The Wife Upstairs

by Rachel Hawkins

  I get into the car, my hands wrapped around the steering wheel, and I take a deep breath.

  It isn’t like I killed Mr. Brock, after all. Killing someone and letting them die are two different things.

  He deserved it.

  He let Jane die. The real Jane, the one I loved, the one who was the best friend I ever had, my sister, even if we didn’t share any blood. We’d shared a home, though. We’d shared a nightmare.

  She was always puny, always small. Always getting whatever cold or stomach bug went around our school. Usually, I could help. Vitamin C, orange juice. Taking notes for her so she didn’t get behind.

  But that last time, she got sick and didn’t get better. The cough got wetter, deeper. Her fever ran higher.

  You have to take her to the doctor, you have to, I’d begged the Brocks, but they’d make excuses, like they always had.

  She’s fine, she’s faking, it’s not that bad.

  Jane died in my bed, huddled next to me, her body glowing so hot I could hardly hold her.

  But I did hold her. I held her as she gasped for breath and shook and finally went still.

  Pneumonia. It might have killed her even if the Brocks had gotten her to a hospital. She was so weak already.

  I would never know.

  So it had felt like a kind of poetic justice, that night that it was just me and Mr. Brock in the house. Mrs. Brock was at bingo, and by then, I was the only foster kid in their care.

  He’d been watching TV, a baseball game, and some call had pissed him off. Sometimes that had meant one of us got hit, but that night, he’d just stood up, screaming at the television, his face red.

  I’d been sitting at the kitchen table, filling out paperwork for a shitty fast-food job when he’d suddenly gasped, clutched his chest.

  He’d had heart issues for a while. I never knew what was actually wrong with him, but I’d assumed a diet of whiskey, fries, and Pure Fucking Evil hadn’t helped.

  He had pills for it. Big ones in an orange bottle, and he’d choked that word out as he turned to me, his face the color of old milk.

  Pills.

  I hadn’t gotten them.

  He’d hit his knees, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, his eyes bugging out of his head.

  Mr. Brock wasn’t a big man, wasn’t much bigger than me, really, but I still liked him there on his knees. I’d gotten up, stood over him while he stared at me, uncomprehending.

  The word had come so easily to my lips.

  Die.

  I wanted him to die. For Jane.

  So, I stood there, and watched him struggle and gasp, and when he tried to reach for his pills, just there on the little table between the two recliners, I’d taken them. Held them in front of him. Let him see that I had them.

  And then I’d gone into the kitchen and poured them down the sink with shaking hands, turning on the garbage disposal for good measure.

  I only left the house when I was sure he’d stopped breathing.

  For the past five years, I’ve run from that night, from the knowledge that surely people remembered I was the only one at home when Mr. Brock dropped dead.

  But I’d forgotten how disposable people like me really were. No one connected me leaving with him dying.

  He had a heart condition, after all. And Helen had simply left town. She’d been just shy of her eighteenth birthday, a high school graduate, ageing out of the system already.

  I’d left with Jane’s ID in my purse. Jane, who looked enough like me to be my real sister.

  And I’d started over.

  Successfully, it turned out.

  Smiling, I start the car and head home. My new home.

  My real home.

  27

  “Which dress should I wear?” I ask, and Eddie glances at the options I’ve laid out on the bed.

  There are three: a simple cream-colored sheath dress, a sexier black number, and then a dress I’d ordered off of Southern Manors. Deep plum purple, green leaves embroidered on the Peter Pan collar, the sleeves capped. It’s way more twee than anything I’d usually wear, but I was curious what the dresses Bea had designed were like, and I wanted to see if Eddie would recognize it. And if he did, would he say anything?

  But if the dress is familiar at all, he doesn’t show it. He just nods at the cream one and says, “I like that.”

  So I head off to my first country club cocktail party feeling slightly like a sacrificial virgin. The dress that had looked so sophisticated on the hanger is actually a little too long for me, the hem hitting me below my knees, the high collar a little too high, nearly bumping my jaw and making my skin look sallow.

  The Country Club of Birmingham is a beautiful, tasteful Tudor-style building set far back on a wide green lawn and surrounded by old-growth trees. As we walk up the drive, I take in the stone and wooden timbers, the lights spilling out from the windows, and move closer to Eddie. We’ve done fancy restaurants and the church function, but this feels like some new test, one I’m not sure I’ve studied enough for.

  Even in the evening, the summer air is so hot and heavy it feels like trying to breathe directly over a humidifier, but the flowers in the heavy planters just outside the front door are bright pink, and everything feels so vital, so alive.

  Everything except for the people currently filing into the room.

  They’re all clones of the people I’ve seen in the village, or at the Methodist church’s silent auction: slightly florid men in suits, excellently dressed women in bright colors with hair that isn’t just blond or brown, but a thousand different shades of both, created by an expensive hairdresser.

