Dear Wife

by Kimberly Belle

  He hikes up on a hip and slips the card into the front pocket of his pants. “You want me to go east or west?”

  I know why he’s asking, because he assumes I’d want him to head in the opposite direction. Or at least, I think that’s why he’s asking. But I’m still stinging from my slip-up, and thanks to the card in his pocket, Nick now knows my real name. No way I’m telling him—a criminal, a stranger—where I’m planning to land. Not that I think he’d come after me, but still. If there’s one thing I’ve learned these past ten years, it’s to trust no one, not even the people you’re supposed to trust the most.

  “East, west, north, south. I don’t care, as long as your withdrawals are erratic and your stops unpredictable. I’ll be watching the transactions online, and if I don’t like what I see, I’ll put the brakes on the account.”

  “You do know there are cameras at every ATM, right?”

  I roll my eyes. Of course I know. I didn’t spend the past ten months planning this thing to have not thought about something as basic as security cameras. But it’ll be days, maybe even weeks before you find the withdrawals, longer before you see Nick’s face on the tapes instead of mine. I’m not worried about the stupid cameras.

  “Make sure to smile pretty.” I pull my bag onto my shoulder, a sign that this conversation, an interview and marching orders at the same time, is over. “The pin is 2764.”

  Nick reaches for his coffee cup, still full but no longer steaming, then thinks better of it. He leaves it on the table and stands. “I bet that happens a lot, doesn’t it?”

  “What does?”

  “That people underestimate you. That they think you’re greener than you actually are. And before you roll your eyes at me again, you should know that’s not a bad thing. If things get hairy, you can use it to your advantage.”

  Now, finally, he gets a grin from me. “I’m counting on it.”

  JEFFREY

  I jerk awake on the couch, and the crystal tumbler balancing on my stomach pitches over a hip. I roll away from the spill, shifting to one side, but I’m too late. The liquid has already seeped through my jeans, dripping a good two fingers of expensive bourbon down my leg and into the fabric of the cushion. With a groan, I plunk the glass on the floor, push myself upright and try to get my bearings.

  The half-eaten pizza I ordered for dinner sits cold and congealed on the coffee table, and I flip the box closed. Images of a house fire flicker on the television on the wall, a handful of figures in slick yellow gear under a dripping arc of water. I reach for the remote and hit the button for the guide. Tiny numbers at the top of the screen tell me it’s 11:17 p.m.

  Shit. When I stretched out on the couch, it was quarter to nine. The four days of travel, of being ‘on’ all day at the conference, must have worn me out more than I thought.

  “Sabine?”

  No answer, but then again, she’s probably sound asleep. I picture her upstairs in bed, her long hair like silk across the pillow, and a familiar fire burns in my chest. Why didn’t she come in to say hi? Why didn’t she wake me?

  I click off the TV and stand.

  The downstairs is quiet, the lights still burning bright in the hallway. I flip them off on my way to the stairs, pausing at the doorway to the kitchen. The counter is still spotless, and the three matching pendants over the island light the air with a golden glow. Sabine might be a slob, but she hates wasting money as much as I do. If she were here, if she’d sneaked past me on her way upstairs, she would have turned off the lights.

  Unease tightens the skin of my chest.

  I jog across the kitchen tiles and yank open the door to the garage, getting a faint, heady whiff of gasoline. My car, right where I parked it. In Sabine’s spot, nothing but an oil stain on the concrete. My heart gives a painful kick.

  I take the stairs by twos and threes, sprinting down the hallway runner and into the bedroom, even though I already know what I’ll find. The comforter, still unturned from where I’d made it. The pillows, still stacked and fluffed.

  The bed, empty.

  BETH

  I stand at the bathroom sink of room seventeen in a grubby motor lodge on the outskirts of Tulsa and take inventory in the mirror. Chalky skin. Eyes shaded with purple circles. Hair too long, too thick to style.

