Page 68 of The Wife Upstairs
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The Baptist church where John works isn’t one of the bigger congregations in the area. In the South, I’ve noticed, some churches take up entire blocks.
John’s hardly looks like a church at all. It’s a squat, ugly brick building, and only the stained-glass window of Jesus surrounded by lambs tips you off to the fact that it’s a house of worship.
I’ve dressed in one of my best outfits today, a blue pleated skirt with a white boatneck blouse, paired with blue-and-white-striped ballet flats and silver jewelry. When I’d looked in the mirror this morning, I almost hadn’t recognized myself. I didn’t look like the Jane I’d been two months ago, but I also didn’t look like I was trying to copy Emily or Campbell.
Or Bea.
I looked like… me.
Whoever that was turning out to be.
My shoulders are back as I open the door, my head high, and when I step inside, the girl sitting at the desk gives me a bright smile.
She probably thinks I’m here to donate money.
She’s half-right.
“Hiiiiii,” I drawl, sliding my sunglasses up on my head. “Is John Rivers here?”
I don’t miss it, the way her smile droops just the littlest bit.
I feel you, girl.
“He’s in the music room,” she says, pointing down the hall, and I thank her.
The church smells like burnt coffee and old paper, the linoleum squeaking under my shoes as I make my way to a room at the end of the hall where I can already hear jangling guitar chords.
John is sitting on a riser in the middle of the room, a music stand in front of him. I can see the cover of his sheet music book.Praise Songs for Joyful Hearts.
Appropriate, because my heart is pretty fucking joyful right now.
His fingers slide on the strings as he looks up and sees me there, and I register that beat, the fractional moment before he recognizes me.
He’s wearing his navy polo today, the one with the church’s logo on the chest, and his hair has been combed back from his face. He’s also wearing an awfully nice new pair of sneakers, and if I doubted it before, I now know that not all of Eddie’s money went to a new sound system.
“Jane.” John gets up, putting the guitar down, and I hold a hand up.
“I won’t be here long,” I tell him. “I just dropped in to let you know that I finally talked with your mysterious Phoenix contact.”
The blood literally drains from his face. I watch it, the way his cheeks fade from ruddy pink to a sickly sort of gray, and it almost makes the shit he put me through worth it.
But not quite.
“You know, he was actually kind of a nice guy. Especially when I explained to him that anything you had told him was bullshit.”
I can still feel the shock, the sheer fuckingreliefthat had coursed through me as the voice on the other end of that mysterious phone number told me that he was employed by a Georgie Smith, who was looking for her sister, Liz. That Georgie thought Liz had had a daughter who had ended up in foster care in Arizona, that she might have gone by the name Helen Burns, and that Georgie would like to meet her.
I’d made myself sound regretful, almost a little wistful as I’d confirmed that I’d been in foster care with Helen, but that last I heard, she’d gotten involved in drugs, and I thought she might have headed even further west, Seattle, maybe? No, Portland. One of those. Butin any case, I hadn’t heard from her or seen her in years, and—a lowered voice here, a conspiratorial whisper—I wouldn’t bother talking to John Rivers any further. John Rivers had a history of conning older women like Mrs. Smith—he’d string her along, promise he knew her niece, then he’d never deliver. The private investigator didn’t sound surprised, just said he knew the type and thanked me for my time.
When I’d hung up the phone, I’d waited for real regret, knowing I’d just snipped the one thin thread still holding me to any family. And a year ago, even a few months ago, knowing my mom had had a sister who was looking for me would’ve made me feel almost pathetically grateful. Aunt Georgie.
Now, it was just another loose end to tie up. I’d made my choice, made my family, and I was closing the door on all of it.
And most importantly, now I was certain: no one knew what had really happened in Phoenix.
I’d gotten away.
