The Betrayed Wife

by Kevin O'Brien

Sheila went back into her bathroom and opened up the medicine chest to get her Ambien. Her hand automatically started reaching for it on the top shelf. But the prescription bottle wasn’t there. It took her a moment to find the Ambien on the middle shelf, along with a prescribed medication for muscle spasms that she took whenever her back went haywire. Out of a habit developed when the kids were young, Sheila always kept prescription bottles on the top shelf where the kids couldn’t reach them.

  Someone had been through her medicine chest today.

  “Goddamn it,” she whispered.

  Eden had been up here on the second floor by herself for most of the evening. Who else would have been in here? Had the little sneak been through all of her things?

  Sheila hurried back to the bedroom and checked her dresser top. She had several perfume bottles there. The Estée Lauder, which she hardly ever used and kept behind the other vials, was now at the front of the collection. Sheila immediately checked her jewelry boxes to see if anything was gone. She kept her expensive baubles in one box and the cheap costume jewelry in another. She didn’t see anything missing from either box. But maybe she just didn’t realize it now. Maybe she wouldn’t know a certain piece was gone until she went looking for that particular bracelet, necklace, brooch, or set of earrings.

  God, she hated this. She felt so vulnerable—and violated.

  And the damn dog next door was barking again.

  Sheila glanced over at her purse on the chair beside her dresser. She’d kept her purse up here in the bedroom most of the night, thinking it would be safe up here. Talk about stupid. She reached inside and took out her wallet. The credit cards were all there, and she was pretty sure no money was missing. But her driver’s license was upside down in the wallet’s window.

  Eden must have taken it out of the wallet and put it back wrong. The little street urchin wasn’t even careful about covering her tracks. Sheila wondered what the girl had done with her driver’s license. All she could think about was identity theft.

  It was maddening. This girl was a stranger, and they were letting her into their house. Dylan had even given her the alarm code. What the hell was he thinking? What was to keep her from sharing it with her lowlife boyfriend?

  Earlier, after hearing that Eden had been staying in a rundown dump, one of Sheila’s main concerns had been the possibility of her bringing lice or bedbugs into the house. That seemed like small potatoes now. But it still seemed very possible, on top of everything else.

  Sheila opened her door, crept down the hallway to Eden’s room, and checked the threshold for the umpteenth time tonight. It looked like the lights were still off in there. A part of her wanted to double-check that Eden was really asleep—and in fact, in the room. There was always a chance the girl could have snuck out in the middle of the night. But if Eden was there in bed and awake, Sheila didn’t want to get caught looking in on her. Then again, Sheila had every reason to barge in, wake up the little brat, and ask what the hell she’d been doing in her medicine cabinet and her purse. But she knew Eden would just deny it.

  She slunk back to the master bedroom. Before accusing Eden of anything, she’d first check with her kids to make sure no one else had been in the bedroom. She would deal with it in the morning.

  Sheila locked her bedroom door. She heard the dog next door let out a few more yelps. Yes, Ambien, and some cotton in her ears tonight. She just wanted to be unconscious. Half a tablet was her normal dosage, and she’d already cut a few pills in half. She checked that the pill half looked like all the others before she swallowed it with some water.

  In the medicine chest, she found some foam earplugs Dylan had bought but never used. She worked them into her ears. The sound of her closing the medicine chest was muffled. She hoped it would block out the barking, too.

  Switching off the bathroom light, she stepped back into the bedroom and glanced at her dresser top again. She wondered what Eden was doing in here anyway. Just snooping?

  Sheila wasn’t going to let it gnaw at her and keep her awake. She told herself again that it could all wait until morning. She was already feeling a bit drowsy.

  The neighbor’s dog barked again, but it sounded far off. With the blanket over her head, Sheila figured she’d hardly hear the barking at all.

  She peeled back the bedspread, and that was when she saw a black thing crawling on her pillow.

  Sheila reeled back.