  You’re always telling me never to cut my hair. You say you like it long—dark, thick strands streaked with shiny ribbons of bronze, with just the right amount of curl. It’s the kind of hair you see on commercials, the kind women pay hundreds of dollars a month for. But it’s more than just hair to you. It’s a plaything, a turn-on, something to plow your fingers through or moan your orgasms in whenever we have sex.

  But this hair you claim to love so much? You also love to use it as a weapon. To drag me by it from room to room. To pin me down. Hair is so much stronger than you think it’d be, the roots like barbed hooks in your skin. The scalp will rip open sooner than a hank of hair will break. I know this from experience.

  I pick up a handful and a pair of shears and slice it in an uneven, stubby line.

  It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be. A hell of a lot less painful than when you grab me by the ponytail and lift me clear off the bed. The strands tumble down my chest, sticking to the white cotton of my shirt. I feel lighter. Unencumbered. Free.

  I keep chopping, brushing the strands into the sink to toss later, not because I think you’ll track me here, but because I believe in karma. One day very soon I’ll need a job, and it’s not unthinkable I’ll end up in a hotel room like this one, scrubbing someone else’s hairs from the drain. Not exactly what my parents were hoping for when they paid for my college, but a better paying job, a job I’m actually qualified for, would send up a smoke signal you might spot.

  I’ve never cut my own hair before, and I don’t do a particularly good job of it. I was going for a pixie cut, but it’s more of a walk-in salon hack job, or maybe a sloppy bowl cut from the seventies. I pick up random chunks, pull them between my fingers like a hairstylist would, and slice in asymmetrical layers. When I’m done, I fluff it with my fingers and study myself in the mirror. With a bit of hair gel, it might not be half-bad.

  You are not who you used to be. You are Beth Murphy now.

  “I’m Beth,” I say, trying on the name like a questionable shade of lipstick. It’s the name I gave Nick, the one I signed on the hotel register, but only after forking over two twenties so the man behind the counter didn’t ask for my ID again. “My name’s Beth Murphy.”

  Beth with the crappy haircut.

  I dig the box of hair dye from the CVS bag and mix up the color. In my previous life, I was one of those brunettes who never longed to be a blonde. Blondes are louder, bolder, more conspicuous. Flashy and competitive, like sorority girls and cheerleaders. Not good traits when your goal is to disappear.

  The picture on the box advertises an ashy blond, the least in-your-face blond of the blonder shades. Blond for beginners. I paint it in lines across my scalp with the plastic bottle, then slip off the gloves and check my watch. Ten minutes until we find out if what they say is really true, that blondes have more fun.

  While I wait for the color to set, I flip on the television. It’s past midnight, and I’m three hundred miles away from Pine Bluff—too late for a local broadcast, and too soon for news of my disappearance to have spread across state lines and made it to cable. Still, I sit on the edge of the bed and flip between CNN and Fox, watching for the tiniest sliver of my story. An empty house. A missing woman. My face hidden behind dark sunglasses, spotted heading west. But there’s nothing, and I’m torn between relief and dread. You’ll be looking for me by now.

  I shower and dress in the clothes I bought earlier at Walmart, a dowdy denim skirt and a shirt two sizes too big. The duffel on the bed is stuffed with clothes just like them, synthetic fabrics in Easter egg colors, cheap and outdated items I’d normally turn up my nose at. In my former life, I would have turned up my nose at Beth, too. With her baggy clothes
and dollar-store hair, Beth is a frump.

  I leave the key on the nightstand, gather up my things and step outside.

  Sometime in the past few hours, clouds have rolled in, a dark and threatening blanket hanging over muggy, electrically charged air. The wind is still, but it won’t be for long. I’ve lived in these parts long enough to know what a wall cloud looks like, and that they often swirl into tornadoes. A bolt of lightning rips the sky in two, clean as a knife slash. Time to either hunker down or get the hell out of Dodge. I choose door number two.

  My car is exactly where I left it, at the far edge of the lot next to the dumpster, though “my” is a relative term since the car doesn’t officially belong to me. It belongs to a Marsha Anne Norwood of Little Rock, Arkansas, a woman who seemed as eager for a discreet, all-cash transaction as I was. I bought it two weeks ago, then moved it from lot to lot in a neighboring town, but I never transferred the title to my name.