  The cost of the jewelry in this one room is probably the GNP of some small countries. Maybe even some not-so-small ones.

  There are tables along the back wall loaded down with food, and waiters are circulating with trays of canapés, but no one seems to be eating.

  Drinking, though? That, they’re doing plenty of.

  It doesn’t surprise me that the bar is set up in the middle of the room, creating a hub for guests to mill around. And when I get close, I can see that there’s nothing but top-shelf stuff on offer.

  Eddie’s hand is a warm weight on my lower back, reminding me that I belong there, and I smile up at him.

  Yet it’s situations like these—seeing him here amongst these other men, the husbands of the women I’ve been studying so intently for the last few months—that remind me how much he stands out. How different he seems.

  “Drink?” he asks me, and I nod.

  “White wine, please.”

  He makes his way through the crowd around the bar, leaving me to stand there awkwardly, my hands clasped in front of me.

  “Jane!”

  I see Emily smiling at me, gesturing with one elegant hand.

  She places one skinny tanned arm around my shoulders and pulls me into the group standing there in their cocktail dresses, and I wait for the surge of triumph to come, the smugness that I’ve transformed myself from dog-walker to one of them in just a handful of months.

  But I don’t feel anything like that. Mostly, I just want to go home.

  “Jaaane,” Emily drawls tipsily, “you know everyone now, don’t you?”

  “Hi, girls,” I say brightly, and they all smile in return.

  I’m one of them now.

  “Girl, that dress is so good,” Landry says. She’s wearing something similar, so maybe it’s not so much a compliment to me as to herself.

  She’s also wearing a great bracelet, a slender gold bangle with a little charm dangling from it, and I am already wondering if there’s any way to slip it from her wrist without her noticing.

  Fuck, no, I remind myself. You don’t have to do that shit anymore, and if you did, it would basically be suicide, just ask her where she got it and go buy one just like it.

  But that idea doesn’t hold nearly as much appeal, so instead I wave her compliment off. “Oh, thank you. I couldn’t decide what to wear, just
decided to go simple.”

  “Is Eddie here?” Emily asks, and I nod again, gesturing behind me.

  “I left him in pursuit of Woodford Reserve,” I say, and all five women give those weird fake laughs like I’ve said something funny.

  Actually, Eddie has been drinking more lately, the recycling full of empty bottles. I resolved to keep a closer eye on him tonight, especially since he’s driving.

  Of course, I don’t mention any of this to the girls.

  But Caroline seems to pick up on something in my tone, because she says, rather pointedly, “I still just can’t believe Tripp Ingraham could have killed his wife and her best friend.”

  Over her shoulder, I see a man dressed far more casually than anyone else here, camera lifted as he points and shoots. Where do photos like these even end up? Who wants to look at a bunch of housewives gossiping?

  “I mean, he’s still saying he had nothing to do with…” Caroline’s voice drops to a whisper. “The murders. And there’s definitely going to be a trial…” She pauses, then stares directly at me. “Well, the whole thing must be such a nightmare for the both of you.”

  It feels so infuriating and yet so … fucking apt that Tripp Ingraham might be the one to ruin this whole thing for me. It’s what the Tripps of the world do, after all. Fuck shit up for people like me.

  “We’re praying over it,” I finally say, and lo and behold, that shuts them right up. The women all nod firmly, Anna-Grace even murmuring, “Amen.”

  * * *

  The party is still going full-swing when Eddie and I decide to leave around ten or so. People are getting drunker, the music is getting louder, and I’m tired of smiling for photos.

  “Did you have a nice time?” Eddie asks, and I’m tired enough to tell the truth.

  “Not really.”

  That makes him laugh as he loosens his tie. “I hear you. Those people are … something else.”

  We make our way to our car, feet crunching on the gravel.

  “Have you thought more about leaving?” I ask, and then turn to look over my shoulder at him. “I mean, I know what you said about Bea wanting to keep Southern Manors an Alabama company. But you could sell it, couldn’t you?” I pause, worrying for a moment that I’ve gone too far. “I just mean that neither of us are from here. We could start over somewhere new.”

  He stops then. “Would you want to?”

  A few weeks ago, I would’ve said no, that Thornfield Estates was the dream. But now that I’ve seen some of the underbelly of what I thought was a perfect place, I’m not so sure.

  “I could,” I finally say. “If you wanted to.”

  Eddie tips his head back, looking at the sky. “It would be nice,” he replies, but that’s not really an answer.

  Then he starts walking toward the car, only to pull up short again.

  “You dropped something,” he says, leaning down to pluck a gold bangle bracelet off the ground.

  I take Landry’s bracelet and slide it back into my handbag. “Oh that. Thanks.”

