She stared at me, unblinking. In the bright sun, her eyes looked like crystals.
“I hope to give you all those things, but I have no idea if it will be possible. I do not know what will be in our future, but I do know we will be together. That’s what I can promise you without hesitation, without any fear that I’d be lying. I will always be there for you, with you, next to you.” I smiled a little, because I saw a little tear in her eye. “And hopefully, we’ll be able to eat.”
Eight people laughed. Millicent nodded.
“Well then,” Stan said, turning to his daughter. “I guess it’s your turn. Convince us this is the man for you.”
Millicent raised her hand and pressed it against my cheek. She leaned in, put her lips right next to my ear, and whispered.
“Here we go.”
Forty-one
AT DINNER, NO one mentions the news or Jane Doe. She is here with us, but we do not acknowledge her. Instead, we talk about a celebrity who has gone to rehab. Again.
We talk about a football game I did not see.
We talk about what to watch on movie night. Rory wants to watch a college-aged comedy, and Jenna prefers a romcom.
The only current event we discuss is a mall shooting in the next state over.
“Sicko,” Rory says.
Jenna points at him with her fork. “You’re the one who plays shooting games.”
“The key word being ‘game.’”
“But you like it.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“Enough,” Millicent says.
Silence.
When dinner ends, they both go upstairs and retreat to their rooms.
Millicent and I stare at each other. She points to me, mouthing the words, “Was it you?”
She is asking if I am the one who attacked Jane Doe. I shake my head and point to the garage.
After the dishes are done and the kids are asleep, we go out and sit in the car. Millicent brings our leftover Halloween candy, and we share a bottle of sparkling water. She is wearing a bright blue shirt with short sleeves. I think it is new, because earlier in the day I watched her car stop at the mall.
“You had nothing to do with this woman?” she says.
“Absolutely not. I wouldn’t do something like that without telling you.” At least I don’t think I would.
“I hope not.”
“And I wouldn’t do anything to make Jenna more afraid.”
Millicent nods. “I should have known.”
“Maybe Jane Doe is lying,” I say.
“Possibly. Or maybe some random guy attacked her and she just thinks it was Owen. We don’t know what she saw.”
“There’s a third option,” I say.
“Is there?”
I unwrap a piece of chocolate, break it in two, and give her half. “What if he’s really back?”
“Owen?”
“Sure. What if it was him?”
“It wasn’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because it would be stupid. Why would he come back right when everyone is looking for him?”
“Good point.”
* * *
• • •
I AM BACK in the beige office, waiting for Jenna to finish with her psychologist. The doctor called after hearing about Jane Doe, saying he wanted an extra session. He is afraid this new attack will make Jenna regress. I am not sure she has progressed enough to regress, but I take her anyway. Millicent says she is unable to make it, so I sit in the waiting room and watch her blue dot. My wife is at a house on Danner Drive; it is listed for just under half a million dollars.
Then she drives to a deli.
Sometimes, she goes out to lunch with clients, but I have never known her to take them to a deli.
Millicent is just a few minutes from the doctor’s office, but she does not come here. She goes to a deli, and she is still there when the office door opens and Jenna comes out. My daughter looks neither happy nor sad, which is about the same as when she went in.
It is her turn to wait while I speak to the doctor. Dr. Beige. To me he is always Dr. Beige. The name is neither fair nor accurate, because only his office is beige; his personality is not. The doctor is a colorful, arrogant asshole. I have never met a doctor who is not.
“I’m glad I asked Jenna to come in,” he says. “This new attack was quite a surprise.”
Dr. Beige does not say Jenna was surprised, but it’s what he means. This is how he gets around the doctor-patient confidentiality. “It certainly was a surprise,” I say.
“The important thing is to let her know nothing has changed. That she’s safe.”
“She is safe.”
“Of course.”
We stare at each other.
“Have you noticed any changes in her behavior?” he says. “Any kind of change.”
“Actually, I wanted to ask you something. Jenna has been having some issues with her stomach. Nausea.”
“And this started when?”
“Not that long ago, and it’s been getting worse. Is it possible these are connected?”
“Oh, absolutely. Mental stress can absolutely manifest into physical issues. Has there been anything else?”
I pretend to think about it and shake my head. “No, I don’t think so.”
I wonder if he can tell I am lying. No one knows about the knife under the bed.
Our talk is over when my phone vibrates. Millicent.
Sorry I couldn’t make it, how did it go?
Her blue dot is just leaving the deli.
Jenna is in the waiting room, doodling in a notebook while watching a daytime talk show. Her short hair makes her eyes look huge, and she is wearing a long T-shirt with her jeans and sneakers. I tell her we are going to grab a bite before picking up her brother. She smiles.