  I peek inside and things are exactly as I left them. The keys, dropped in the cup holder. The title, folded on the front seat. The doors, unlocked. I cast a quick glance up the asphalt, taking in the other cars, jalopies like this one. My car is no prize, but it’s an easy target. A jackpot for any wannabe thief. No, Marsha Anne’s car won’t be here for long.

  I turn, head to Dill’s Auto Repairs & Sales across the road.

  “You can’t buy a car,” you told me once, when it was time for me to trade up. “Just keep your mouth shut and let me handle it.”

  Dill might disagree, seeing as I’m able to sweet-talk more than 10 percent off a 1996 Buick Regal. It’s a rusty old pile of junk, but the motor runs and the price is right, especially once I discover that Dill likes it when I call him “Sugar.” He forks over the paperwork and the address for the nearest Oklahoma DMV, which I promise to visit first thing in the morning. If I hurry, I’ll be in the next state by the time the office doors open.

  He hands me the keys and I fall inside and crank the engine, right as the skies open up.

  JEFFREY

  The first number I call is Sabine’s, even though I know before I dial the first digit it’s a waste of time. If Sabine is pissed, if she’s punishing me for something, she’s not going to pick up.

  And if something’s happened... My stomach twitches, and I push the thought aside.

  Her phone rings, four eternal beeps, then flips me to voice mail.

  “Sabine, it’s me. Did I forget you were going somewhere tonight? Because I got the message where you said you’d be home by nine, but now it’s almost midnight and you’re still not here. Call me back, will you? I’m at home, and I’m starting to get a little worried. Okay, bye.”

  I hang up, think about calling 9-1-1, but she’s what, less than three hours late? Not long enough to be an emergency. And don’t the police require a minimum of twenty-four hours before you can report a person missing? What am I going to tell them, that my wife missed her curfew?

  I slip my cell in my pocket and pace the length of the upstairs hallway. Okay, so I know she had a showing. A late showing. Even if it ran over, even if it were all the way on the other side of town and she decided to grab a bite to eat before coming home, she would have been here by now.

  And it’s not like Sabine to ignore her phone. It’s one of her least desirable job requirements, that she’s always, always available. From the moment she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep, there’s a device either in her palm or pressed to one of her ears. If her car broke down on the way home, if she’s sitting on the edge of a highway with a flat tire and no clue how to switch it for the spare, she would have called roadside assistance, and then she would have called me.

  Assuming she’s conscious.

  My skin snaps tight at the thought of her bleeding on the side of the road or worse, floating facedown in the Arkansas River. I picture her bobbing in the currents or caught in the reeds that line our backyard. I see some sicko dragging her into the show house, her heels digging into the brand-new hardwood floor. Screaming into the empty house.

  I’ve never loved the thought of her showing houses to complete strangers. It was one of the sticking points between us when she took this job, the idea that anyone could come by pretending to be a prospective client. What if a prisoner escaped from Randall Williams? What if he had a knife or a gun? She might as well put a sign out front and a target on her back. Pretty broker, here for the taking.

  I pull out my phone and call her again.

  “Sabine, seriously. This isn’t funny. Where are you? I get that you’re still mad at me, but at least shoot me a text so I know you’re breathing. I’m really worried here. I’m giving you one more hour, and then I’m calling the police.”

  I hang up and haul in a deep, calming breath, but it doesn’t help. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what it is yet. I just know that something is very, very wrong.

  I pull up the number for her sister.

  Ingrid picks up on the first ring, like she’d been lying there with her finger hovering above the screen, waiting for it to light up with a call. Her voice is gruff and insistent: “Hullo!” Not a question, said with an upward lilt at the end, like how a normal person answers the phone, but a demand. More grunt than word. How these two women share the same DNA is one of God’s great mysteries.

