The Wives

by Tarryn Fisher

  I shuffle out of our sessions, my head ducked low, the scars on my wrists throbbing. I’m believably pathetic. He thinks I’m getting well. But in those bent-shoulder moments when I look my most humble, I am angry. Where is Seth? Why hasn’t he come? He wasn’t like this when I carried his baby—he was pandering, and catered to my every whim. Does he even feel guilty that he lied?

  I’ve been jettisoned. I fume all the way back to my room, which is too cold despite the various complaints I’ve made with the nurses. My roommate is a woman in her late forties named Susan, who had a mental breakdown after she caught her husband having an affair. Weak Susan, I want to say. Try signing off on two extra marriages and being the forgotten middle wife.

  Susan has no eyelashes or eyebrows. I’ve seen her searching for them when she’s anxious, thin fingers reaching up like tweezers to pluck. She has a bald spot on top of her head, too, and a scattering of long brown hairs around her bed. I imagine by the time she gets out of here she’ll be completely hairless, like one of those cats.

  She’s not in the room. I lie down on the bed, my arm thrown across my eyes to block out the light because we aren’t allowed to turn off our lights during the day. I am drifting off into a semi-nap—which is the best you can do in this place—when a nurse comes in to tell me that I have a visitor.

  My eyes snap open and my first thought is: I’m going to pretend not to be angry with him. That’s right. I’ll be docile and apologetic—the Suzy-homemaker type of wife he likes me to be. It won’t be so hard, will it? I’ve been pretending for years, the anger bubbling under the surface, unexplored. You’re awake, I think. Do not lose grip of your awakeness.

  I stand up, alert and ready. There is no mirror to check my reflection in—mirrors are slit wrists waiting to happen—so I smooth my hair, wipe beneath my eyes. I have no idea what I look like, but I suppose the more pathetic, the better. When I run my hands down my abdomen, there is only a hollow and then two sharp knobs of hipbone that used to be buried underneath my bad habits of wine and cheesy pastas. I stick out my chest, which, thankfully, has not diminished. I have to get my husband on my side.

  When I walk into the common area, it’s not Seth I see, but Lauren. I feel a sense of disappointment. This is different than what was supposed to happen. I rearrange my face, hiding what I’m really feeling to smile at pain-in-the-ass Lauren. Lauren, whom I had drinks with, and told all my secrets to. Were we friends now?

  I don’t know if I’m happy to see her, but she’s certainly happy to see me. She stands up from the table where she’s been waiting and I see that she’s wearing jeans and a Seahawks sweatshirt. Her face is contorted with concern as she makes her way over to me, dodging a woman who is doing interpretive dance in the center of the room. The place between her eyebrows is pinched.

  “Thursday,” she breathes, shaking her head. “What the hell?”

  I like her so much in that moment that my little act of contrite humility I had ready for Seth drops away, and I latch on to her in a desperate hug. My moods, my thoughts, they’re all over the place. I’m like a spider monkey, clinging in my relief to someone I know.

  Lauren lets out a little yelp and I realize I’m strangling her, so I let go. She smiles at me in the way that old friends smile after something bad has happened to you. She already believes me, I can tell. I do have a friend.

  “How did you find me?” I ask, breathless with anticipation.

  “Your husband called the hospital—Seth, right?—and said that you’d be taking extended time off due to an illness. I tried to get in touch with him but we don’t have a number. So, I called your mother—she’s listed on your emergency contacts—and she told me where to find you.”

  I’m surprised that my mother admitted to a stranger that her daughter was in a mental hospital. Lauren had put in a lot of work to find me. I wonder if Anna’s noticed that I’ve been missing, if she’s reached out to my mother.

  “Why are you here?” she says finally, once we’ve settled down in a spot by the window. The glass is streaked with water as an unusually hard rain leans east, slapping the glass and bending the trees. A woman’s hair whips around her as she runs through the garden area below. As I lean into Lauren, a mother/son duo walk toward us, eyeing the empty chairs in our circle. I shoot them a vicious look and they scoot away somewhere else. Good. Go.

  I tell her about going to see Hannah, and about finding Regina online. When I get to the part about Hannah’s bruise, Lauren’s eyes bug out. Another convoluted detail to add to this story. I tell her how Seth pushed me while we were arguing.

  “I confronted him about all of it. He says I attacked him, that I fell and hit my head. When I woke up, I was here. Lauren...” I say, lowering my voice. “He’s saying that I made it all up.”

  Her face is horrified. Her life is a mess, but mine is messier.

  “That you made what up?”

  “His polygamy. He has everyone convinced I’m crazy, including my own mother.” I’m rubbing a piece of hair between my fingers and I abruptly stop, in case I look crazy.

  Lauren doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes drop to the ground as she thinks.

  “If everyone close to you is saying the same thing, they’ll never believe you,” she says. “You know how this stuff works.”

  I know.

  “What about your friends? Is there someone I can call to come in here and back you up?” Her hands are splayed flat on her knees with just the pointer finger of her right hand moving up and down in quick succession. A nervous finger, I think.

  “No,” I say. “I’ve never told anyone aside from you. Not even my sister knows.”