  The spider’s body was the size of a quarter, with legs extending at least an inch. It almost looked like a tarantula.

  Without thinking, Sheila grabbed the paperback off her nightstand and swatted at the bug. But it crawled under her sheets. Sheila tore back the sheet and slammed it with the book again and again, killing it this time.

  Trying to catch her breath, she took a few Kleenex from the box on her nightstand and cleaned up the mess. Then she checked under the pillows and shook out the bedding to make sure the bug didn’t have a companion.

  In a less panicked moment, she might have gotten a piece of paper and patiently waited for the spider to crawl on it so she could take it outside. But this bug caught her by surprise.

  As Sheila flushed it down the toilet, her heart was still racing. At the same time, the Ambien was kicking in. She felt dizzy and weak. She shuddered at the thought of the bug guts on one little section of the sheets. But she was too damn tired to change the bedding right now.

  Standing in the bathroom doorway, she looked at the rumpled bed with the coverlet on the floor. She felt queasy about sleeping in here tonight. She wasn’t sure what to do.

  But she knew one thing.

  It was now quite clear what Eden had been doing in her room earlier tonight.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  9/26—Notes

  House alarm code: *08291940

  WA state driver’s license (also see photo):

  #OROURSA267NP

  O’Rourke

  Sheila Ann (Driscoll) DOB: 2/16/74

  578 Roanoke Pl E

  Seattle, WA 98102-0000

  Sex: F—Hght: 5-6

  Wgt: 120—Eyes: Blue

  Class—End: None

  Restrictions: None

  Signature samples (see photo/scan—more to come)

  Hair samples (from brush on dresser—enclosed)

  Used Kleenex (from purse—enclosed)

  American Express # (see photo/scan)

  Visa # (see photo/scan)

  Social: 328-35-4159

  Wells Fargo Bank Account (checking):

  #000073724995

  Blank Checks (#2149—from end of current book)

  (#2157—from new/unused book)

  DRUGS:

  Zolpidem 10 mg (Ambien)

  Robaxin 500 mg (for muscle spasms)

  L-Theanine 200 mg (stress formula/nonprescrip)

  Melatonin 10 mg (nonprescrip)

  Aspirin

  Women’s Multivitamin Supplement

  Vitamin D

  Vitamin C

  –No one else uses washer or dryer—possible short/electric shock –No one else does gardening—check fertilizer for arsenic or other toxins

  FOOD & DRINK ONLY SHE CONSUMES:

  Cranberry Juice—poison? Eye drops?

  Special K cereal—rat poison?

  Orange marmalade—jar currently opened/fridge

  Yoplait—one container now open/half

  eaten/fridge

  Rice Crackers

  Pickles—jar opened/fridge

  Tea—in bags

  Half & Half—carton currently open/fridge

  Bourbon—of course . . .

  Not bad for one day!!!

  –Handwriting samples are needed (check her desk).

  –Kids’ emails are needed –Key to house needed (essential)!

  –Password list needed!

  –Does she keep a journal? Only the best people do!

  –Going w/“Dad” to enroll in school & buy things for bedroom 1 P.M. ?

  –Stupid Sheila has dance classes
starting at 2 P.M.

  –House will be empty today from 1:30–3:30.

  I’m in now, and it feels pretty goddamn great.

  More later.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Wednesday, September 26—1:58 P.M.

  “Hey, I was just going to leave a message,” Dylan said on the other end of the line. “I thought you’d be too busy to pick up.”

  “My two o’clock lesson canceled on me at the last minute, so I’m here at the ballroom with an hour to kill until the next lesson,” Sheila explained. She was sitting at a café table on the edge of the seating area in the large, empty ballroom. At this time of day, the second floor of the old building was pretty deserted, and even a bit spooky.

  “So—what’s going on?” Sheila asked. She kept a civil tone with Dylan. As of this morning, it had become necessary to talk to him in sentences with more than one word. After breakfast, she’d told him about her awful night and how it was obvious that Eden had gone through her things in their bedroom.

