The Wife: A Novel of Psychological Suspense

by Alafair Burke

  When it became clear that the matter wasn’t up for debate, Jason wanted to be the one to explain it to him. We finally decided to speak to him together.

  We started by assuring him once again that his father was innocent of the allegations against him. Jason began to lay out Kerry’s motive for discrediting him, but it was too much detail for Spencer to absorb. He knew we were both in his room, standing above him as he was perched on the edge of his bed, for a reason. Something bad was about to happen. He didn’t need excuses. He needed to know that his world was safe.

  “The police will have evidence that links your father to this woman,” I finally said. “Physical evidence. But what she’s saying about him isn’t true.”

  His confused expression was quickly replaced by disgust. “You mean he cheated on you.”

  Jason reached for Spencer, but he jerked away. “Get out.”

  Jason blinked, searching for words. My son, however, knew exactly what he wanted to say. “Get out! Get out of this house. Get the fuck out of my room!”

  I wanted Jason to argue, to stay here until our son found some way to live with the news. Instead, he turned and walked away. I heard footsteps on the stairs. Part of me wanted to follow him, but Spencer needed me.

  “He’s not going to leave the house, Spencer. He lives here. We all live here together, and that’s not changing. At least, not right now.”

  He asked how I could be so calm. “Why aren’t you more pissed off? He cheated on you. He’s ruining everything.”

  I told him that marriages were more complicated than he could understand. I was letting him think that maybe I had known. Maybe I wasn’t the duped wife after all. “Obviously, your father and I have some things to talk about. But the number-one issue right now is this woman. She’s taking a consensual situation—”

  “An affair, Mom. He had an affair.”

  “Okay, an affair. She is taking their affair, and she is using it to accuse your father of a horrible, horrible thing. The most terrible thing one person can do to another. You understand that, right? Cheating on me, lying to us, it’s not okay—at all. It’s awful. But she was an equal partner in that. She knew your father had a wife and son. And now she is making up a disgusting crime. And she’s doing it out of greed. Your father has been trying to expose her company’s corruption. And instead of helping him, she saw a chance to make him look bad.”

  “I can’t believe you’re defending him. You’re the one who follows all your little rules and routines so our life can be ‘good and boring.’ And now he’s blowing it all up, and you’re going to pretend that everything’s fine?”

  “Trust me, Spencer. It’s not fine, and this isn’t easy for me. But, believe it or not, as much as Jason screwed up, he’s actually still the good guy in this situation. This company—”

  “You just called him Jason.”

  I didn’t see his point.

  “You always call him Dad, or my father.”

  “He’s that, too. Always, Spencer.”

  “What if I don’t want him to be anymore? I’ll change my name again. He never even adopted me. You might be married to him, but I’m not.”

  “Spencer, I am begging you. Please try to be on his side for the time being. If this case goes away, we’ll talk about how to move on as a family from there, okay?”

  “I’m not on his side, Mom. I’m on your side. You promised when you married him, it would always be you and me, no matter what.”

  I said that to him right before we got in my parents’ car to head to the wedding. I didn’t think he remembered. He was still so young.

  “And I would never make that promise if I hadn’t meant it. But right now, Spencer, Jason’s side is my side. And our side. If he goes down for this, everything falls apart for all of us. Do you understand that?”

  He nodded. He had tears in his eyes, but I could tell that his acceptance of the situation was real, at least for now. I had never given Spencer a reason to doubt my judgment. I was running on earned trust for the time being.

  I was about to close his bedroom door, but he had one more question for me. “Did you know about her? That other woman?”

  “Not now, Spencer.”

  I wasn’t surprised to find the rest of the house empty, or that Jason’s phone was turned off when I tried to call him. This is what Jason did when he was upset. He walled himself off.

  Colin knocked on the door about an hour later. I knew my entire face looked bee-stung from crying.

  “I’d ask if you’re okay, but that would be pretty stupid, huh?”

  I was already half a bottle of Cab down in the living room. I walked to the kitchen, retrieved a fresh glass, and split the rest of the bottle between the two of us from the sofa.

  “He’s at your place?” I asked.

  He nodded. Again, Jason was predictable. Colin’s apartment, across the street from Union Square Park, was where he usually went when he needed some space. He even had a spare key, supposedly in case Colin locked himself out, but I knew he’d used it the few times we’d gotten into horrible fights.

  “So did you know?” I didn’t need to specify the subject of my question, or was it the object? I always got the two confused.

  “About this woman specifically? No.”

  “But you knew something. You knew there was someone.”

  “I wondered a couple of times. He told me to mind my own business.”

  “Sounds like a confession to me,” I said, taking a big sip from my glass.

  “Not necessarily.” I let the silence fill the room, hoping—or maybe nervous—that he would say more. “To be honest, I think I was worried he’d accuse me of having selfish reasons to pry.”

  “Why would that be selfish?” I asked, looking away.

  “To hope that maybe there were problems between the two of you.”