  “Not a close family, huh? Sounds like mine.”

  “We’re close without being close, if you know what I mean. We see each other often, but no one really knows what’s happening behind everyone’s eyes.”

  Lauren nods like she knows exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe all American families play the togetherness game—the one where you talk about sports and dine on casseroles (in the Pacific Northwest, it’s gluten-free and organic), fight about politics and act like you have meaningful relationships when you’re actually dying of loneliness.

  “I don’t know if she’s okay,” I say of Hannah. “She was off the last time I saw her. She called me the next day, but when I called her back, she didn’t answer.”

  “Maybe I can contact her,” Lauren suggests. “Does she have a Facebook or something?”

  I give her all of Hannah’s details. I remember her address off the top of my head but not her phone number.

  “Do you know where he met this girl?” she asks me as I walk her to the doors.

  I shake my head. In all my detective work, I hadn’t asked Hannah where she met her husband, though I doubt she would have told me the truth.

  “There’s a photo,” I say quickly. “On Regina’s dating profile. I think Hannah and Regina know each other.”

  Lauren is startled; the plot has thickened. “Wait,” she whispers. “Seth’s other two wives know each other?”

  I nod. “If you can find that photo we have proof. We can take it to Regina, make her talk...”

  My plan is faulty. Thinking that Regina would come forward to back me up is far-fetched. Thinking that a photo could prove my claim that Seth is a polygamist is equally as far-fetched. But it’s all I have. I could blackmail them.

  * * *

  Lauren promises to come back as soon as she has something, and I feel such immense relief that I hug her once more.

  “Lauren,” I say before she leaves. “You have no idea how much this means to me. I haven’t even asked how you are...”

  “Yeah, well, in light of your current situation, you get a free pass.”

  I smile at her gratefully before she turns in her visitor badge to the security desk and gives me a little wave. “I’ll be back soon,” she promis
es.

  I walk back to my room, a renewed hope growing in my chest. I’m not alone. Seth wants me to believe that I am. He’s taken my mother...my father. He wants me to be solely reliant on him. But I’m not sure why. I became a liability when I snooped after he told me not to. I know things that could ruin his business, his reputation. Of course he wants to shut me up, lock me up.

  What if...? What if Hannah doesn’t know about me? Maybe that’s it. All along I’ve thought that all three of us were in cahoots, like some secret girl alliance. Our man is so lovable he scored three women, and we’re just so happy to be a part of it! But Seth is going to great lengths to keep me locked away, sequestered. Perhaps to keep me from Hannah. To keep her from finding out. I think of the photo on Regina’s dating profile, the blond in the corner of the photo who looked suspiciously like Hannah. What if Seth used the same story on Hannah that he used on me? The barren wife, the need to be with someone who would give him children... I could be removed from the equation altogether...so Seth could once again get what he wants.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Lauren comes back two days later, looking tired and wearing a puffy black jacket the color of garbage bags over her scrubs. She avoids looking at me as she handles a Starbucks cup, spinning it around and around between her fingers. Her fingernails aren’t painted; I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without her fingernails painted. I wonder if that’s an upper-class cry for help, Lauren in distress. I’m too distracted to spend any time on niceties and small talk.

  “I got you one, but they wouldn’t let me bring it in.”

  Got me what? Oh! A latte—she’s talking about a latte. I dismiss the coffee with a wave of my hand. “We’re not allowed to have caffeine.”

  She nods, taking a deep breath before she begins, puffing out her cheeks and widening her eyes. I brace myself.

  “She’s not on Facebook, Thursday, there’s nothing. I checked all of the social media sites—I even checked Pinterest and Shutterfly. She doesn’t exist. God, I even tried changing her name around—you know people have all those cutesie handles nowadays...”

  I nod, thinking of Regina, how I’d had to be clever with her name to find her.

  “She’s either deleted her profile or has extreme privacy settings,” Lauren says. She picks at the cardboard sleeve around her cup. “I Googled her, too... Nothing. Are you sure that’s her real name?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the name I saw on the paper I found in Seth’s pocket.” I drop my head into my hands.

  “What about the picture of Regina and Hannah? Did you find that?” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a folded piece of paper. Lauren’s face is washed of color. She slides the paper across the table and I reach for it. My hands shake as I unfold it. It’s a printout of the photo I’d found of Regina and the woman I suspect is Hannah. But when I look down at the grainy printout something is wrong. Regina is the same, her smile wide just as I remember it, but in the corner of the photo where I’d once seen Hannah there is a woman with dark hair.

  “No,” I say. No, no, no...

  “Is that her?” Lauren asks. Her finger taps the photo, right where Hannah should be. “Is that Hannah, Thursday...?”

  I shake my head, pushing the paper away. I’m cold all over. I rock slightly, shaking my head. Am I crazy?

  If I think I’m crazy, maybe Lauren thinks so, too. I look up suddenly. “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes...” But there’s a catch in her voice. Her eyes dart around the room like she’s trying to find a loophole to my question. My heart does a little squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes, looking out the window. Lauren, I notice, is slouching in her seat—another telling sign that all is not right. I don’t know if she’s bothered by my situation or if there’s a burden of her own she’s carrying.

