The Next Wife

by Kaira Rouda

  It’s been a long day. Relief washes over me as I step inside my house. But only for a moment. I realize I expected to see John sitting at the counter. The only things that greet me are my breakfast dishes from this morning, tossed hurriedly in the sink, unrinsed.

  Unwanted, my mind flashes to another kitchen sink, this one cracked and stained, rust circling the drain. My momma stands at the sink, her back to me, a pile of dishes stacked on the counter on either side of her. I was seven or eight years old, and I remember standing behind her, watching, wanting to help but not knowing how. On good days, my momma was fun and playful, and I knew she loved me. On bad days, she was the opposite. I didn’t know what today would bring, so my body began to tremble when she turned and spotted me.

  “Terry Jane, what the hell are you doing? You scared me.” Momma held a dirty wooden spatula in her hand, and before I knew it, she’d swiped at my bare leg, leaving an angry welt on my thigh. “You’re in my way. Get out of here.”

  Shocked by the sudden attack, I froze, my back against the kitchen cabinets. Tears filled my eyes, and the dishes and Momma’s face blurred. When the next swipe of the spatula stung my shoulder, I finally ran from the room. It was a bad day.

  I shake my head. Enough of the pity, enough of the past that I’ve left far far behind me. I pick up the phone and call the cleaning lady. She’ll get everything in here all sorted. She loved John. She’ll be happy to help me. Well, maybe. A little argument we had a few weeks ago comes to mind, but I push it away. She’ll come over; she needs the money.

  “Hello, Sonja?” I am using my friendliest tone.

  “Hi, Mrs. Nelson.” She sighs.

  “I need you to come clean the house, please. Like ASAP.”

  “No, Mrs. Nelson. Remember, I quit.” Big sigh.

  “You didn’t really quit. You just left in a huff. I need you. Now with John gone.” I pause and sniff.

  “I am very sorry for your loss.” Sad sigh.

  She’s cracking. “I don’t have anyone else to turn to. Please. The funeral is tomorrow, and my home is a disaster.” I run a finger along the kitchen counter. It’s spotless. But I hate dishes in the sink.

  “I will come one last time. Tomorrow. OK?” Resigned sigh.

  “Perfect. Thanks. I’ll likely be at the funeral. So, can you let yourself in? I’ll mail you a check.”

  “I know the code. Leave me cash, Mrs. Nelson. Three hundred dollars.”

  Sonja is so demanding. So untrusting, too. “Fine. Make sure the sheets are pressed.”

  Nothing on the other end. Silence.

  “Sonja?” I sound like I’m yelling. Of course I’m not. “Gracias!”

  She hung up on me. She has some kind of nerve.

  No one treats me that way and gets away with it.

  CHAPTER 23

  ASHLYN

  I wave goodbye to Jennifer and walk to my car. None of this makes sense. My dad was healthy, happy the last time I saw him. Proud of EventCo, proud of my mom. He didn’t want to go on a trip with Tish. He didn’t want to go anywhere at all with her.

  I slip into the car and lock the door. I toss my purse on the passenger’s seat and rummage inside until I find it.

  My dad’s phone. I saw it in Tish’s purse as we stood together in that terrible line of sorrow. She doesn’t need his phone anymore. I do. I unlock it and see all his apps, everything he used to run his life. I open Find My Friends and watch as Tish’s dot speeds through her neighborhood and pulls up to her house. She’s home already, likely counting all her money. She thinks she knows everything, thinks she’s in charge of everything when it comes to my dad. But she’s wrong. He and I had our secrets, too.

  “Oh, Daddy,” I cry as I hold his phone close to my heart and the tears come again.

  I jump as someone knocks on my car window. It’s Seth.

  I roll the window down.

  “You OK?” he asks. What a friend.

  “I’m fine, sort of. I just need a little space,” I say. What I need is a little time to investigate some things.

  “I get it. Call me. Or come over. Anytime. I’m here, whatever you need,” he says. He squeezes my hand before he walks away.

  I wonder if my mom felt like this about my dad in the early days, and vice versa. They had to. How did they let it slip away?

