The Wives Read online

  * * *

  Her face is bare when she opens the door. In the few minutes she’s been home she’s already washed off her makeup. It’s interesting that she’s the type who immediately washes off her day while I fall asleep in mine.

  She doesn’t even try to hide her shock; she moves quickly, shoving the door closed. It swings toward me with force, but I am too fast. I wedge my foot in the gap and flinch when it squeezes painfully against my toes.

  Regina yanks it open, glaring at me. Without her makeup, she looks like a child. An angry, insolent child who isn’t getting her way.

  “What? What do you want?” She holds the door trying to keep me out, red nails sharp against the peeling gray.

  “You know what I want,” I say. And then I do something I am even surprised by: I push past her and enter her home without invitation.

  She turns her body to face me, her mouth slightly open. I see her eyes search around the room, looking for her phone. Who will she call—Seth or the police? I find it before she does, lunging toward it on the dining table. I pocket it before she can stop me and stare at her solemnly.

  “I just want to talk,” I say. “That’s all I’m here for.”

  She considers the hallway outside for a moment. I can feel her decision in the air. If she screams for help who will come?

  She must decide that her chances are better with me because she closes the door, all rigidness gone from her body. There is a feverish nervousness about her as she walks past me. It’s smell and energy, a woman trapped in a room with someone she’d rather avoid. I’m contemptuous about the fact that she’s not as interested in me as I am in her. Isn’t it the mark of a woman to want to know things about other women? We abuse the information...compare ourselves rather than keeping it all separate. Even as I study her clean face and thick hair, I’m comparing.

  “All right, Thursday,” she says. “Let’s talk.”

  THIRTY

  There are expensive things in this inexpensive apartment. A leather sectional that once fit into a large living room, thick coffee table books stacked on top of a marble table. Everything is too big, which makes the room small and suffocating. I glance out of the window above the wrought iron dinette for escape, and see nothing but more rows of insipid gray buildings. It’s really warm in her apartment, the heat turned all the way up to feel like summer. She’s in total life denial, I think. Regina walks over to a section of the couch farthest from where I am standing, and sits down without inviting me to do the same. She curls up in the corner, a tiny ball of a woman. I take a seat, anyway, perching myself across from her on the edge of the leather so that I almost slide off. I try not to stare, but when you’ve wondered about a person for so long it’s hard not to.

  “Well?” she says. “What do you want to know?”

  So different from the How can I help you? attitude earlier, surrounded by her ferns and wood and educational plaques. Here, in her living room, her things surround me.

  “I want to be told the truth,” I say.

  “The truth?” she says, incredulous. “I don’t think you ever wanted the truth, Thursday. You wanted Seth. I know about all of it...”

  “What does that even mean? And why did you say that you and Seth were only together for five years?”

  “Because we were,” she says, exasperated. And then she adds, “Before you came along.”

  “You mean when it was just you two?”

  “No! Oh my God, you really are crazy...” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Thursday, you had an affair with Seth. You’re the reason we got divorced.”

  The silence that follows is deafening. A searing pain stabs through my head, running from temple to temple.

  “That’s not true,” I say. “Why would you say that?”

  She stares at me, a blank expression on her face. “Because it’s the truth.”

  I shake my head. My mouth is dry. I want something to drink but I’m too proud to ask for water.

  “No. He told me that—”

  “Stop it,” she says, cutting me off. Her eyes are wild. She closes them, suddenly shutting me out. “Just stop it.”

  Normally I’d back down, but not this time. I’ve been sitting in the dark for too long and I need answers.

  “When was the last time you saw Seth?” Right away she makes a sour face, her lips puckered.

  “I told you that—”

  She looks down—at her lap, or her hands, or the pattern on her pajama pants, but not at me. I see her shoulders lift and sink as she sighs.

  “I saw Seth last week,” she says. “Here at the apartment.” When she sees the look on my face, she adds, “He owes me money.”

  “For what?”

  “For losing everything,” she snaps. “Do you think I actually belong in a place like this?”

  Regina with the Louboutins? I want to laugh: no, probably not. I have the money to buy red-soled shoes, but I’m not the type. Regina, on the other hand, is used to lavishing luxury on herself. She wears designer and probably always used to drive the newest-model Mercedes rather than the beat-up junker parked in her spot downstairs.

  “You’re going to have to catch me up on this, Regina. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I try to keep my voice patient, but it sounds like I’m talking through my teeth.

  “His business. Things started going south a few years ago. Right before he married you,” she says pointedly.

  “Seth took a second mortgage on the house we bought together to keep the business floating, but then he still couldn’t pay it. There was too much debt. Our house went into foreclosure. He promised to turn things around, make it right, but as you can see—” she lifts her eyes to the ceiling “—I’m here.”

  Why didn’t I know any of this? Why hadn’t he said something? I had enough money to contribute... I shake my head. I can’t believe I’m thinking like this. Even now, sitting across from his other wife, after being institutionalized, I’m thinking about how I could have helped him.

  “And did he give you money?” I ask.

  I’m trying to imagine it all. Seth never spoke about his financial situation, especially with the others. We have separate accounts, though I’d given him a joint debit card to mine when we were first married. I’d always assumed it was the same for them.

