Page 19 of Dear Wife

My stomach growls, and I unlock the drawer and dig out a small bag of peanuts, the last one. I rip off the corner and think what I really want is a burger, dripping in grease and draped in bacon, smothered in mayonnaise and ketchup and a thick layer of pickles. My mouth waters, and I remember all those times I ate pickles at the fair, giant, foil-wrapped mammoths my sister and I had to hold in both hands. We’d wander among the bumper cars and farm stalls, eating them until our stomachs ached. You say pickles make my breath stink. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a jar of Vlasics and eat every single one.

For someone who is trying to shed herself of a husband, I sure do think of you a lot. Part of it is habit—all those years of tiptoeing around your moods and catering to your every whim are hard to unlearn, like a Charles Manson brainwashing. And it’s still a necessary measure to keep myself safe. Ihaveto think of you, to imagine the steps you’re taking to find me in order to stay one step in front of you.

But I can’t stay up here, hiding in my room forever.

I reach for my phone, pull up the calculator. At twenty-four dollars a night, my two-thousand-dollar stash will last me only a couple of months, and that’s assuming the pile of crap car Dill sold me doesn’t blow a fuse or a tire. And Beth has to eat, which means Beth needs to do some seriously creative thinking. Even a job slinging burgers requires some sort of identification.

I turn the peanut bag upside down over my mouth, but all I get is crumbs. I toss the bag on the bed. Groceries and a job, that’s on the agenda for tomorrow.

I think about what you’re doing now, some thirty hours into my disappearing trick. I wonder if you’ve found my car, my cell phone, the clues that will lead you to Tulsa—the opposite direction of here. I picture you searching through my things, calling my sister and my friends, combing through the files on my computer, and my senses go on high alert. I listen for the rumble of your car, the scrape of your key in the door, the tremor of your heavy shoes coming down the hallway floor. I shoot a glance to the window, half expecting to see the pale moon of your face peering in, the flash of yourgotchasmile before you point your gun at my head. My heart taps a double time, and I take deep, belly breaths, trying to calm my nervous system. Post-traumatic stress is no joke—flashbacks and nightmares and anxiety attacks like this one are the product of years of abuse. It’ll take more than a couple days of freedom for my body to uncoil.

Freedom.

I’m not there yet, not even close. I’m more in danger now than that time the waiter accidentally brushed his fingers against mine when refilling my water, or any one of the times you came home after a particularly bad day at work. Leaving does not stop the violence, and it doesn’t guarantee freedom.Why doesn’t she just leave?gets asked in living rooms and courtrooms across the country, when a better question would be,Why doesn’t he let her go?

It took me a while, but I’ve finally figured out the answer.

You’d sooner kill me than let me go.

JEFFREY

On a long stretch of stick-straight road, 1600 Country Club Lane is tucked behind a thick tuft of trees and bushes. I don’t see it until I’ve already blown past, and then I slam the brakes and screech to a stop in the middle of the road, because what the hell. Nobody’s on this street but me, and with any luck, the squealing of my tires lets them know I’m here, that I’m coming in.

I throw the car into Reverse, pulling into the driveway in a sloppy arc, my gaze lighting on an upstairs window. I picture the two of them popping up in bed behind the shiny glass, sheets pressed to their naked, panting chests.I’m here, bitches. Just in case, I lean on the horn.

The house is a renovated bungalow, sprawling and ivy-covered, the kind of place Sabine would go gaga over. A pompous thing that belongs in the rolling hills of Tuscany, not pressed up against the faded greens of the Pine Bluff Country Club. An easy sale, a house she’d already be in love with before Trevor walked through the door.

I climb out of the car and slam my door with a sharp clap that echoes down the street. Inside the house, a little dog barks, high-pitched and frantic. Good, at least somebody knows I’m here.

I stomp up the walkway and bang on the front door with a fist. “Sabine! I know you’re in there so open up. Open this door right goddamn now!”

The fury fills me like a furnace, bathing my body in a thin layer of sweat. Somewhere inside this stupid, pretentious house, my wife’s body is wrapped around her lover’s, and if one of them doesn’t open this doorright fucking now, I’m going to bust it down with my bare hands. I cup my hands around my face and lean into the glass, searching for movement, but all I see is an empty foyer. I haul back a fist and bang some more. On either side of me, two gas-fueled porch lights flicker in the fading light.

Two feet appear at the top of the stairs—male feet, sticking out from under blue scrubs. The man comes down trailed by a tiny white dog that is losing its shit. Each frantic bark pops all four of his paws off the ground, a fluffy jumping bean bouncing down the stairs.

But it’s Trevor, all right. A shirtless Trevor. I recognize him from his headshot—full head of hair, strong shoulders that taper down into the abs of a movie star, not an ounce of fat or love handles on him. Not that I would normally notice such a thing, but Sabine would. She’d notice, and then she’d want to trace all those sculpted muscles with her fingertips, and maybe her tongue.

“It’s you,” he says, studying me through the door’s paned windows. All those years of hospital training, of on-call shifts and middle-of-the-night births are working now like a Xanax, making him look almost bored at the prospect of his lover’s husband banging on his front door.

I beat on the wood hard enough to crack it. “Where’s Sabine? Tell that little bitch to stop hiding and get her ass down here!”

On the other side of the glass, the dog is going ballistic. Trevor scoops it up and cradles it to his chest like a football. His mouth is moving, but I can’t hear his words over the barking and the doorbell, which I’m mashing over and over and over again with a thumb.

He opens the door with a whoosh of cool air and moneyed manliness. “I’m sorry, Jeffrey, but Sabine’s not here.”

Jeffrey. I’ve known about this motherfucker’s existence for less than half an hour, and now he’s calling me by my first name. Did Sabine show him my picture? Did they laugh about poor, clueless Jeffrey and talk about the best way to make me look like a fool?

I shove him out of the way, marching to the stairs and hollering up them. “Sabine! You can come out now. I saw the emails. Iknow.”

“Jeffrey.” A hand lands on my shoulder. “Calm down. She’s not here.”

I shrug him off, swinging my arm through the air. “You touch me again,Trevor, and I will shove my fist down your throat hard enough to come out the other side. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

The dog kicks things up a notch or ten, barking so hard he’s starting to foam at the mouth. Jeffrey holds a chill-out hand in my direction, then wraps his fingers around the dog’s snoot like a muzzle. Finally, thankfully, the beast stops barking.

“Where is she?” I’m not looking at him, but beyond him into the foyer. A family’s foyer. Kids’ shoes, a soccer ball, forgotten jackets and book bags. I wonder if Sabine has met them yet, if they hate her for blowing their happy home to bits.

Trevor shuts the door. “I already told you. She’s not here.”

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