The Doctor's Wife

by Elizabeth Brundage

  Lydia stands there holding the tray, and she is shaking, too; they are shaking together. They have both been spurned; they have both been betrayed. This is something they share, like a death, and they shake mournfully. They mourn together. The teacup rattles on its saucer. Without a thought, she lets it all go, just drops the tray to the cement floor without a care. It makes a loud noise when it hits and the plate breaks and the little cup rolls and they are both startled by it, by its deliberate intrusion. And in the moments that transpire he turns and looks at her and sees that she, too, is crying. And she thinks that perhaps he knows her with a perfect clarity, the keen song of a loon, perhaps, as it calls to its lover across the lake. The moment ends and he does not take his eyes from hers, and it is as if something new has been established between them and it makes her cry a little more as she kneels down and scoops up the broken china as quickly as she can. Trembling, she welcomes the small cuts and slivers, she deserves them. I will not cry in front of you, she thinks, clutching broken pieces of china in her bleeding hands, and runs upstairs.

  64

  THE HOURS DRIFT and sigh. He spins like a meteor through space, dreaming of Annie. Her fingertips, like raindrops. There is the sound in his head of his children laughing. Upstairs, he hears the radio. Now and then, the weather report comes on, the man with the sensible voice: Expect snowfall today, reaching over six feet in the higher elevations, two or three inches in the Capital District. He thinks he can hear the snow. The sound of it falls like the whispering of children. The whispering of children in a dying man’s room. He wonders what time it is. What the day is. He has lost track.

  Michael hears the locks and rouses himself to a sitting position. His mouth is dry. When the door opens, the yellow light in the hall quivers behind her. Big blue hydrangeas on the wallpaper like the backdrop in a play and he is deep in an audience, watching a madwoman. Her boots are rubber, caked with mud, and they descend one after the other slowly, feebly, like a person in pain. She wears her pathology like a heavy coat.

  “We need to talk,” she says. Like the steps to some bizarre primal dance, her body guides him: the white drifting smoke from her cigarette, her eyeglasses swinging on a string around her neck. The apron she wears, tied in a bow around her waist. The gun jammed in the right pocket. She lights the oil lamp and he blinks. She takes her gun and sets it down. “I realize what you’re doing,” she says, lighting a cigarette. “The fact that you’re not eating or drinking will get us nowhere. I’m sorry about the photographs. I felt you should see them.”

  He nods. “It’s not just her fault,” he manages. “It’s all of ours. You can’t just blame Annie.”

  “Oh, yes I can,” she says. “I can blame her all I want.” She rifles through her bag and pulls out some whiskey and a bottle of pills. “You can talk yourself into thinking it’s your fault, Michael. You can talk yourself into it all you want. But we both know it’s not true. We both know your wife is a whore.” She swallows a glassful of whiskey. “I’ll have to kill her if she doesn’t leave him alone. I’m just telling you now. I’m just telling you so you’re prepared.”

  It is only now that Michael fully understands the extent of his dilemma. “That won’t be necessary. I promise you that.”

  “How can you be so sure?” She laughs, filling up her glass.

  “Because she’s my wife. I know her better than you do.”

  “I hope you’re right. Because I’m very angry with her.”

  “I know you’re angry. I’m angry with her, too.”

  “I’ve had to work very hard to control myself. It makes me sick to think about all the things they’ve done together. Like animals. Nasty, nasty, nasty. It’s amazing what people do when they get between the sheets, isn’t it? You of all people should know that, Dr. Knowles. Perfectly respectable people by day, but in bed—I can’t even talk about it without feeling like I’m going to puke. He’s all I have! I don’t have anyone else! He’s all I have! And she stole him from me! She stole him. And I want him back! Do you hear me?”

  “Lydia, please try to stay calm.”

  “I’ve thought of killing her. I’ve thought about it many times. When I first found out. I went through all of the steps in my head. Just how I’d do it. It’s not that difficult. It’s not as hard as you think. I’d go into your house when she’s at work. I’d poison the wine she drinks at night, the cream she dumps in her coffee. Splat, there she goes! Splat! Splat! Splat!”

  “You touch her and I swear I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking rip you apart!”

  “I think the back field will do nicely,” she says lightly, like a woman planning a garden party. “I’ll need help, of course, with the body. Dead bodies are awfully heavy! But you’ll be here for that. We’ll dig a nice cozy grave and put poor Annie into it. I’ll even plant flowers all over it in spring. All kinds of lovely flowers.”

  “You’re fucking twisted, you know that?”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He shakes his head. If only he could wrap his hands around her throat. He’d throttle the air right out of her. “One of these days someone’s going to figure this out, Mrs. Haas, and when they do, when they find you, and they will find you, they’re going to wrap you up in one of those straitjackets and cart you off to the state hospital. You ever spend any time in a straitjacket? It’s not a whole lot of fun. Of course the drugs aren’t too bad, if you don’t mind drooling all over yourself, shitting your pants.”