  She exhales, her cheeks puffing out. She looks like a child. How does anyone take her seriously?

  “Yes, a little bit. Not enough. I have bill collectors knocking down my door. It’s stressful.”

  “If you’re not in a relationship, why didn’t he just send you the money? Why did he have to come here?”

  Her mouth tightens, a flesh-colored slash on her face. I realize then that she’s a lonely, bitter woman, not the picture of power and grace that I’d imagined. Oh, when our idols fall, I think to myself. I prefer the version of her that I made up in my head, the one that made me feel insecure.

  “Our dog died,” she says. “And he wanted to tell me in person that he’d have more for me soon. A business transaction that’s going to pay out in a few weeks.”

  So he wasn’t lying about the dog. I wonder if he’s lying about the business transaction. Seth closes on accounts all the time. His clients call him efficient and hardworking. He has one bad review on Yelp, which he stresses about weekly. His payouts on jobs are sufficient but not large enough to pay off big debts—or buy back big houses.

  I test out the name of their dog. “Smidge?”

  Regina looks at me in horror. “How did you know that?”

  “Seth told me,” I say, shrugging. He told me things, too, I think. I just never know what’s true and what’s not.

  She blinks rapidly as she looks away, like she can’t believe he’d do such a thing.

  “I haven’t been able to throw her things away yet.” She nods to a space between the TV stand and the kitch
en where a basket of dog toys still sits. It’s overflowing with bright balls and stuffed toys—a spoiled dog.

  “Did you have sex when he came here?”

  Regina’s head snaps toward me, her face a mask of outrage. “How dare you,” she says. But there’s something there, concealed behind the anger...admission.

  “You did.” I swipe my hair behind my ears. I don’t feel anything; of course I don’t. I know Seth has been having sex with his other two wives this entire time. I just made sure the sex with me was better than anything they could offer. I was more waxed, more flexible, more responsive to his touch. Regina is back to just blinking.

  “Why are you pretending with me? Seth is acting like I’m crazy, making up the entire story about his relationships with you and Hannah. I just want the truth.”

  “I don’t know Hannah,” Regina says. “And I’ve already told you that we’ve been over for a long time.” Her legs are folded up underneath her, and I can’t help but think it’s to make her appear taller, like those heels she wears.

  I shake my head. I’m not crazy. I’m not.

  Her nostrils flare and I can see her chest rising and falling as she takes in short bursts of air. She’s trying to keep control. But for what reason? She stands up and moves toward the door and I know she’s about to tell me to leave. I have to do something, make her talk to me.

  “I lost a baby...” The words tumble from my mouth and end with a dragging pain across my chest.

  Regina freezes, her back to me.

  It all started when I lost my baby. My life began to unravel, string by string. I may have been too consumed with grief to see the signs then, but I see them all now. Seth’s detachment, his wanting another woman, his preoccupation with sex when we were together. I was no longer the woman he wanted to talk to, I was the woman he wanted to fuck. That’s what my usefulness boiled down to in the end.

  “I was five months pregnant. I had to...” I swallow the welling of emotion. I need to get this out. “I had to give birth to him.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see her turn around to face me. I look up at her; her face is horrified, her mouth slack and her eyes large. He never told her. I bite the inside of my cheek and force myself to keep talking.

  “He had red hair...just a little bit...but it was red. I don’t even know where that came from. No one in my family has red hair...”

  Talking about my baby validates his existence here, even if it was brief. He was so tiny and his red hair was more just a dusting of orange. The nurses had marveled at it, which only made me sadder. At the time I’d held on to that little detail, his body so small it was lost in the blanket they’d wrapped him in. I was allowed to hold him for a few minutes, my mind jumping between wonder and grief. I made this. He’s dead. I made this. He’s dead. I’d not named him, though Seth wanted to. Naming him made his death real and I’d wanted to forget.

  Everything I keep so carefully guarded is welling up inside of me, my tear ducts burning.

  “Seth’s mother,” Regina says softly.

  I swallow hard. I’d never even seen a picture of his parents. Seth told me that they didn’t care for having their photo taken.

  “She did?” I want her to say more. I need her to.

  “Yes. Long and beautiful.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “What happened to them? How did they die?”

  Regina clasps her hands in her lap, shakes her head sadly.

  “His father shot his mother, and then turned the gun on himself. It was tragic, a huge blow to the family.”

  My mouth falls open. “I don’t understand. When did they die? What about the other wives? Their other children?”

  She shrugs. “We were already married when it happened. His father wasn’t well. He’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was a boy, said God told him to do things. They were very...religious.”

  “Did you ever meet them?” I think about the cards, the ones that supposedly came from them, written in his mother’s handwriting. No, Regina can’t be right. Seth’s parents had sent us a wedding present. Hadn’t they? No, it was all Seth’s perfectly constructed lie.

  “I did. They were odd people. I was glad to move away. They didn’t even come to our wedding.”

  I want to tell her that they missed ours, too, but she’s on a roll and I don’t want to interrupt her.

  “Seth was somewhat obsessed with his father.”

  “In what way?”

