The Wives(71)

When I try to pinpoint why I’d been so drawn to him, wooed by his advances, it always boiled down to one thing: he’d been so interested in everything I was. He asked questions and seemed fascinated by my answers. I remember the way he raised his eyebrows when I said something witty, the soft, amused curl of his lips as he listened to me speak. It had seemed at the time that he didn’t have any ulterior motive, he was just as drawn to me as I was to him: pure chemistry. He’d quizzed me for my exam on that very first night in the coffee shop, and asked me detailed questions about why I wanted to be a nurse. No one had ever asked me those questions before, not even my parents. But that was it, wasn’t it? He’d had a carefully concealed plan, a strategy. A woman like me, detached from her family, devoted to her studies, was secretly longing for a connection. I don’t think I cared who it would be: a man, a woman, a friend or a long-lost aunt. I was waiting for someone to see me. I don’t know if I’m angrier with myself more for falling for it in the first place, or for not seeing it sooner. But I know that as humans we want to be heard, and so when someone does the hearing, we feel a connection to them. I was no different than any other woman who’d been made to feel special and then, over the course of time, abandoned by the man she’d given everything up for. Seth was a charlatan, a charmer. He used his personality to manipulate women’s emotions. By the time he told me about Regina, I was already in love with him. I was willing to accept anything he had to offer just to be loved by him. I’m ashamed to think about it.

Right now Hannah is pressed somewhere under his thumb, blindly trusting, daydreaming of the life they’d have with their child. If what Regina had skirted around is correct, Seth is planning to do to her what he had done to us.

I sit on a random bench in the city, a line of food trucks in front of me. A man in a Dodgers hat stands close by, looking longingly at the taco truck across the street. I wonder why he doesn’t just get a taco and make himself happy. It starts to drizzle but I don’t move. There is something bothering me about all of this, something that isn’t adding up. I close my eyes and try to fit all of the pieces together. Regina, Thursday, Hannah and Seth: what do we all have in common? What parts are we playing in Seth’s game? Some people have moments of absolute clarity; my moment comes like a slouched lurker. I entertain it only for a few moments before deciding what to do. I stand up just as the man in the Dodgers hat jogs across the street. Instead of joining the taco line, he heads for a salad truck. I smile to myself as we both make our choices.



I’ve been home for a week. Home sweet home, which took the good part of three hours to tidy up after the way Seth left it. The night I got back, I found the condo a mess, like Seth had thought throwing all of the pillows and contents of my drawers on the floor would afford him answers to my whereabouts. The whole place smelled like rot, and upon inspection, I found the trash in the kitchen overflowing, the lid propped on empty containers of takeout and half-eaten fruit. My home felt strange...foreign. The first thing I did was find the 9mm my father had gifted me in my closet. Then I opened all of the windows and burned a candle for hours until the smell went away. Seth had found my phone where I dropped it in the elevator; it sat on the kitchen counter next to the bottles of medication I’d left behind, the screen smashed. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. It felt like a warning, one I would be careful to heed. I’d left the phone where it was and carried the bottles of medicine to the bathroom, popping their caps one by one, dumping their contents into the toilet. The flush of water, the whirring of the tank refilling, were satisfying as I watched my prison disappear. My computer was gone, though he’d graciously left behind my wallet and keys. I called a locksmith, offering to pay them extra to come that afternoon, and while I waited I changed the alarm code.

After the locksmith changed both locks on the front door, I walked downtown, my shiny new keys in my pocket, to replace my phone and computer. Since I’d been gone for five days, the week ahead held appointments and phone calls. I needed to be able to check my emails and voice messages, my little burner phone useless except to make calls and send texts. As I waited to cross the street, the same street where I’d bumped into Lauren what seemed like a lifetime ago, I watched the faces of the people around me. When you removed yourself from your own thoughts and stopped to look at people—really look at them—you saw something surprising. Each of them—from the businessmen, phones pressed to their ears, loafers sidestepping puddles, to the tourists who lingered on street corners wondering which direction to walk—held a certain vulnerability about them. Did their parents love them? Did a man—a woman? And if the person who loved them left, how immense would their pain be? We busy ourselves trying not to be lonely, trying to find purpose in careers, and lovers, and children, but at any moment, those things we work so hard to possess could be taken from us. I feel better knowing I’m not alone, that the whole world is as fragile and lonely as I am.

With the lock and alarm code changed and the gun sitting on my nightstand, I manage to sleep that first night. But not without bad dreams.



Seth has not tried to contact me, though on the Monday after my return home, Regina calls my burner phone, which I’ve left on the charger, forgotten in the corner of my bedroom. At first, the noise startles me, the unfamiliar tinkling of the ringer. When I see it’s her number I pick up right away, pressing the phone to my ear and using my free hand to block out the noise of the TV.