Joe’s Deli is a seven-minute drive by my watch. When I pull into the parking lot, Millicent is long gone. The deli has seen better days, perhaps because of the location. Joe’s is in the older part of town, which has been losing the battle against the newer and shinier side.
Inside, it is bright enough to see the scratches on the counter and display case. The meats, cheeses, and premade salads look a little warped. We are the only ones in the deli, and it is silent until Jenna spins the display of potato chips, which creaks, perhaps from rust. A woman appears, as if she had been sitting down and suddenly stood up. She is plump and blond and looks tired, but when she smiles her whole face lights up.
“Welcome to Joe’s,” she says. “I’m Denise.”
“Nice to meet you, Denise,” I say. “We’ve never been here before. What’s your specialty?”
She holds up a finger, telling me to wait, and disappears behind the counter. Her hand slips into one of the glass cases and she grabs a platter of sliced meat. She sets it down in front of us. “Sugar spice turkey. A little heat, a little sweet. Not too much of either.”
I look at Jenna.
“Cool,” she says.
We get two sandwiches, hers on seven-grain, and mine on a kaiser roll, both dressed with only lettuce and tomato. “You have to be able to taste the turkey,” says the woman.
Joe’s Deli has an outdoor patio on the side, not visible from the front parking lot. A few tables are scattered within a walled-in area; it is clean and neat, but without any character. After a minute, it does not matter, because the turkey is that good. Even Jenna is eating.
“Did you find this place online?” Jenna says.
“No. Why?”
“Seems like something you’d do. Search for weird sandwich places.”
“It’s not weird. It’s good.”
“Mom would hate it,” she says. “It’s not organic.”
“Don’t tell her
we came here.”
“You want me to lie?”
I ignore that. “What do you think about your doctor? Does he help?”
She shrugs. “I guess.”
“Are you still scared?”
Jenna points. Through the side door of the deli, she has a view of the TV above the glass counter. The blond woman is sitting on a chair near the register, watching the news. The headline says that Jane Doe will hold a press conference tomorrow night.
Forty-two
MILLICENT AND I are standing in the empty parking lot of the Ferndale Mall. The only sound comes from the highway behind us. It is Friday night, and Jenna is at a slumber party while Rory is spending the night with a friend playing video games.
Jane Doe’s press conference ended an hour ago. Millicent and I watched it at a popular restaurant and sports bar attached to the mall. The press conference was broadcast on every screen. The latest twist in our serial killer drama became a Friday night social, complete with chicken wings and beer. We watched it with another couple, the Rhineharts, who believed every word Jane Doe said.
Millicent is leaning against the car, arms folded over her chest, a stray hair blowing in the breeze. She always wears something appropriate for the occasion, even for this serious occasion at a sports bar. Her black jeans are paired with a T-shirt that reads WOODVIEW UNITY, a slogan that has popped up since Naomi’s disappearance. Her hair is braided down her back, except for that one strand.
She shakes her head. “I don’t like her,” she says. “I don’t like her story.”
I think of Lindsay being held captive. Maybe Millicent hadn’t liked her, either.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“We don’t know that.”
“So what—”
“We just need to know more,” she says.
“You aren’t thinking—”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
We stand in silence for a moment before Millicent turns and opens the door. I watch her get into the passenger side of my car. She shuts the door and looks over at me. I have not moved. I can almost hear her sigh as she opens the door and steps back out. She is wearing shoes with rubber heels, and they are silent as she walks to me.
Placing her palms against my chest, she looks up at me. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
“You okay?”
I shrug.
“That means no,” she says.
It is my turn to sigh. Or huff. Breathe hard. Something. “We’ve screwed up, you know,” I say.
“Have we?”
“I think so.”
“Tell me.”
I don’t know where to start; everything is so jumbled, and I do not want to mention the wrong thing. Like Petra, whom I have never mentioned. Or Rory’s blackmail. She knows about Jenna, but not everything. Trista’s suicide. The tracker on the car. Joe’s Deli.
There is so much Millicent does not know. And still, I feel like there is so much more to discover.
“The Owen thing,” I finally say. “It’s out of control.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about Jenna?”
“I should have seen that coming.”
Her response surprises me. It is not often she makes a mistake, let alone admits it. Because of this, I decide not to tell her what Dr. Beige said. It doesn’t seem like a good time to tell her this whole thing is making Jenna physically sick.
We are hit by headlights as a car comes around the corner of the mall. As it comes closer, I see it is not a car at all. The security vehicles for the mall are golf carts, and this one is driven by a middle-aged woman. She stops and asks us if everything is all right.
Millicent waves to her. “Everything’s fine. My husband and I are just discussing our son’s grades.”
“Oh, I understand that. Got three of my own.”
“Then you get it.”
The guard nods. She and my wife smile at each other as some motherly understanding passes between them.
“Best move along, though. The mall is closed.”
“Thanks. We’ll get going,” Millicent says.
