Ольга Грушина - The Charmed Wife

For how, how would they grow up, with that man in their lives?

Spring turned into summer. One especially stifling morning, worn-out by the constant weight of her unhappiness, she gathered her courage and sent a servant over to the beekeeper’s cottage with a carefully worded note requesting a jar of honey for her breakfast table (to be delivered by the beekeeper in person). The servant returned alone, to inform her that the beekeeper’s place had been abandoned for weeks, his bees dispersed, and he himself gone, no one knew when or where. She tried to hide her disappointment, her apprehension, from herself, tried to forget the taste of cider on the man’s warm lips, tried not to worry about her husband’s ubiquitous spies, or think about exiles and executions that he meted out with such ready ruthlessness—but all through that day, she felt increasingly aggrieved by what she had come to regard as her one chance at her own small, private joy being wrenched away from her, so unjustly, so cruelly; and that night, all her suppressed emotions bubbled over in one great explosion of scalding fury, and she screamed a silent scream.

I wish he would fall off his horse!

Or get eaten by a dragon. An occupational hazard of being a ruler; though not his kind of ruler—not the kind who wields a quill instead of a sword—and there are no dragons left in our land, in any case. So instead he might choke on a fish bone during one of his fancy state dinners with the servant wenches pouring wine into his glass while he pinches them under the table. He would bite into his fish, and cough, and it would be a small, delicate cough at first, but then his perfect, gorgeous face would turn red, first red and then purple, and suddenly there he would be, those cornflower-blue eyes bugging out, not so pretty now, is he, mouth gaping, gasping for air, and before anyone even knows what is happening—dead, dead, dead!

Or maybe a heart attack. Of course, he is but thirty-eight, but they happen at any age, do they not, and more so if one’s lifestyle is so vice-ridden. Or a freak accident, there are always those—a lightning strike, a flash flood, a chance tile falling off a roof just when my husband is passing below, his expensive suede shoes stepping ever so confidently along the sidewalk… But no, I do not wish him ill, I’m not a vindictive person, I’m kind and good, all I want is justice, only justice, I want him to pay for depriving me of any chance at my own happiness, for marrying me when he knew he didn’t love me, for cheating on me with impunity from the very beginning, as if there were nothing at all wrong with it, as if I—I!—forced him into it myself, but of course I did not, I was so very young and I loved him, I loved that man, once upon a time I loved him, I did my best to love him—but not dead, of course I do not wish him dead.

Although—if he were dead—all the memories of my miserable years as his wife, all my humiliations and mistakes, all my poor choices, would die with him, and that would be just, that would be well deserved, being granted a clean slate like that, having a future again, unburdened, unmarred, haven’t I earned it after everything he’s put me through? Because I hate what our marriage has made me, a small, mute, unloved thing. If he were dead, she, too, would die with him. So, perhaps, I do want him dead.

I want him dead because I hate the woman I am when I am with him.

Oh, and my children, my children would be so much better off without him. Because, of course, I would be doing it for my children, not for myself. Not that—not that I would actually do anything, ever! Although hasn’t the magic mirror mentioned a witch who helps unhappy wives with their marital problems? There would be no harm, perhaps, in going to see her. Just to talk, nothing more—I wouldn’t have to follow through with anything. In truth, I couldn’t, for isn’t a lock of hair always required for such spells to work, and how would I get a lock of his hair, I’m never close enough to him, I would have to pretend to a reconciliation, force myself to sit down to a private dinner with him, distract him enough to slip a sleeping draught into his wine, then, worse, feign passion, trick him into my bed… But I would never do any of that, would never go that far, that would be so base, so treacherous, so shameful, I would never, and even if I would, he wouldn’t go along with it in any case, he wouldn’t be interested, would he, not after all those hateful things he said to me, none of them true, because I loved him once upon a time, I did love him, of course I did, so I couldn’t, I would never.

So, then, just a consultation. One brief little consultation with the woman. Just to hear what she has to say, just to explore my options, just—

My lawyer’s voice, kinder than usual, reaches me as if from another place.

“Tell me what happened at the end,” she says.

And I meet her eyes and, at last, tell her the truth.

“Nothing. Nothing happened. I understood some things, that’s all. Hard things. Ugly things. Things I haven’t felt ready to admit to anyone.”

“Such as?” She is gently insistent.

“My marriage was not as I thought. And Roland may not have been the only one to blame for things ending. And also…”

“Yes?”

“Nothing,” I say, firmly. “Can we talk about the trial now, please?”

And also, I was far from the innocent fairy-tale princess I had believed myself once.

“Divorce is not unlike temporary insanity,” my therapist observes. “You can’t judge yourself too harshly. You can’t judge him too harshly, either. Believe me, life will go back to normal by and by.”

This is our last session before the trial, which is set to start on Friday.

“But he is doing all these awful things!” I cry. “He wants to take the children away from me, he wants to give me nothing and rob me of what little I have… And I—I did nothing wrong, you know. I tried to be a good wife. Never lied to him. Always did my best to help him. Put my marriage first.”

Dr. Wand jots something down in her notebook, ponders briefly, and crosses it out. “You feel betrayed, and that’s understandable. Consider his point of view, though. He gave you everything he thought you wanted, he took care of you and the kids, surrounded you with luxury—and you ran away from it all and would now rather be cleaning other people’s toilets than go back to him. And to be frank, you never seemed that involved in his life while you were together, either. Do you even know what precisely he does for a living?”

“Whose side is she on, anyway?” Melissa says loyally when I repeat the conversation to my sisters the following night, as we sit in Melissa’s living room drinking Gloria’s expensive Bordeaux.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gloria muses. “Everyone has his truth. Roland may see things differently.”

Melissa turns on her.

“Whose side are you on, then?” she says fiercely.

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the asshole, never did.” Gloria shrugs. “All I’m saying is, I bet he’s not the villain in his mind. Everyone is a hero of his own story.”

Everything seems so ordinary, so peaceful—Melissa’s cheerful living room with its striped couches, floral pillows, polka-dotted curtains, and her daughters’ framed drawings on the walls, the company of my sisters, so easy to slip into, even after all these years, like some old, stretched cardigan—and yet I know that everything is about to change. The trial is only two days away now, and my anxiety is such that I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I can barely think straight. I notice Melissa glancing at me with concern. When she notices me noticing, she smiles, a bit too brightly, and says, in a clear ploy to distract me: “Speaking of stories, remember that book of fairy tales we used to love, the one in the red leather binding? I found it in the attic the other day, and now the girls don’t want anything else before bed.”