  I swirled the wine in my glass. The night before Jason and I got married, the three of us were drunk on Indian Wells Beach, hours after it was supposed to be closed. Jason stripped down to his boxers and jumped in the water, leaving Colin and me alone by the lifeguard stand. He had told me that he was supposed to go to Susanna’s party that night Jason and I first met. “I could’ve met you first. But I hooked up with a bartender at Nick and Toni’s and no-showed at the party. Guess you dodged a bullet and got the good one instead.” We had never talked about that moment again.

  “He says it started three months ago,” I said. “The affair.” The word felt so old-fashioned.

  Colin didn’t respond.

  “You said you wondered a couple of times,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like only the last three months. That sounds like more than a couple of times, and for a while.”

  As he continued to look at me in silence, it felt like confirmation of all my suspicions.

  “When’s Spencer done with school?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow.” I had completely forgotten to make a last-day-of-school cake, an annual tradition.

  “I know I’m a shitty friend for saying this, but you’re too good for this, Angela. Get out of here. Take Spencer out east.”

  “And live with my mother? Shoot me now.”

  “Only for a little while. Or I can help you.”

  Colin had money, but not that kind of money. I shook my head. Colin was Jason’s friend more than mine, but he had always looked out for me. I remembered all those doctors he had called after my miscarriages.

  “Then throw Jason out. He can stay with me. You don’t need this shit. Let him deal with this on his own. He’s the one who fucked some batshit-crazy woman who would pull something like this as revenge.”

  “He said it was because of the company. That they’re paying kickbacks in some third-world country. Something like that could put them in prison.”

  “Yeah, he told me that too,” he said flatly.

  “But that’s not the revenge you were talking about, was it? Is there something else?”

  He didn’t say anything, and I imagined all th
e other reasons that my husband’s lover might hate him enough to do this.

  I knew it was a mistake, but I went to the kitchen and opened another bottle of wine anyway. When I returned to the living room, I was slurring my words.

  “Do you think Jason assaulted her?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course not. He’s a fucking idiot to cheat on you, but no, he didn’t do what that woman’s accusing him of.”

  I was replaying Susanna’s words from lunch. We good feminists take the position that we believe every single woman, every single time. I couldn’t believe it was still the same day.

  “Jason told me that this woman”—I didn’t want to speak or hear her name ever again—“was supposed to help expose the company.”

  “She obviously switched sides. The timing makes sense. She went to the police right after Rachel’s complaint became public. She probably assumed that Jason was going down—maybe she was even a little jealous of what she perceived as a flirtation with some intern—and so she went to the company, told them that Jason was planning to expose them, and came up with a solution to set him up.”

  When I had first seen her name in Jason’s calendar, I had sort of suspected. But I had pushed my fears aside. Maybe if I had questioned him further, if I had followed him, if I had somehow stopped him from meeting with her that day. Instead, I now had to picture him driving out to her house. Being with her, only hours after kissing me and telling me I smelled good. Giving her the very evidence she needed to frame him. We had cooked lamb chops together that night.

  I was hearing Susanna’s voice again. Sometimes women lie, and it hurts us all. “It’s evil what she’s doing,” I said.

  “You’ve got to assume that a company willing to cut deals with warlords is capable of anything. But a lot of wives would say Jason’s getting what he deserves, under the circumstances.”

  “Maybe I’d feel that way if it weren’t for Spencer.” I had been anxious about Jason’s increasingly public profile, but Spencer was so proud of his father’s activism. My son was only thirteen years old, and he was already passionate about saving the planet, income equality, and a host of other issues. He saw Jason’s work outside of the university as the stuff of superheroes. “I can’t have his father sent to prison for something he didn’t do. I don’t want Spencer to be the son of a sex offender.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Angela, I’m so sorry.” Colin’s voice cracked. Four years ago, when I told Colin not to bother with Spencer’s adoption papers after all, Jason had asked my permission to tell Colin why Spencer’s biological father wasn’t in the picture. I agreed, expanding the very small world of people who knew about my past by one. Colin treated me no differently once he knew. He never even mentioned it to me directly.

  “I have to stay with him. At least until this is over,” I added. Spencer and I were the only family Jason had. His parents had both passed away by the time we met. The aunt and two cousins he had in Colorado might as well be strangers. “If I left him now, it would look like he was guilty, right?”

  “Honestly? Yeah, maybe. But is that really why you’re staying?”

  “Why else?”

  When he finally spoke, I could tell he was choosing each word carefully. “Jason doesn’t talk to me about you, just so you know.”

  “Okay?” The transition was confusing.

  “But I asked him, a long time ago, about whether you’d had counseling for, well, you know. Something like this—well, maybe you’d find it helpful now.”

  “Colin, I appreciate it. Really, I do. But one has nothing to do with the other. I promise.”

  I could tell he wanted to say something more, but he just nodded. Then he added, “As long as you know that you can leave, Angela. You have options. You’d still have Spencer, your mother, Susanna. Even Jason would understand. And, of course, you’d still have me.”

  When I walked Colin to the door, I had this image of him hugging me good-bye, kissing me on the cheek, and leaning in to see if something else would happen. I felt myself anticipating it, wondering how I would respond, feeling justified to let it go further.

