Mary Kubica - The Other Mrs

I wiped the mustard from his lip. I saw that his drink was empty. I reached for the cup, refilled it at the soda fountain.

You didn’t have to do that, he said as I sat back down, slid his Pepsi across the table, made certain our hands touched as I did. I could have gotten it myself.

I smiled and said, I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to, Will.

And just like that, he owed me something.

There’s also likability. I can be extremely likable when I want to be. I know just what to say, what to do, how to be charming. The trick is to ask open-ended questions, to get people to talk about themselves. It makes them feel like the most interesting person in the world.

There’s also the importance of touch. Compliance is so much easier to achieve with a single touch to the arm, the shoulder, the thigh.

Add that to the fact that his and Sadie’s marriage read more like a guidebook on abstinence, from what I’d seen. Will needed something only I could give to him.

He didn’t say yes at first. He grinned sheepishly instead, turning red. He said he had a meeting, somewhere else he needed to be.

I can’t, he said. But I convinced him he could. Because not fifteen minutes later, we were slipping down an adjacent alleyway. There in that alley, he leaned me against a building. He eased his hand under the hem of the dress, pressed his mouth to mine.

Not here, I said, thinking only of him. I’d be fine doing that there. But he had a marriage, a reputation. I had neither. Let’s go somewhere, I said into his ear.

There was a hotel he knew, half a block away. Not the Ritz, but it would do. We raced up the stairs, into the room.

There, he threw me on the bed, had his way with me. When we were done, we lay in bed, breathing heavy, trying to catch our breath.

Will was the first to speak. That was just... He was tongue-tied when we were through, but radiant, beaming.

He tried again. That was amazing. You, he said, kneeling over me, hands on either side of my head, eyes on mine, are amazing.

I winked, said, You’re not so bad yourself.

He stared at me awhile. I’d never been looked at like that by a man, like he couldn’t get enough of me. He said that he needed this, more than I’d ever know. An escape from reality. My timing, he said, was impeccable. He’d been having a shitty day, a shitty week.

This was perfect.

You, he said, drinking me in with his eyes, are perfect.

He listed for me the reasons why. My heart swelled as he did, though it was all skin-deep: my hair, my smile, my eyes.

And then, like that, I was kissing him again.

He pushed himself from bed when he was through. I lay there, watched as he slipped back into a dress shirt and jeans. You’re leaving so soon? I asked.

He stood there at the end of the bed, watching me.

He was apologetic. I have a meeting. I’m going to be late as it is. You stay as long as you’d like, he said. Take a nap, get some rest, as if that was some consolation prize. Sleeping alone in a cheap hotel.

He leaned over me before he left. He kissed my forehead, stroked my hair. He gazed into my eyes, said, I’ll see you soon. It wasn’t a question. It was a promise.

I smiled, said, Of course you will. You’re stuck with me, Will. I won’t ever let you go, and he smiled and said that was exactly what he wanted to hear.

I tried not to be jealous as he left. I wasn’t the jealous type. Not until I met Will, and then I was, though I never felt guilty for what happened between Will and me. He was mine. Sadie took him from me. I didn’t owe her a thing.

If anything, she owed me.

Two times I circle the house. I make sure all the doors and windows are locked. I do it once, and then, because I can’t be sure I got them all, I do it again. I pull the blinds, the curtains closed, wondering if it would be prudent to have a security system installed in the home.

This evening, as promised, Will drove Imogen to the public safety building to speak with Officer Berg. I hoped Will would come home with news about the murder—something to settle me—but there was nothing to report. The police weren’t any closer to solving the crime. I’ve seen statistics on murders. Something like one-third or more of murders become cold case files, leaving police departments mired in unsolved crimes. It’s an epidemic.

The number of murderers walking among us every day is frightening.

They can be anywhere and we’d never know.

According to Will, Imogen had nothing to offer Officer Berg about last night. She was asleep, as I knew she’d been. When asked if she’d seen anything out of the ordinary over the last few weeks, she turned stiff and gray and said, “My mom hanging from the end of a fucking noose.” Officer Berg had no more questions for her after that.

As I contemplate a third go-round of the windows and doors, Will calls to me from the top of the stairs, asks if I’m coming to bed anytime soon. I tell him yes, I’m coming, as I give the front door a final tug. I leave on a living room lamp to give the pretense we’re awake.

I climb the stairs and settle into bed beside Will. But I can’t sleep. All night, I find myself lying in bed, thinking about what Officer Berg said, how the little Baines girl was the one to find Morgan dead. I wonder how well Tate knows this little girl. Tate and she are in class together, but that doesn’t mean they’re friends.

I find that I’m unable to shake from my mind the image of the six-year-old girl standing over her mother’s lifeless body. I wonder if she was scared. If she screamed. If the killer lurked nearby, getting off on the sound of her scream. I wonder how long she waited for the ambulance to arrive, and if, in that time, she feared for her own life. I think of her, alone, finding her mother dead in the same way that Imogen found her own mother dead. Not the same, no. Suicide and murder are two very different things. But still, it’s unfathomable for me to think what these girls have seen in their short lives.

Beside me, Will sleeps like a rock. But not me. Because as I lie there unsleeping I start to wonder if the killer is still on the island with us, or if he’s gone by now.

I slip from bed at the thought of it, my heart gaining speed. I have to be sure the kids are okay. The dogs, on their own beds in the corner of the room, take note and follow along. I tell them to hush as Will rolls over in bed, pulling the sheet with him.

On the wooden floors, my bare feet are cold. But it’s too dark to feel around for slippers. I leave them behind. I step out of the bedroom, moving down the narrow hall.

I go to Tate’s room first. There, in the doorway, I pause. Tate sleeps with the bedroom door open, a night-light plugged in to keep monsters at bay. His small body is set in the middle of the bed, a stuffed Chihuahua held tightly between his arms. Peacefully he sleeps, his own dreams uninterrupted by thoughts of murder and death, unlike mine. I wonder what he dreams of. Maybe puppy dogs and ice cream.

I wonder what Tate knows of death. I wonder what I knew of death when I was seven years old, if I knew much of anything.

I move on to Otto’s room. There’s a roof outside Otto’s window, a single-story slate roof that hangs over the front porch. A series of climbable columns hold it upright. Getting in or out wouldn’t be such a difficult task in the middle of the night.

My feet instinctively pick up pace as I cross the hall, telling myself Otto is safe, that certainly an intruder wouldn’t climb to the second floor to get in. But in that moment, I can’t be so sure. I turn the handle and press the door silently open, terrified of what I’ll find on the other side. The window open, the bed empty. But it’s not the case. Otto is here. Otto is fine.