  Or maybe it didn’t slip at all. Maybe it was destroyed by a hurricane named Tish. Did she target my dad, is that why she ended up as his assistant? How did she find him, anyway? It seems like such an unlikely coincidence that she would apply for a job at EventCo. Her previous job experience, she says, was in real estate.

  Maybe Tish had a plan from the minute she drove into town. And maybe that plan was to marry John Nelson, no matter that he was married, no matter who got hurt along the way. That sounds like Tish.

  I decide that I need answers, and I’m going to get them.

  CHAPTER 24

  KATE

  The sun has set, and I’m alone on the couch in the family room. I can hear the neighborhood kids outside, riding bikes, playing hide and seek, jumping on trampolines, their sweaty summer faces tanned and so joyful.

  Meanwhile, my house is silent and dark. I still cannot quite believe the way all of this has unfolded, all that has happened. I tried to pretend my life with John was perfect. But sure, there were issues. I never did anything to him like he did to me. I never pushed him aside for a younger model, never flaunted a new version of him in front of the company.

  I stand up and shake myself out of the past. I tried to do some Pilates this evening, my home reformer usually provides stress release. But tonight, I didn’t have the heart. I touch the top of a silver picture frame. I know the photo all too well: John, Ashlyn, and me at Disneyland, smiling, holding hands. Ashlyn’s grin is as large as the lollipop in her hand. We did have fun together. It wasn’t all business.

  I hear Ashlyn walk into the family room. She’s dressed in a tie-dye T-shirt and jean shorts, her long blonde hair spilling over her shoulder in waves.

  “Mom, what are you doing in here in the dark?” Ashlyn pushes a button on her phone and the room is alight—the oversize chandelier, the sconces, the table lamps, and the ceiling track lights, all at the perfect evening brightness.

  The light hurts. Everything about the past week haunts me when I am alone. The regrets, the decisions we are forced to make. It was all so simple before that woman tore us apart.

  Her hand touches my shoulder. “I’m sorry Dad left you for that . . . that woman. Left both of us. I understand now how hard it must have been for you.” Ashlyn is being kind. Maybe she’s beginning to understand the truth.

  I look up at my daughter. I pat the hand on my shoulder with my own. “I was just reminiscing. We were good together. I’ll always—”

  Ashlyn interjects, finishing my sentence. “Always love him. I know. Me, too.”

  “Honey, we need to discuss our next steps.”

  “What do you mean, next steps?” She gives me a look like you would a child who has surprised herself by saying her first word, half disbelief and half wonder.

  “You and I are business partners now. You receive your dad’s shares in the company with his death. I made sure everything was sorted during the divorce, and Dad and I made a few other moves to protect your interest a few weeks ago. Tish may have stolen your dad away, and some of his money, but she won’t get anything else.” An image of John dissolving into ashes fills my mind. I shudder.

  “Tish said she’s running the company now. She told me that in the parking lot after the memorial service,” my daughter says, repeating what Tish must have told her. I would never let that happen. Tish has no role here. I’ve made sure of it. I would never be wrong about something this important. I’m much too careful.

  “She’s crazy. The law says she is only entitled to whatever he made during their three years of marriage, any property in her name, and personal items like jewelry. She’ll get a lot of money but otherwise, we’re finished with her. I hav
e a copy of your dad’s will and trust. It’s in the safe. I can show it to you. The shares go to you. We both made that a stipulation of our wills. He wouldn’t change that. He gave me his word. It’s all taken care of. The company and more.”

  “I hope so. I’m going out. I won’t be late.” Ashlyn holds up her hand as I’m about to remind her the funeral is early tomorrow. “I won’t miss the funeral. Don’t worry. Are they sliding Dad’s ashes in a drawer or something? How does it work? This is all so stupid. So gross.”

  Her words are sharp, but tears swim in her eyes. I really don’t know how it will all work tomorrow—the funeral arrangements were handled by Tish, the interloper.

