Page 22 of Dear Wife

Trevor sighs, and he lifts a hand from the counter. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jeffrey.”

“That phone number you gave the detective just now. Let me guess. Sabine got it when she started seeing you, didn’t she?”

He doesn’t answer, but his expression tells me it’s a yes. Sabine has a secret phone. She got a separate device so she can talk to Trevor without me knowing. A Trevor hotline.

He opens the coloring book, scribbles across a smiling Dumbo in bright purple marker. “Corey lives in those gated condos on Old Warren Road. He must know something. I need to know what it is.” He rips out the sheet and holds it across the counter to me, waiting for me to take it. “Please, Jeffrey. My kids are upstairs. I can’t leave them. My wife...” He shakes his head. “She’s already taking me to the cleaners. I can’t have her taking them, too.Please.”

I sigh, a hard huff filled with resentment and something sharper, something that gnaws at me like hunger—but for revenge. When I get home, I’m going to look up the number for this guy’s wife and volunteer as a witness.

“You do realize that Sabine leaves her shit all over the house, right? If you actually lived with her, if you spent time with her on a regular basis, you’d know she’s demanding and forgetful and selfish. That she pees with the door open and she hogs the couch and she never bothers cleaning up her own dishes. You don’t want her because she’s your soul mate. You only want her because she’s not yours.”

He gives the paper a shake. “Please, talk to Corey. Don’t do it for me. Do it for Sabine. For our—” He stops himself just in time, but it’s too late. I already understand. I heard the words he didn’t want to say.

“You motherfucking fucker.” I pause, the realization lighting me up from inside—hot, smoldering coals that seethe in my stomach and spread outward until my limbs feel like they’re on fire. One good spark, and I’ll blow. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

He doesn’t nod, but his eyes are glassy in the dim light.

Finally, after all these years of wishing and wanting and eventually giving up entirely, Sabine is pregnant. WithTrevor’schild.

His gaze dips to the paper. “Please,” he says, and his voice breaks on the word.

I take the paper, but then I stalk around the island and punch him in the face.

BETH

That night, you come to me in my sleep, a blur of lightning limbs and shouted curses, tearing through the house. Opening and slamming doors, whipping off pillows and bedcovers, flipping couches and tables, ripping pictures off the wall. You are searching for something, for me.

I teeter on the edge of awake.

I see you gaining speed, moving closer, and my stomach clenches into a spiky knot. You puff your big chest and scream, and that lock of hair I used to love to run my fingers through falls flat on your sweaty forehead. You push it off with the back of a fist, and that’s when I see the gun.

Wake up!I pinch the skin of my arms, smack myself on the cheeks. But my legs, tangled in the sheets, are like lead. They won’t move.

Suddenly, you’re here, stomping down the hallway at Morgan House. The hollow thud of your footsteps trembles the floor, the walls, the lining around my heart. The noise stops in front of my door, and I am frozen with fear, with pure terror.

My doorknob rattles, then goes still.

I hold my breath, wait for the gun to go off.

The door explodes, wood splinters showering down on me like a million deadly spikes. The hallway sconces light you up from behind, glowing underneath your skin like blood.

I scream.

You grin and aim the gun.

I shoot upright in my bed, the scream ringing in my ears. I clamp a hand over my mouth and stare into the dark room, trying to get my bearings. My room, my bed at Morgan House. I’m safe. You’re not here. It was only a dream.

And yet... Was it? The back of my throat burns in a way that tells me the scream might have been real, but the ache could also be from the sobbing. My cheeks are slick, the hair at my temples damp with sweat or tears.

I mop my face with the sheet and take several deep breaths, willing my hammering heart to slow. I check the time on my cell phone: 4:00 a.m.

Somewhere above me, a male body is snoring loud enough to rattle the floorboards, and I wonder what this says about my housemates. That they are either deaf or sleep like the dead... Or maybe they are immune to a stranger’s scream ripping through their slumber. Miss Sally runs a tight ship, but this place is an oasis in a questionable neighborhood, one where the houses sport bars on the windows. This doesn’t bode well for me if my nightmare turns to reality. What will they do if you find me here? Sleep through the screams? Hide behind the locked doors of their bedrooms?

Suddenly, the room is too hot, the four walls shrinking around me. I kick off the twisted sheets and reach for my shorts, in a wadded pile on the floor. I need a glass of water, or maybe a cup of tea if I can swipe a tea bag from somebody’s supply. Mostly, I need to get out of this room. I strap my money belt around my waist, pluck my keys and phone from the nightstand, and creep into the hall, locking the door behind me.

The hallway is dark, lit only at the far end by a streetlamp somewhere outside the window. I move, breathless and on tiptoe toward its golden gleam, the pads of my bare feet silent on the polyester runner. The stairs are trickier, sagging and creaky in the middle. I hug the side instead, my fingertips skimming the walls, following them to the kitchen.

A single bulb above the stove casts faint light on the scuffed linoleum floor, but otherwise the room is a black hole. I power on my cell, use the light of the screen to guide the way to the cabinets on the far wall.

---