  She seems relieved to be talking about something other than her relationship with Seth.

  “I don’t know. I suppose in just the way boys are with their dads. They were close. His father was really unhappy when we left. Said Seth was abandoning his family.”

  “Did you ever try to have children?” I ask. A sudden change of subject.

  Regina doesn’t like this question.

  “You know I didn’t want children.”

  “Why?”

  “Does a woman still have to explain herself when she doesn’t want children?” she snaps.

  “No... I mean...you married the son of a polygamist. He must have told you that he wanted a family.”

  She looks away. “He assumed I’d change my mind, and I assumed he loved me enough to drop it.”

  Something nags at the back of my mind, it’s so familiar—a song you can almost hear the tune to but don’t know the name of.

  The defensiveness has returned in her voice, her guard up once again. “I’ve answered all of your questions, Thursday. Please.” She glances at the door. “I’d like to be alone now.” I take her phone from my pocket and set it gently on the table before walking away. Before I leave, I turn back to where she’s standing staring out of the window, unseeing, and place a slip of paper on top of the magazines with the number to the burner phone I bought.

  “Seth hit Hannah. You need to know that. When I found out and confronted him about it he got rough with me, too.”

  A muscle twitches in her temple, a tiny pulse.

  “Goodbye, Regina.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  When I leave Regina’s apartment, my head is spinning. I pause at the top of the stairs, my hand on the railing. Someone has scratched the word cunt into the metal with their keys. Regina could be lying about everything. I can’t actually trust my husband’s other wife, can I? Could it be that Seth lied to her, too? Lied about me and our relationship? I thought that perhaps he was keeping things from his shiny new wife, Hannah, but maybe he kept Regina in the dark, too. Had he lied to us all? Who was this man? Had I loved him so unconditionally that I’d gouged out my own eyes? Seth, who told me that Regina didn’t want children, and that’s why he sought out a second wife. Seth, who never told Regina that I’d miscarried our baby. There are so many secrets, and I’ve been blind for too long. It makes me feel sick that I’ve allowed all of this to happen. I need to speak to Hannah, make her tell me what’s going on. Where has he hidden Hannah?

  I drive back to the Cottonmouth house, feeling worse by the minute. My stomach makes a loud appeal for food. When was the last time I ate? I pull into a drive-through and order a sandwich and a soda, but when I unwrap the foil, the sight of it makes me feel ill. I throw it away, sipping delicately on the Coke. I’m feverish, my face clammy and warm. I stumble into the house, my head spinning. The empty walls swim around me, and the smell of paint and rot makes me gag. Suddenly, I don’t want to be here. I’ll sleep just a few minutes, enough to make me feel better. I duck into the room and lock the door behind me. It’s only eight o’clock, but my body aches from exhaustion. I crawl into the stale-smelling bed, my eyes heavy, and I sleep.

  * * *

  “Thursday?”

  I sit up in bed, groggy, and reach for my cell. It’s not there. I can’t find the time. I’m holding a phone to my ear and someone is saying my name. That’s right. I’m in Portland. I left my cel
l phone in the corner of an elevator. This is a burner.

  “Yeah...” I say, struggling to untangle the sheets and sit up. “Who’s this?”

  A woman says my name again. “Thursday—” And then, “It’s Regina.”

  Suddenly, I’m wide awake, my senses on full alert. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and stand up.

  “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  “No...” Her voice is uncertain.

  I pace the tiny space to the window and back to the bed, the strange phone clumsy in my hand.

  “Seth knows you’re here. I told him you came to the firm. He’s looking for you.”

  I sit down abruptly. I’m not surprised. But how long until he tracks me down?

  “Why are you telling me?”

  There’s a long pause on her end. I can hear her breathing into the phone, clogged breath like she’s been crying.

  “Can we meet somewhere to talk?”

  “When?”

  “Now,” she says. “There’s an all-night diner two blocks from my apartment. It’s called Larry’s. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

  “All right,” I say cautiously. “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “I don’t think you have any other choice.” She hangs up. She’s an attorney; she’s used to getting the last word.

  I hang up the phone and begin searching for my clothes. The only thing relatively clean is my orange sweater. I pull it on and slide into my jeans. My hair is a dirty mess. I brush it into a quick ponytail, splash water on my face, and I’m out the door five minutes after Regina’s call ended. It’s only when I turn on the ignition to my car that the dashboard lights up and I see that it’s 4:30 in the morning. What would possess her to call in the middle of the night?

  * * *

  I’m seated in a booth in the nearly empty Larry’s with a cup of coffee in front of me when Regina walks through the doors. She’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair in a knot on top of her head. She could be mistaken for a college student. She has a backpack slung over a shoulder—not the kind you run away with, just the kind you use as a purse. I watch as she surveys the diner, looking for me. My breath is jagged. I lift a hand as her head turns my way and she catches my eye. She takes her time working her way over to where I am, and I have the feeling she’s questioning her decision to come here. She slides into the seat across from me, slipping her arms out of the backpack. I notice right away that her eyes are swollen and red. She takes a minute to settle in, fussing with nothing, before looking up. She is here, I realize, to unload a burden.