  She raises her gun, swift as a bird, and takes aim at his head.

  “Go ahead. Shoot. I dare you.”

  “I will if you don’t shut up.”

  But he can see she’s bluffing. The drugs she’s given him are starting to kick in. They make him brawny, shameless. He spreads his arms, rattles the chains on his feet. “Shoot me, goddamn it! Come on, Mrs. Haas, put me out of my misery! You fucking insane woman! You fucking lunatic!”

  The blast comes louder than he ever imagined, like a wrecking ball making impact in the cinder block behind his head. His whole body quivers with the aftershock, his ears rendered useless. The woman rises like a ghost in the drifting smoke. “Drooling and shitting your pants,” she says softly. “I guess you know something about that now.”

  And then she’s gone.

  65

  BOILING MAD, Lydia drives to the doctor’s house in the rental car. The rental car is good, she thinks, popping a few more pills into her mouth. The rental car is very good. Roomy. American. Driving it, she feels like another sort of woman, not a woman with a husband who betrays her. No. Not that sort of woman. Someone clean. Someone with an orderly life. Someone who moves quickly through life and offends no one. Someone pure.

  Lydia finds the street easily and creeps up slowly, as if she is uncertain of an address, as if she is lost. A squall of black crows crosses the field. Annie’s Volvo sits in the driveway. Lydia passes the house and parks down the street behind a witch hazel bush. She dials Annie from her cell phone. Annie’s voice comes hollow and tentative, like the other end of an echo. “Who is this? Who is this?”

  Although it is not smart to be there, Lydia is in no particular hurry. Killing time, she puts on more makeup, gobs of it. Finally, Annie appears on her driveway, nervous, pale, urging her children into the car, squinting in the bright reflection of snow. The boy carries a violin case and a floppy stuffed dog; the girl clutches a fat white cat. Swatting tears from her face, Annie tells the children to hurry up, to get into the car. What does Simon see in her? Lydia wonders. What does he see in her? Lydia takes a deep breath, concentrating on controlling herself, tempted to step on the gas and run the woman over.

  Annie balks and jitters around her children like a nervous chicken. Pretending that they are just going to Grandmother’s house for an ordinary visit. Throwing in knapsacks and books, stuffed animals, a haphazard pile. Annie hauls her bossy breasts up the driveway, plump, logy breasts that have been fondled and pinched and sucked by Lydia’s husband. Annie slips behind the
wheel with her cunt that has been pounded and prodded and savagely fucked by him as well. Hammered, she thinks with vulgar delight, corked, rammed, pounded. Thinking about it makes her mad all over again, steaming mad, but there they go now, backing out of the driveway, and she remembers that it’s time to focus. Work to be done, work to be done, she thinks frivolously as Annie races down the road with the children still grappling for their seat belts, a look of vacant determination on her face. She is pathetically oblivious to Lydia, who simply gets out of the car in her black wig and sunglasses and walks toward the house thinking, I am invisible. The street is empty, the house set back from the road; isolated. Isolated, what a stunning word. That’s what you want when you live in the country. You want land. You want space. You want to be left alone.

  Leave me alone!

  Lydia wanders up the driveway, around to the back. Takes the doctor’s key out of her pocketbook and opens the door, steps into the bright chaos, so different from her own life, her own dead kitchen. The glaring window light floods in like a spectator. All through the house is the presence of the children, their scattered shoes and woolen hats and mittens. Their bright paintings of big skies, enormous suns, brown trees, purple flowers. And Annie’s things, the blue pitcher full of wooden spoons, the cracked green vase, the clay bowl full of coins, a pair of earrings left on the counter. Envy swarms her heart like a hive of bees. She scoops the earrings into her pocket and goes upstairs, the carpet plush under her flats. The house hums, it has a heartbeat. She hurries past the children’s rooms, stuffed with toys, because she knows they will depress her, and she tries to squeeze out the memory of her own childhood room, the stained yellow walls, the bed with its awful creaking springs, but she cannot. A darkness whirls up in her body, a darkness like ink spilled on her soul so deep and wide there is no containing it. The only refuge from it is hate. Hating Annie.

  Wandering into the couple’s room. The bedchamber, she thinks, but the room is simple and ordinary. Only the skylight draws her interest, the weak sun pouring down. Annie’s things scattered on the mattress, her makeup, and the lipstick she favors, like garnets. The fat candle on the nightstand. Books scattered like flat stones across the floor. The bathroom smelling of lavender, vanilla. Her cologne from Paris. Lydia opens the small blue bottle and dabs its tiny mouth, glides her sticky finger down her neck. It’s not enough, she thinks, wanting to reek of her, and she pours some more into her hands, splashing the wanton smell over her breasts.

