Page 70 of Happy Wife

For some reason, my grief seems to be making everyone a little queasy.

There have been droves of people in and out of my house in the last twenty-four hours. From the size and volume of flower arrangements, it’s hard to tell if we’re in mourning or celebrating the winner of the Kentucky Derby. People who, for the past year, have taken unique pleasure in skewering me as the interloping gold digger are now giving me consoling hugs. I guess death trumps social politics. Or maybe social politics still reign supreme and they’re just in it for the spectacle. Publicly grieving is merely another way these people socialize. The way they tell me their Will stories—as if they’ve all just lost their dearest friend—makes it feel like everyone wants a piece of the grief. A piece of the attention.

I do my best to stomach it all with a demure smile, propped up by the wine Este keeps passing me. But every now and then a more sinister thought creeps in about the cast of characters surrounding me.

Which one of you fuckers killed Will?

An incalculable number of casseroles and to-go containers from every restaurant in Winter Park is piling up in my kitchen. No one here would bake a thing themselves, but they’ll at least give a show of being polite, civilized, and thoughtful enough to pretend to dote on me.

While all of this pomp and circumstance is happening around me, I still feel like I’m walking on the bottom of a pool. I hear people’s voices, but it all just sounds like murmurs. I see Autumn in my kitchen trying to repackage the food into sad single-serving freezer bags complete with little ribbons holding them together. As if attractive packaging will somehow make me feel better about being a twenty-eight-year-old widow.

Oh, look! My spinach lasagna has a green curlicue bow! Who even cares what happened to my husband!

I don’t mean to be terrible. I know she is trying to do something nice—sheisdoing something nice. But I’m trapped in a kind of permanent fog. A fog that will never lift, that I will carry with me for the rest of my life no matter where I go, or what I do. My husband will always be gone.

Somewhere under the clutter gathering on my bathroom counter, my phone rings. My mom is calling. It’s the fourth time she’s called since I left a message that they’d found Will.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Nora—”

The sound of her voice catches me off guard, a lump of grief swells in my throat. But no tears come. Just a searing pain in my chest.

“Nora, honey, I just can’t believe this news. It can’t be happening. Paolo has been talking to the captain since you called, trying to figure out if we can get to any port, or how I can get to you. But he’s holding his ground that he can’t turn the ship just for me. And now I’m just beside myself. I’m distraught. You need me and I can’t be there.”

She starts to cry. A familiar whimper that inexplicably makes me angry. I can’t console her. I haven’t even been able to access my own tears.

“Mom, it’s okay. Really.”

“Bu—No—I want—flights—can’t—”

Her phone starts cutting out.

“Just call me when you get to dry land, okay, Mom?”

I don’t get an answer and hang up. I stand there for a second, considering calling her back, but I don’t have the energy for it. I head downstairs instead.

When I come into the kitchen, Mia is standing in front of the refrigerator, looking over all the random meals. There’s a pile of her clothes on the counter behind her. It’s the first time I’ve noticed how much she stands like Will. She’s the spitting image of Constance, but she has Will’s easy posture, and his slightly crooked grin. My heart hurts for a minute, but this time it isn’t for me. This is happening to Mia, too. Will wasn’t just her father. He was her person—her Pal—long before he was mine.

Shit, I’m an asshole. Where has Mia been in all of this?

I think about the first time we met, and Will saying Mia was struggling with the divorce.

How could any of us have known then that things were going to get so much worse?

Mia gives up and closes the door. Her hair has barely been brushed, and she’s too young for the circles under her eyes. She sees me and jumps a little.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” I say. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I probably should’ve texted.” She moves around the island toward her phone on the counter.

“You don’t have to. You never did before.”

Before. When this was her dad’s house. And he lived here. And she just came and went.

I realize that I need to say something, but I don’t know what.

“This part is weird. I don’t know what to do about it either.” Mia unlocks her phone and scrolls through some text messages, answering them rapid-fire the way only a teenager can.

---