Page 52 of Dear Wife

I flip back through the phone conversation, trying to remember what I said.Which bad word?It could be one of many. I crouch down, putting us face-to-face. “I did?”

She nods. “You said f—”

“Don’t you dare.” I clap a hand over her mouth. “Your mother will string both of us up if she hears you say that. Speaking of your mother, didn’t she ever tell you not to eavesdrop on important police business?”

Annabelle wriggles away from my hand, and she’s grinning. “She’s the one who told me to come out here and find out what you were talking about.”

I laugh, the muscles relaxing in my neck, releasing the tight lines across my back. “Is there any food left on the table, or did you savages eat it all?”

She smiles. “Nana made you a plate. A really big one.”

I snatch Annabelle off her feet, swing her around and carry my squealing niece to the door. “Good, ’cause I’m starving.”

BETH

I spend the rest of the day obsessing about the missing-person report on the TV and thinking about the first time I tried to leave. We’d been married a handful of years by then—long enough for me to know your apologies and promises to change would turn up empty again, but short enough I still thought I had some sliver of control. In a moment of daring recklessness, I threw some things into a bag, shoved it in the trunk of my car and drove across town to my sister’s house. The week prior, after seeing the bruises across my back and ribs, she’d pressed her house key into my hand and told me to use it anytime, day or night.

My freedom lasted for all of four hours.

Just thinking about my sister stirs up a wave of fresh sorrow, a bittersweet churning in my chest. I remember her face when you showed up on her doorstep, with flowers and that diamond necklace I still don’t know how you paid for, the disappointment that curled on her lips when I followed you out to the car. Do you remember what you said to make me go with you? Do you? Because I remember every single thing. Your hands gripping my arm. Your hot breath in my ear. My sister hollering at me to come back inside.

“Either get in the motherfucking car,” you said as calm as could be, “or I will slice your sister into a million bloody pieces, and I will make you watch.”

I got in the motherfucking car.

After that my sister and I didn’t speak for months, because I couldn’t tell her the truth of what you said, and she couldn’t understand why I would go back to someone who kept breaking my bones and my heart. She accused me of being too proud, too blinded by love, and I couldn’t tell her that love had nothing to do with it. I went with you that day because I believed you. Unlike all your other promises—that you were sorry, that you would get help, that you’d never, ever raise a hand to me like that again—the threat to my sister, I knew, was not an empty one. You’d slice her to pieces, and you’d do it without blinking an eye.

I learned another lesson that day, one that in the end, was much more sinister: my leaving was not just about me. You would mow down anyone who got in your way.

“Hello, Beth?” The Reverend’s voice comes from right behind me, but it takes two more attempts before I realize he’s talking to me. That I’m Beth.

I startle, and my head whacks against the upper shelf of the cabinet I’m hunched under. Stars burst across my vision. I slap a hand to the throbbing spot and back out of the cabinet on my knees.

The Reverend presses his hands in prayer and gives a little bow. “‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.’ Colossians 3:23.”

I don’t know how to respond to this, what to say to this godly man who I’ve put in danger by the simple act of accepting a job. He’s one of the people you’d mow down to get to me—collateral damage, that’s what you would call it. I try to focus on the Reverend’s smile, not the spiky ball of dread gathering in my gut.

“Can I borrow you for a little bit?” he says. “I could use your help upstairs with the bookshelves in my office.”

I push to a stand, brushing crumbs and dirt off my pants. “Of course. What’s wrong with them?”

“Well, for one thing, the books are just shoved in there, willy-nilly. There’s no rhyme or reason to them, and I can never seem to find the one I’m looking for. I need somebody to organize them, come up with some kind of a system. It’s a big job. It will probably take you the rest of the day.”

I don’t understand. Up to now, Martina, Ayana and I have been a team, scrubbing our way through the church like locusts through a field, and now the Reverend seems to be singling me out. I flick a glance at Martina, frozen on the other side of the day care room. She frowns, and the look she gives me makes me tense.

I wave a casual hand in her direction. “Should I bring some reinforcements?”

“That’s an excellent idea, but this room needs to be ready for the kids tonight.” The Reverend turns to them with a smile. “Why don’t you ladies finish up down here, then join Beth when you’re done. In the meantime, I’ll walk her up and explain what’s what.”

Martina’s brows dip even farther, but I have no choice other than to snag my bucket and follow the Reverend up the stairs, trying to tamp down my heightened sense of paranoia. Why has he called me upstairs alone? Does he know about the fake ID, the fake social security card, the fake everything?

Judging from his friendly chatter, he doesn’t. We wind our way through the church while the Reverend talks nonstop about his book collection—instructional manuals on expository preaching, a collection of antique Bibles, an entire shelfful ofSermons for Dummiessome jokester puts in his stocking every year at Christmas.

“The problem is, my parishioners are always forgetting to return whatever they borrow. Last year my wife put thoseFrom the library ofstickers inside every book, but it’s still a fifty-fifty shot if I’ll ever see it again.”

“You could create a sign-out sheet,” I suggest as we approach the double doors to the executive offices. “You know, like libraries have. After two weeks, their time is up. They have to bring the book back or risk... I don’t know, eternal damnation or something.”

He laughs and opens the door. “I’m not beyond an infernal threat or two, if it means books stop disappearing from my shelf.”

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