  “Ingrid, it’s Jeffrey. Sorry to call at this hour, but—”

  “I have caller ID, Jeffrey. Put Sabine on the phone.”

  I close my eyes and inhale, long and steady. “That’s the reason I’m calling you in the middle of the night. I don’t know where she is.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know where she is? She’s not with you?”

  “She didn’t come home after her showing, and she’s not answering her phone.”

  “Jesus, Jeffrey. And you’re just calling me now? What the hell have you been doing all this time?” I hear a rustling of fabric, the high-pitched squeal of bedsprings. Ingrid lives alone, in a condo a couple of miles from here, I’m sure because nobody else can stand to share a roof with her. “Who else have you called?”

  “Nobody. You’re the first.” And already, I’m regretting it. Talking to Ingrid is like chewing on glass—you just know it’s going to be painful.

  “Do you know the number for her boss?” I say. “She had that late showing tonight, so maybe Russ will know what’s going on.”

  “Russ?” Ingrid’s voice is clipped with exasperation. “Russ moved to Little Rock in December. You should try Lisa.”

  “Who?”

  “Lisa O’Brien. Sabine’s boss?” She pauses for my reply, but I don’t know what to say. Sabine has a new boss? Since when? “Oh my God, do the two of you even talk? This all happened months ago.”

  I huff a sigh into the phone, done pussyfooting around Ingrid’s shitty attitude. “Do you have Lisa’s phone number or not?”

  “Not.” A door slams. A car engine starts. “Call the police, Jeffrey. I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  When early on in our relationship Sabine told me she had a twin, I remember thinking how lucky she was, how lucky I was. Somewhere out there was a carbon copy of this woman, the yin to her lovely yang. The idea felt like a novelty. Two Sabines for the price of one.

  And then I met Ingrid, and the dislike was both instant and mutual. This was right around the time they buried their father, and their mom was starting to repeat the same tired stories often enough that the sisters noticed. In those first few weeks, I attributed Ingrid’s testiness to grief, to worry. I gave her a pass.

  But Ingrid was accustomed to being the most important person in her sister’s life, and she made it clear she wasn’t about to hand over the reins. Ingrid was fiercely territorial, and she treated me like a phase, an unwelcome but temporary intruder in their codependent lives. I accused Ingrid of loving her sister too much, and she accused me of not loving Sabine enough. Sabine felt caught in the middle, and from then on out, planned our lives so Ingrid and I were rarely in the same room. I’ve become
a master at avoiding the woman, driving on at the first sight of her car when I’m out running errands, ducking into the next room at parties when she walks through the door.

  I eye her now across the kitchen table, taking in her dust-bunny hair and shiny, rosacea-covered cheeks as she makes notes on a yellow pad of paper. Fat, black pen strokes scratching out the name of Sabine’s firm, her height and hair color, the number for her cell. This woman looks nothing like my wife. She is the angry, ogre version of Sabine, the kind that bathes in swamp water and gnaws on bones under a bridge. Her face is scored with pillow marks, angry purple lines in the shape of a cross.

  I sigh, wishing I was the one with a pen and paper, wishing there was something I could do. My legs bounce under the table. We are sitting here, waiting for the police to arrive, and I don’t have any patience. I want somebody to go out there and find my wife.

  “There’s got to be an explanation,” I say.

  Ingrid shushes me. Actually flicks her fingers in my direction and hisses shh, never once looking up from her scribbles. Upside down, her handwriting looks just like Sabine’s big, messy loops.

  “Answer me, will you? I said there’s got to be an explanation for wherever Sabine is. Where she went. I’m terrified something happened to her.”

  Ingrid grunts, and the sound sparks like flint in my gut.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Yes, you did. You grunted. If you have something to say to me, just say it. Don’t grunt at me from the other side of the table.” The words come out just as angry, just as venomous as I feel. It’s the middle of the night, my wife is unaccounted for and the sloppier version of Sabine is sitting across from me, looking to start a fight. I don’t know what it is about these Stanfield sisters, but they sure know how to scratch and pluck at my nerves.