  “It is.” I turn away so my daughter cannot see the fury on my face. Even though John and I spent twenty-three years together, I’m not the one planning his funeral. It should have been me. I cannot wait for this to be over. It’s time to get back to work.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” I say. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. And don’t wait up. You need some sleep.” Ashlyn walks out of the room without saying another word. Which is probably for the best. For years we’ve been fighting, or as my therapist explains, Ashlyn has been asserting her independence. I think it’s more than that. She’s independent but confused. She feels abandoned by her dad, confused because when she was sixteen, he chose to leave her for another life, another woman not much older than she was. That’s tough. And as she would say, it’s gross.

  I thought I would simply outlast Tish, truth be told. Once I found out about the affair, I decided to ignore it. I thought it was a phase John was going through and that he’d realize his stupidity in a couple of months and then we could deal with it through counseling. I was in denial, I suppose. And I also was wrong. Dead wrong.

  I never imagined he would ask me for a divorce. I never imagined he would move out of our family home, never to return. I never imagined he would go through with it and marry Tish. That would be socially unacceptable.

  Something in me darkened deep down inside when I heard about their engagement three years ago. It was like a part of my heart dropped to the bottom of a cold, black sea.

  I didn’t even know John had been drifting, but she did. And she grabbed him and held on tight.

  I knew it wasn’t a phase the night he told me he was moving out.

  That’s when everything changed.

  I open a bottle of wine and pour a generous glass. It took a while, but about a year ago, my therapist and I celebrated my progress. I was no longer a victim, she declared. I had found constructive ways to channel my anger. I started developing the Forever project, a cutting-edge consumer portal for EventCo clients.

  In the weeks before the IPO, John stopped by my office so often it was almost like back in our start-up days. He was eager to bounce ideas off me, and I was pleased to see him walk through my office door.

  “Kate, do you have a minute?” He’d appear in my doorway without an appointment, Nancy frowning behind him.

  “Come on in, John.” I’d smile at Nancy and close the door behind us. He was in my territory, my office, asking for my support.

  “I can’t believe our luck. This thing is happening.” John’s glee was boyish and charming. Sometimes, Tish would walk past my office door, stalking him, somehow knowing we were together. John’s phone would ring, and he’d have an “important meeting” immediately.

  Despite Tish’s maneuvers, I told Nancy to let John in to see me as often as possible, especially if he was alone. She had a little tally going of his visits—proof, she said, he wanted to reconcile. I don’t know what was in his heart. No one really knows another person, do they? I do know one thing for sure—if he hadn’t married Tish, he wouldn’t be dead. Of that I’m certain.

  It must have been taxing, balancing Tish’s many demands and the reality of working at the same office with me, all the while making plans to take the company public, his biggest project ever. There was just so much strain on his heart, already weakened by his high blood pressure.

  All it took was a little something more to push his heart over the edge. The high altitude in Telluride was never good for him, it just wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 25

  ASHLYN

  I sit in my car, headlights off. I’m parked on the street across from Tish’s house, the one she talked my dad into buying because she said the condo was too small, too bachelor pad. It was, I agreed.

  This house is two story, four bedrooms. Painted white, with black shutters. It looks like a family home, like it should be filled with kids and laughter. But it’s not. It never was. One of the bedrooms she called mine, but I never felt comfortable here. Well, I guess that’s not true. At first, when I still thought of her as a friend, when all of this was new and shiny, I did like it at their house. It was decorated “soft contemporary” according to Tish, with all neutrals: gray, cream, and white. It was like walking into Restoration Hardware, Tish bragged. I liked my all-new bedroom, decorated for an adult in all white with a rattan headboard and cool woven lights. A thriving potted fern in the corner by the bay window and a cozy sheepskin rug on the floor. The golf course the house is nestled next to made the backyard seem to go on forever, especially at night and on Mondays when no golfers were out. So, that first year they were married, I did enjoy it there. But it got old fast. Tish would try too hard to make me talk, to connect, to be best friends. Meanwhile, my dad would have his hands all over her. It turned gross and uncomfortable.

  I can’t imagine how my mom felt at the office. I was only subjected to the PDA when I went to Dad’s house, stays and visits that tapered off considerably by the time I left for college.

  I’d been blissfully detached, consumed by college life: studies, sororities, and social life. Then, when this summer rolled around, my college adviser told me I needed an internship in my field, and Tish helped me talk Dad into it. I worked at the office all summer. I was watching, expecting to see gross displays of affection between my dad and Tish. But I didn’t.