The guard waits as we get into the car and drive away. When we stop at a red light, Millicent puts her hand on my arm. “I was thinking we should enroll Jenna in a self-defense class. I think it would help her confidence.”
“That’s a good idea.” And it is.
“I’ll look into it tomorrow.”
* * *
• • •
MILLICENT’S STOP AT Joe’s Deli is not a one-time event. She goes again the next day, at lunchtime, and she stays for forty minutes before going to show another house. None of her other stops are out of the ordinary. She even looks at two different martial arts schools for Jenna and tells me about them after dinner, when we are alone in the bedroom.
“One of the schools teaches competitive tae kwon do. They have meets and teams, and compete for ribbons. But there’s another one downtown for Krav Maga. It’s a little more expensive but more geared toward self-defense.”
“She could try out both, let her pick which one she likes.”
Millicent comes over and kisses me on the nose. “You are so smart.”
I roll my eyes. She giggles.
She does not mention the sandwich shop or the plump blond woman with the big smile. I try to think of a way to bring up what she ate for lunch without asking, “What did you have for lunch today?” out of the blue. But I am not as smart as Millicent says, because when I start rambling about how good my own lunch was, she does not reciprocate. She just nods and smiles while getting ready for bed, acting interested in my long monologue about a fictitious lunch. We go to bed without discussing Joe’s Deli.
In the middle of the night, I get up and go down to the library. We call it the library because we filled it with shelves and books and a big mahogany desk, but the only thing we use it for is private phone calls. I have also started using it to surf the Internet in private.
Joe’s Deli opened twenty-two years ago. The business has had two owners, not related to one another, and the deli has always been in the same building. Rented, not owned. No trouble other than a slip-and-fall lawsuit filed by a man who claimed the floor was wet. It was settled out of court. No other crime, lawsuits, or serious health code violations. Joe’s Deli is exactly as it appears: a run-of-the-mill deli. The fact that it is so normal makes the whole thing suspicious. Millicent had no reason to go there once, let alone twice.
The satellite maps of the area show a freestanding building on what used to be a much busier road. Across the street, there is a small used-car lot. Next to that, a plumbing supply store, then a watch repair shop.
If she had stopped there only once, it could have been a fluke. An out-of-the-way place that someone had told her about and she decided to try but quickly realized it wasn’t her kind of place. I would even be willing to believe she stopped because she was thirsty and Joe’s was the only place around, even though it was miles from her usual area. I would believe just about any one-off reason for her to stop at Joe’s. Except that two days later, she went back.
She has another reason for going to Joe’s. At first, I think it’s Naomi—perhaps she was being held in that area—but Millicent didn’t stop anywhere else. There are no empty buildings or shuttered businesses in the area, no place she could walk to from the parking lot at Joe’s.
It doesn’t make any sense. Not unless she has developed a taste for unhealthy, nonorganic sandwiches.
And I know that hasn’t happened.
Forty-three
AFTER HOLLY, IT never occurred to me there would be another. Not until Robin showed up at our door threatening to ruin everything unless I paid her.
After Robin, it never occurred to me there would be another. Not until I wanted to do it again.
We talked about how we would kill them and how we would get away with it, and those nights always ended with amazing sex. Wild sex. In every place we could, provided the kids weren’t around. If they were in the house, we struggled to be quiet.
It was almost as if we were climbing a ladder. We joked about it, talked about it, picked out women, and planned it. Every time we escalated to one rung, we stepped up to another. Then someone suggested we do it for real. It was me.
I said it while we were in the kitchen. It was late morning, and we were naked on the cold tile. We had just found Lindsay online. Both of us agreed she was perfect.
“We should just do it,” I said.
Millicent giggled. “I think we did just do it.”
“Not that. Well, yes, that, but it’s not what I meant.”
“You meant we should kill Lindsay.”
I paused. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
Millicent looked at me with a mixture of surprise and something else. At the time, I wasn’t sure. Now, I think it was interest. Or intrigue. But not revulsion. “Did I marry a psychopath?” she said.
I laughed. So did she.
The decision was made.
Millicent has never reminded me about that night, never said it was my idea. Never said it was my fault. But I know it is. If it weren’t for me, there would be no Lindsay, no Naomi, and Owen would not be back. Our daughter would still have long, shiny hair, and she wouldn’t have a knife under her mattress.
Or maybe it had been Millicent. Maybe she led me there all along.
I don’t know anymore.
But a few days later, I am once again reminded of that decision. And the unintended consequences of it.
The martial arts studios let Jenna sit in on a beginners’ class to see if she liked it. First, we went to tae kwon do. Half an hour later, Jenna shook her head at me and we left. She does not want to be in competitions, nor does she want to win ribbons and trophies. Jenna wants to fight off Owen.
My Lovely Wife Page 19