  Instead, he handed me his half-full glass and told me to call if there was anything he could do to help. The house felt quiet when he left. I walked to the pantry and pulled out everything I needed to bake my son a proper cake.

  I was still thinking about Colin’s words two hours later as I smoothed the frosting. You can leave, Angela.

  Even after Charlie kidnapped me, you could still blame me for what happened. I only tried escaping once. After a couple of months, he told me that he wanted to let me leave my room, but only if he could trust me. I promised that I would do whatever he wanted. The idea of being able to walk past that bedroom door felt like freedom. He offered me a deal: When I heard the garage door close in the morning, I could try the bedroom door. If it was open, I could be in the house free while he was gone at work, but only if I promised not to leave. It seemed too good to be true, but I jumped at the agreement. I did it once, like a perfect little victim, noticing that there was no phone in the house and all the shades were drawn. I watched TV with the volume low. I drank soda whenever I was thirsty. I made a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich. It felt almost normal except for my vigilance to clean up every stray breadcrumb and to scrub my dishes clean. And then when I heard the garage door open at the end of the day, I put myself back in my room, exactly as instructed. When he came to the room that night, he said I had been “such a good girl.” It didn’t stop him from climbing on top of me, but at least he didn’t hurt me. In the morning, I tried the door after I heard him leave, and felt my heart drop. It was locked, and remained that way for another twenty-four mornings.

  Then one morning, it wasn’t. I was out again. I was alone. And I thought I finally had my chance. I had been a good girl. I had earned his trust. And now I was going to get out.

  I went immediately to the side door, the one I was pretty sure led to the garage. My plan was to make sure he was gone, and then leave through the front. I’d run house to house until I found someone to call the police.

  Charlie was hiding in the closet at the end of the hall. He grabbed me the second my hand touched the knob on the door to the garage. And then he really hurt me. I was like a rag doll, the way he threw me, how I almost floated in the air with each punch and kick. I’m not sure how long he left me in the room alone after that, but it was long enough for me to be so hungry, I thought I might just die. I never tried to leave again. I never even let myself dream about it. I just got used to living there with him, earning new privileges.

  By the end, we were almost like a family, as twisted as I know that is, now. He brought home a second girl. And I know how awful this is, but I was happy to have her there. I had a friend. No, she was more than a friend. We were like sisters in a sick, twisted fairy tale. She took some of the burden of Charlie’s needs from me. And of course there was Spencer.

  All of us together made Charlie feel safer, helping create a fantasy that maybe we weren’t there involuntarily after all. We even got to walk outside a few times, as long as we took turns, one outside while one stayed home with the baby. We had to say we were sisters—his nieces—and we had to come back, or the other one and Spencer would pay the price.

  The few times I went to counseling when I came home, the shrink told me I had to work on not blaming myself—blame for getting in the car, blame for being the kind of girl the police didn’t look for, blame for not getting away when I had the chance. There’s a name for it—Stockholm syndrome—but I don’t think that describes me. I did what I had to, to stay alive, and it worked. I saw Charlie fall to the ground when the police shot him, and like that, it was over. I was fine.

  If there’s a syndrome that affects me today, it’s survivor’s guilt. I don’t cry for myself. I cry for the girl I shared that tiny room with for nearly two years. She died, and Spencer and I lived.

  Colin had wanted to make sure I knew that I could leave. Of course I did. I was no
prisoner. Like always, I was doing what made sense, both for me and my kid. I wasn’t going back to life on the East End without a fight. I’d deal with Jason once all this was past us.

  By the time Jason returned the next night, I had already heated up leftovers for dinner alone. He saw the partially eaten last-day-of-school cake wrapped in plastic on the kitchen counter.

  “Shit, I forgot. Is he upstairs?”

  “No, I told him he could stay over at Kevin’s.”

  “I’m sorry. I figured you guys could use a night without me, and then I spent most of the day at Olivia’s office. She was grilling me like I was already on trial. I thought maybe she was padding her bill, but Colin says she’s known for getting in the prosecution’s head. He seems to think she might be able to convince them not to charge me.”

  That didn’t sound likely to me, but Susanna had said it was harder to get a conviction than most people realized.

  “Spencer’s history teacher called me today. She said some of the kids go to this camp up near Connecticut. They hike and grow their own organic food. Sounded a little hippie-dippie, but he’d have a couple of friends there.”

  “Like an away camp? You hate leaving him with a sitter for a long weekend.”

  “Well, things have changed, haven’t they? He’ll be away from the city, and there’s no Internet there.”

  “Is that really necessary? If Olivia gets this taken care of—”

  “That’s a big if. And we don’t know how long it will take. I don’t want Spencer living like this. His teacher told me it was all the kids were talking about this week.”

  “The camp?”

  “No, Jason. You. You were what our son’s friends were talking about the last week of school.”

  “How much is camp?”

  “Three weeks, with the option to extend another three.”

  “How much does it cost, Angela?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? After all the money you’ve been making—”