  Despite the Ambien, she’d had a fitful sleep. She’d still heard the dog, though its barking had been slightly muffled by the earplugs. It had gone on all night long. Sheila had woken up around 4:30 and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep.

  Taking another day off from work, Dylan had an appointment to enroll Eden in the high school today, and the school administration wanted Eden there, too. After that, they were headed to True Value to pick out paint colors for her bedroom and then to Bed Bath & Beyond. The two of them would stop for lunch somewhere along the way. It was supposed to give them a chance for some father-daughter bonding. At least, that had been the plan.

  At breakfast this morning, after the kids had left for school, she and Dylan had discussed it. He’d promised he would figure out a tactful way of asking Eden if she’d been in their room last night. “But, honey, I’ve got to admit, I think the spider in the bed was just a weird coincidence. I mean, I see spiders in the house all the time. I just can’t see her bringing it in her backpack—this pet spider in a jar with air holes in the lid—all so she could put it in our bed and terrorize you. It seems kind of dumb and childlike. It reminds me of the von Trapp kids slipping the frog in Julie Andrews’s pocket in The Sound of Music. Do you really think she’d do something that silly?”

  “Considering that we don’t know her at all—and that she’s been openly hostile to me—yes, damn it, I think it’s quite possible she’d do something like that. And you should have seen the size of this damn thing. She did it to mess with me. And I want you to find out if she did.”

  She’d figured Eden would insist she wasn’t anywhere near their bedroom last night. And Dylan would probably take the little brat’s word.

  Sheila had waited until the two of them had taken off for their appointment with the high school principal, and then she snuck into Eden’s room. If the girl noticed anything was out of place, Sheila figured she could always use the excuse that she’d gone in there to see if Eden had left any dirty laundry for her. Eden hadn’t. She also hadn’t made her bed, and she’d left everything she’d worn yesterday—along with a couple of used bath towels—on the floor.

  Sheila wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she thought maybe she’d find a piece of her own jewelry that the girl had stolen last night. Or maybe Eden kept a journal. Maybe she was hiding some drugs in the room. Sheila searched the bedroom, even under the mattress. She also went through Eden’s two suitcases. Eden had her backpack with her for the appointment at the high school. Sheila was careful not to get anything out of order—which was difficult, because everything was already a mess in both suitcases. The slob had crammed her dirty, smelly, rolled-up clothes (practically every item black) into the suitcases. Sheila didn’t come across anything suspicious amid the toiletries and cosmetics. She found a sketchbook, full of some not-bad ballpoint pen renderings—dark, morbid cartoonish stuff. The girl had a fondness for these characters that were human, but with pig-faces—almost like the doctors and nurses at the end of that old episode of The Twilight Zone with Donna Douglas, “Eye of the Beholder.” Many of the sketchbook pages were slightly puckered from the sheer quantity of ink used to scribble in the dark backgrounds.

  In the back of the sketchbook, Sheila found a few photographs of a younger Eden and her mother. She was actually a cute little girl. She looked a bit awkward and chubby in one photo—obviously taken when she’d hit puberty. There was also a birthday card with a ballerina on a cake and To My Daughter on Her 12th Birthday! on the front. Inside, it was signed: “My grown-up girl, so proud of you . . . All the love in the world, Mom.”

  She’d saved a card from four years ago. So, at least, Eden had a little sentimental streak in her. And she was a mildly talented artist.

  But Sheila left Eden’s bedroom feeling she still didn’t know the girl. She hadn’t found anything new about the mother or her death. And she hadn’t uncovered any evidence that Eden had been in her room last night, either.

  She wondered if Dylan had found anything out yet.

  “So I’m in the paint section of True Value,” Dylan said on the phone. “Eden’s in the bathroom.”

  Probably snorting cocaine, Sheila thought. “And?” she said.

