Page 40 of The Wives

My eyes snap open and my first thought is: I’m going to pretend not to be angry with him. That’s right. I’ll be docile and apologetic—the Suzy-homemaker type of wife he likes me to be. It won’t be so hard, will it? I’ve been pretending for years, the anger bubbling under the surface, unexplored. You’re awake, I think. Do not lose grip of your awakeness.

I stand up, alert and ready. There is no mirror to check my reflection in—mirrors are slit wrists waiting to happen—so I smooth my hair, wipe beneath my eyes. I have no idea what I look like, but I suppose the more pathetic, the better. When I run my hands down my abdomen, there is only a hollow and then two sharp knobs of hipbone that used to be buried underneath my bad habits of wine and cheesy pastas. I stick out my chest, which, thankfully, has not diminished. I have to get my husband on my side.

When I walk into the common area, it’s not Seth I see, but Lauren. I feel a sense of disappointment. This is different than what was supposed to happen. I rearrange my face, hiding what I’m really feeling to smile at pain-in-the-ass Lauren. Lauren, whom I had drinks with, and told all my secrets to. Were we friends now?

I don’t know if I’m happy to see her, but she’s certainly happy to see me. She stands up from the table where she’s been waiting and I see that she’s wearing jeans and a Seahawks sweatshirt. Her face is contorted with concern as she makes her way over to me, dodging a woman who is doing interpretive dance in the center of the room. The place between her eyebrows is pinched.

“Thursday,” she breathes, shaking her head. “What the hell?”

I like her so much in that moment that my little act of contrite humility I had ready for Seth drops away, and I latch on to her in a desperate hug. My moods, my thoughts, they’re all over the place. I’m like a spider monkey, clinging in my relief to someone I know.

Lauren lets out a little yelp and I realize I’m strangling her, so I let go. She smiles at me in the way that old friends smile after something bad has happened to you. She already believes me, I can tell. I do have a friend.

“How did you find me?” I ask, breathless with anticipation.

“Your husband called the hospital—Seth, right?—and said that you’d be taking extended time off due to an illness. I tried to get in touch with him but we don’t have a number. So, I called your mother—she’s listed on your emergency contacts—and she told me where to find you.”

I’m surprised that my mother admitted to a stranger that her daughter was in a mental hospital. Lauren had put in a lot of work to find me. I wonder if Anna’s noticed that I’ve been missing, if she’s reached out to my mother.

“Why are you here?” she says finally, once we’ve settled down in a spot by the window. The glass is streaked with water as an unusually hard rain leans east, slapping the glass and bending the trees. A woman’s hair whips around her as she runs through the garden area below. As I lean into Lauren, a mother/son duo walk toward us, eyeing the empty chairs in our circle. I shoot them a vicious look and they scoot away somewhere else. Good. Go.

I tell her about going to see Hannah, and about finding Regina online. When I get to the part about Hannah’s bruise, Lauren’s eyes bug out. Another convoluted detail to add to this story. I tell her how Seth pushed me while we were arguing.

“I confronted him about all of it. He says I attacked him, that I fell and hit my head. When I woke up, I was here. Lauren...” I say, lowering my voice. “He’s saying that I made it all up.”

Her face is horrified. Her life is a mess, but mine is messier.

“That you made what up?”

“His polygamy. He has everyone convinced I’m crazy, including my own mother.” I’m rubbing a piece of hair between my fingers and I abruptly stop, in case I look crazy.

Lauren doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes drop to the ground as she thinks.

“If everyone close to you is saying the same thing, they’ll never believe you,” she says. “You know how this stuff works.”

I know.

“What about your friends? Is there someone I can call to come in here and back you up?” Her hands are splayed flat on her knees with just the pointer finger of her right hand moving up and down in quick succession. A nervous finger, I think.

“No,” I say. “I’ve never told anyone aside from you. Not even my sister knows.”

“Not a close family, huh? Sounds like mine.”

“We’re close without being close, if you know what I mean. We see each other often, but no one really knows what’s happening behind everyone’s eyes.”

Lauren nods like she knows exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe all American families play the togetherness game—the one where you talk about sports and dine on casseroles (in the Pacific Northwest, it’s gluten-free and organic), fight about politics and act like you have meaningful relationships when you’re actually dying of loneliness.

“I don’t know if she’s okay,” I say of Hannah. “She was off the last time I saw her. She called me the next day, but when I called her back, she didn’t answer.”

“Maybe I can contact her,” Lauren suggests. “Does she have a Facebook or something?”

I give her all of Hannah’s details. I remember her address off the top of my head but not her phone number.

“Do you know where he met this girl?” she asks me as I walk her to the doors.

I shake my head. In all my detective work, I hadn’t asked Hannah where she met her husband, though I doubt she would have told me the truth.

“There’s a photo,” I say quickly. “On Regina’s dating profile. I think Hannah and Regina know each other.”

---