  “There’s one more thing...” She’s been holding on to this, saving it for last. Why won’t she look at me?

  I feel the figurative knots form in my belly and my knee starts to bounce under the table. I just want her to spit it out, get it over with. Squeeze, squeeze, knot, knot...

  “Tell me...”

  “Look, there’s no easy way to say this. I made a few calls and...well...the house for the address you gave me... Ugh, Thursday! It’s registered under your name.” She covers her eyes with her palms.

  My mind goes blank. I don’t know what to say. I stare at Lauren like I misheard her until she finally repeats herself.

  “What?”

  She is looking at me differently. It’s the way the doctors and nurses look at me, with cautious pity—this poor girl, this broken thing. I stand up and force myself to look her in the eyes.

  “That is not my house. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not mine. I don’t even care if you don’t believe me. I’m not crazy.”

  She holds up both hands as if to ward me off. “I didn’t say you were crazy. I’m just telling you what I found.”

  I lick my lips as I back up. They don’t give you ChapStick in this place; they try to soothe your mind but let your body fall to pieces. Everyone here is either dry or oily; their hair plastered to their heads in stringy, wet-looking chunks, or decorated with tiny flakes of dandruff like they were just snowed on.

  I’m trying not to do anything rash, like run off to my room without a goodbye, or yell—yelling would be bad. But it’s taking all of my self-control. The way people perceive you is the really mentally thwarting thing in life. If everyone is against you, you start to question things about yourself, like now.

  “Thank you for coming.” I force the words out. “I appreciate you trying, anyway.” I hear her calling my name as I walk briskly away—not running, not even trotting—just a quick exit so she can’t see what I’m feeling.

  * * *

  In my room, I curl up on the thin mattress, my knees drawn to my chest, and press my cheek against the scratchy sheets. They smell of bleach and a little of vomit. Susan is staring at me from across the room; I glanced at her when I walked in the door, her lashless eyes alarmed, like she’d forgotten I live here, too.

  I can feel her eyes boring into my back. This is usually the time when we’re both in the room, between our group therapy sessions and dinner. “A little downtime,” they call it. Most of us use our downtime to reflect on how down we really are. It’s a catch-22.

  “How long have you been here, Susan?” My voice is muffled and I have to repeat my question when she squeaks back a mousy little response.

  “A month,” she says.

  I sit up, leaning my back against the wall and hugging my pillow to my chest.

  “Have you ever been in a place like this before?”

  She glances up at me and when she sees me watching her, she looks away again. “Only once...when I was much younger. My father died and I didn’t cope well.” I like the way Susan sums everything up so you don’t have to ask more questions. Her therapist must love her.

  “And when did they decide you were ready to leave?”

  Susan looks flustered. Two red spots appear on her cheeks and she begins knotting her fingers together.

  “When I stopped being suicidal—or saying I was.”

  True that. At least I know I’m on the right track. I’ve stopped talking about it, all of it.

  “I hope things get better for you, Susan. He wasn’t deserving.” I mean it, too. My thoughts for the last few days have been about women like me, and Lo, and Susan—women who give everything to the men who break their trust.

  She looks up at me then, and without the support of her eyebrows, I can’t tell if she’s surprised or sad. She appears to be somewhat pleased by the time my words sink in. Like she’s repeating them over and over in her head. He wasn’t deserving, he wasn’t deserving.

  “Thank you,” she says softly. “He really wasn’t.”

  I
nod, but I think, Neither was Seth. Not deserving. Not of the women who bow and cow and do everything to please him, nor of the life he’s built on our backs. Why, he has a whole team behind him: legal, childbearing and money. I’ve never wanted to admit that part, that maybe he’s with me for my money, for my trust fund. It’s been a thing I don’t think about.

  I’m the money. I’ve never seen myself that way, never thought it played a factor in our relationship. But I’m rich by any sense of the word. My father has made sure my sister and I are well taken care of. My sister snorted most of her trust and then married a wealthy country club man named Michael Sprouce, Jr. That had been her saving grace in my parents’ eyes. The money has never meant anything to me, only Seth has. And so I’ve always been generous...oblivious, even, handing over control to him.

  But now...now everything feels different. Is different. He’s sequestered me away and that isn’t something you do to your wife, someone you love. It’s what you do to someone you’re trying to manage. But he’s been managing all three of us all along.

  Susan and I sit facing each other, our eyes glued to the ceiling as we wait for dinnertime.

  I make a list in my head of things I must do when I get out: check the bank account, talk to the wives, contact Seth’s parents and talk to his business partner, Alex, who doesn’t know I exist. They can’t keep me in here forever. I will get out, I will show everyone who he really is. He can’t do this to me. This time I’m going to fight back.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I am released two days later. I say goodbye to Susan, who is in group, by leaving my little square of soap, an apple I’d stolen from breakfast and the hospital-issued bottles of shampoo on her bed. We were always complaining about not enough shampoo, like this was a hotel and not a mental health facility. Some of the complaining was just to feel normal; if you thought a lot about shampoo, you didn’t think about anything important.