  “She starts school on Friday.”

  Holding the phone to her ear, Sheila drummed her fingers on the café tabletop with her other hand. “Okay,” she said. “Well, that’s good . . .”

  “Even though she’s a few months older than Hannah, because she missed a month of school, they’re putting her in Steve’s class for now. They said if she seems unhappy or unchallenged as a sophomore, they’ll reassess in a few weeks.”

  “Did you explain to them just who she is—in relation to us?” Sheila asked.

  He hesitated before answering. “Yeah, and you were right. No judgment. The principal, she didn’t seem the least bit scandalized. Outside of Hannah having some issues about it being this great, big embarrassment, there really shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “No, no problem at all,” Sheila muttered.

  “I meant with the school situation.”

  “Did you ask her what she was doing in our bedroom last night?”

  He hesitated again.

  “I’ll bet she denied it and was outraged you even asked. Am I right?”

  “Half-right,” Dylan answered. “She said that, yes, she went into our bedroom for a couple of minutes last night. She was looking for aspirin and found some in the bathroom medicine chest. Then she saw your perfume on the dresser and tried some. She said she didn’t think you’d mind, since you gave her this big speech earlier about how she could help herself to anything that was yours. Then she got pretty mad, because she said—after you promised it wouldn’t be a problem—you were obviously pissed off at her for helping herself to your stuff. She said you set her up. She thinks you hate her.”

  Sheila let out an exasperated sigh. “My God, I love how she’s twisted this around. I told her she could help herself to anything in the kitchen. I didn’t say she could go through our bedroom or look inside my purse. What about the spider? Did you ask her about the spider?”

  “Yeah, I told her what happened, and asked if she knew anything about it.”

  “And?”

  “Well, you’re not going to like this, but she laughed. She said you can’t blame her if we have spiders in our house. I’ve got to tell you, honey, I think she’s right. Like I told you this morning, I’ve seen spiders in the house lately. It’s fall. It happens. They’re just spiders, and it’s not a big deal. Can’t you just drop it?”

  Sheila said nothing. She knew Dylan would take the girl’s side on this.

  “Are you still there?” Dylan asked.

  “Did you find out anything about what happened to the mother?” she asked. “I mean, was it a suicide, or an accident, or what?”

  “The police think it was an accident. Apparently, she was up there on the roof working on her tan and drinking. Eden said she always made herself a thermos
of Cosmopolitans and got a little sloshed while she soaked up the rays.”

  “Did you believe her?” Sheila asked. “Do you think that’s what really happened? Antonia got drunk and fell?”

  “Well, the police came to that conclusion, and Eden seems to agree with them.”

  “You don’t think maybe it’s a little too much of a coincidence that it happened before—and in Portland?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Sheila didn’t say anything, either. She’d finally asked the question that had been on her mind since she received that anonymous text and the news story about Antonia’s death. Neither she nor Dylan had acknowledged it out loud. For the past week, she’d been trying not to think about it.

  “Yeah, okay, it’s weird,” he admitted. “But Sheila, do you really want to have this conversation now? On the phone? And she’s out of the restroom, by the way, so I can’t really talk.”

  “Is she right there?” Sheila asked.

  “No, she’s down the aisle, looking at paint samples.”

  “You said you were seeing Antonia during that bad time for us—or rather, right afterwards,” Sheila said. She felt knots forming in her stomach. “The birth certificate confirms that. Did you tell Antonia about us, and what happened?”

  “Sheila, do we have to talk about this now?” he whispered.

  “I’m curious just how much Antonia could have told her daughter about us.”

  “I—I didn’t discuss it with Antonia. But, honey, it was in the Portland newspapers. So I’m sure she knew.”

  Sheila winced. All she could think was that Antonia had probably told her daughter. And now, this girl had moved in with them. Hannah, Steve, and Gabe had no idea what had happened in Portland before they were born. Eden was probably just itching for the right moment to tell them, too.