  Smelling fervently of Annie, she returns the Taurus to the rental agency, appreciating the fact that she doesn’t have to speak to anyone. Wearing the black wig, she hands the attendant the keys. They already have the credit card. Not her own. Several days earlier, she’d gone to the public library in the center of town, the children’s section, where the women were always dumb with trust. A woman’s pocketbook sat on the floor, next to a toppled pile of blocks. The woman was tending to her crying child. It had been the easiest thing, slipping her hand into the purse and retrieving the wallet as if it were her own. Fussing through it, selecting the Visa and driver’s license, putting the wallet back, safe and sound. It hadn’t taken her long to assume the woman’s persona. She’d purchased a wig at a shop on Wolf Road. I always wanted to be a brunette, she had told the woman. Everyone knows brunettes are smarter. They exude intelligence, whereas blondes are just plain dumb. “Thanks, Mrs. Wilson,” the boy says to her and for a moment, just a split second, she is somebody else.

  Lydia walks briskly back to the commuter parking lot where she left her car and gets in and turns the radio on loud. There is nothing so pleasant as blasting a radio when you are fucked up out of your mind. Be a good wife, Reverend Tim had told her, so on the way home she stops at the market and buys two steaks, salad fixings, a box of rice. Two chocolate brownies. A bottle of Jim Beam. I am the perfect wife, she thinks, driving home to her big silent house. The dogs sniff at her curiously. Simon is sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper. Waiting for her.

  He snaps the paper open, startling her with the face of Michael Knowles blazing across the front page. The headline reads: “MED CENTER DOCTOR DISAPPEARS: Drifter Found Dead in Doctor’s Car, Investigation Under Way.”

  Simon folds the newspaper back up and slaps it on the table. “Where’ve you been, Lydia? We had an appointment at Blackwell today.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so awful, Simon. I’m sorry.” Unsteady, she leans against the counter, the glorious drugs rushing through her, making her breasts full and warm like Annie’s, making her belly quiver.

  “That’s not good enough,” his voice drones.

  “I want to make things up to you.” She sinks to her knees before him, putting on her little-girl face. “Let me try, please. Please let me try.” Her tongue is big and thick inside her mouth. Better to eat you with, she thinks, and laughs out loud.

  He studies her over his bifocals. “You’re in a mood tonight.”

  “Let me make you supper, all right?” Let me suck your cock. “Let’s just sit together and have dinner. In the spirit of Thanksgiving.”

  “All right,” he says evenly. “I suppose we could do that. But what are we giving thanks for?”

  “For each other. For having each other.” She looks up at him cautiously, afraid, and he looks away just as she knew he would. He is not thankful, she realizes. He is not grateful that she is his wife.

  “Give me a chance, Simon. We need to be together. We need to talk like a normal married couple.”

  “There is nothing normal about us, my dear. Never has been.”

  “We need to try,” her voice begs, weepy. “Please. Can we please try?”

  He reaches out and takes her hand and pulls her gently onto his lap. He studies her the way he used to when he’d paint her. “All right, Lydia. We can try.” Yes, yes, Lydia, you can suck my cock.

  She concentrates on making the meal, sensing that he is watching her every move. The smell of the meat fills the small kitchen and her mouth waters for it. Drooling all over yourself, she thinks of the doctor. On the table her pocketbook waits, a loyal subject. It holds three things of interest: the scent of her husband’s lover, the lipstick that has roamed his lover’s lips, and the fat candle that she stole from his lover’s bedroom, which she will light later, when she lets him fuck her.

  66

  SIMON FINDS THE WIG by accident. Tuesday morning, before Lydia wakes, he takes her car to be inspected. It happens at the garage, when he opens the glove compartment to find her registration and there it is, shoved in like a furry black kitten. He jumps back in fear, not knowing what it is. He pulls it out and curls it around his fist.

  He realizes that Lydia has become completely delusional. In a manic fury, she had begged him to have sex with her the night before, all part of her merciless plot to make him want her again—that would never happen. Sickened by her behavior, he’d gone to sleep in the guest room. He has decided to call Blackwell and have her committed.

  With the new inspection sticker, he drives home and finds her in the kitchen, drinking coffee, dressed for work, looking like any bushy-tailed psychotic. The memory of the wig swirls back and he can hardly look at her. As it turned out, it wasn’t the only suspicious thing she’d shoved into the glove compartment. There was a red marker in there, too, a Sharpie. It was the same kind of red marker that an unidentified woman had used to draw a cross on Rosie Knowles.

  67

  ANNIE WAKES from a deep sleep in her childhood room. Sunlight pours through the shutters. Her eyes drink in the beauty of the room: the rose-bud wallpaper, the magnificent Chippendale highboy, the small monogrammed handkerchiefs that her mother set out for her on the nightstand in lieu of ordinary Kleenex. Annie is continually amazed by the plush civility of her parents’ home, a quality of life that she and Michael could never duplicate.