  Things had changed between my dad and Tish, and between my dad and my mom.

  Now as I watch Tish walking around in her bedroom, lights on but shades not drawn, a hot wall of rage surges through me. Who are you, Tish?

  I remember back to when they got married. My dad was proud, and dripping with excitement when he showed me the marriage certificate. I just laughed at the name I saw there: Terry Jane Crawford. Birthplace: Pineville, Kentucky. Using that memory, I search Google. Nothing. From what Tish has told me, she left home in high school and never looked back. And then she was married to a dentist until he left her, and she also worked in Cincinnati for a bit. She’s like a ghost, though. No electronic footprint until she became Mrs. Nelson.

  I hit the steering wheel with my hand. I don’t know of one single friend she has, not one other family member. It’s like she just appeared. We don’t know anything about her.

  I type in “Crawford” and “Pineville.” I find a forty-seven-year-old Betty Jo Crawford Roscoe listed. I smile. She could be Terry Jane’s mom. She could shed a light on her daughter.

  I punch in the number listed.

  “Hello?” A smoker’s voice answers.

  I haven’t thought this through, but oh well. “Hello, Mrs. Crawford?”

  “Mrs. Roscoe. Who is this?”

  “A friend of Terry Jane’s,” I say.

  “Where is she?”

  “I’ll tell you if you help me with a few things. Has your daughter ever been violent?”

  “What kind of dumbass question is that? Everyone is violent. Sure, Terry Jane can take care of herself. I taught her that much. She’s not smart, but she can throw a mean punch,” Mrs. Roscoe says. “Is she in trouble? Did she hurt anyone?”

  “I think she hurt my dad,” I say, and tears fill my eyes.

  “Wouldn’t put it past her, the ungrateful brat,” she says. “Where the hell is she? She owes me. What did she do to your dad? Same thing she did to her stepdaddy?”<
br />
  “What do you mean?” I swallow and lean forward. “Tell me.”

  “Well, it was funny, that’s all. My second husband, rest his soul, dropped dead. Police came after me about it, but I knew who’d done it. Tish, that’s who. The two of them hated each other, so I know she did something to him. They never did prove nothing. He died, and she was gone the next day.” I hear her take a pull on a cigarette as my stomach lurches.

  “What was your second husband’s name?” I ask while I have her talking.

  “Ralph, Ralph Dunlop.” I can hear the sadness in her voice, the pain. “I think Tish left just to make me look guilty, the little bitch. She tried to get me busted,” Mrs. Roscoe says as I write her dead husband’s name on a note in my phone.

  “Has your daughter ever been married to a dentist?” I ask, searching my brain for things Tish has said, trying to find out what’s true.

  “Yeah. I heard about that, too. Ron Pleasant. Funny name. I didn’t even know about it. He called once, looking for her after she split.”

  I type more notes into my phone. Tish acted so distraught when she told me the story. She said he left her. All lies.

  “Look, hon, I need you to tell me where she is, or I’m not saying another word,” Mrs. Roscoe says.

  “I’m trying to figure that out. As soon as I find her, I’ll be in touch,” I say, and hang up. I’m not going to tell her where her daughter is. Not yet. I realize Mrs. Roscoe has my number now, but I’ll block her unless I need her. My hands shake as I open my dad’s phone. I fine-tune a few of the apps and close it again. It feels good to get a little revenge by talking to Tish’s mom. There’s a lot more to this mother and daughter story, that’s for sure.

  I type “Ralph Dunlop death suspicious Pineville” and instantly have news results. The first headline: Pineville Man Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances. The article from the Pineville Union goes on to report that Mr. Dunlop, age forty-five, had no known history of heart problems and dropped dead in his kitchen while drinking a cup of his morning coffee. According to his wife, Betty Jo, her daughter ran away the next day after they had what she called a small disagreement. The daughter has not been located. Authorities are investigating, but police sources tell this reporter the death will be ruled a cardiac arrest. My source says officers have been called to the residence regularly for domestic disturbances.