboy to my girlie girl and she liked to be called Georgie. Something about my childhood memory of Georgie reminds me of Regina. Perhaps it’s the freckled nose.