  28

  “Are you worried?” I ask as the car winds down the steep hill from the country club. The three glasses of sauvignon blanc I drank on an empty stomach have loosened my tongue. The purr of the motor is quiet, and there’s no traffic up here, no sound, really, except for the soft sigh Eddie gives as he places a hand on my knee.

  “About Tripp? I mean, I’m not not worried, that’s for damn sure.”

  He reaches up and unbuttons the top button of his shirt, and when I glance over, in the dim light from the dashboard, I can see the shadows underneath his eyes, the hollow of his cheekbones.

  I reach over and place a hand on his leg. “It’s going to be alright,” I assure him. “Now that Tripp has been arrested—”

  Scoffing, Eddie draws his own hand back, placing it on the wheel as he negotiates another turn. “That’s not exactly an end to it,” he says. “There’s going to be a trial, there will be reporters, there will be more questions…”

  Trailing off, he shakes his head. “It’s a fucking mess.”

  I think about what Campbell had started to say the other day at coffee, about Eddie’s temper. The caterer who screwed up, Bea laughing it off, but Eddie …

  No.

  No, I told myself I wasn’t going to allow those kinds of thoughts anymore. He asked me to trust him, and I will.

  “We’ve got each other,” I remind him.

  Eddie’s expression softens slightly as he looks over at me. “Yeah, there is that, isn’t there?”

  He smiles, leaning over to lightly brush his lips over my cheek. He smells good, like he always does, but underneath the spicy, expensive scent of cologne is the smokier smell of bourbon, and for a minute, I’m reminded so viscerally of Tripp that I nearly jerk my head back.

  But Eddie is nothing like Tripp, and we’ve just been at a party, for fuck’s sake. Of course he smells a little like nice booze. I probably still smell like those glasses of sauvignon blanc Emily pushed on me.

  The house is lit up as we pull into the driveway, and I wonder if there will ever be a time when I get used to the idea that I live here. That this gorgeous house is all mine.

  Well, mine and Eddie’s.

  I have another glass of wine when we get in while Eddie answers some late-night emails, and then I decide I’m going to take a bath. I can’t get enough of that giant tub, of being able to use it whenever I want.

  Walking into the bathroom, I’m already shucking off my dress, letting it hit the marble floor without a care in the world even though it costs more than my rent at John’s place did.

  I’d brought a smaller clutch with me tonight, holding just my phone, lipstick, and some mints—and now, Landry’s bracelet—and as I toss it to the counter, I hear my phone chirp.

  Frowning, I pull it out of the bag, some little part of my mind wondering if someone noticed the bracelet, but when I see who the message is from, my stomach lurches.

  We need to talk.

  It’s Tripp.

  I sag back against the sink, staring at the screen as another text comes in.

  I understand if you want to tell me to fuck off, but I didn’t do this.

  And for some reason, I feel like you might believe me.

  I wait the space of three breaths, then four, and the last text comes in.

  Which means you’re in danger.

  “Janie?”

  I startle as Eddie appears in the doorway, his tie undone around his neck. “What’s wrong?” he asks, then frowns. “You’re pale.”

  Tell him, I think. You lied to him about John and look how upset he got, don’t lie about this.

  “Too much wine,” I say, sheepish. “And Emily just texted me about some stuff for the NBC,” I add, waggling my phone at him.

  Eddie shakes his head. “‘The NBC.’ For all that talk about moving, you’re sounding like one of them.”

  His smile is fond, and I give him by best flirty one in response. “You know you love it.”

  “I love you,” he counters, and my smile falters just a little, but thankfully, he’s already turning away.

  “Love you, too,” I say.

  And then I text Tripp.

  Tell me when.

  PART VIII

  BEA

  The party is held at the Tutweiler, an old hotel in Birmingham that Bea has always loved. Blanche had her wedding here just six months ago, and Bea had known then that she’d have to host some kind of event here herself.

  The launch of the latest Southern Manors line plus the celebration of the company going public seems like the perfect occasion, and Bea spends months planning every detail. When the time finally arrives, the reception is even better than she’d hoped for.

  The ballroom is decorated with Southern Manors items, each table holding a sterling silver apple, or a crystal pig, or a blown glass vase decorated with a gingham ribbon. It’s classy and elegant, but warm and friendly, the exact brand Bea has worked to cultivate over the past few y
ears.

  She tries to be the embodiment of that brand herself, her dress beautifully made and outrageously expensive, but not overly dressy, her jewelry understated.

  Blanche looks overdressed in a long black dress, her diamonds on display, and Bea enjoys that more than she should, enjoys Blanche seeming out of place in this space that was originally hers.

  It’s a perfect night, and Bea is the perfect hostess even though, as she looks at all the couples around the room, it occurs to her that she should probably pair herself up at some point. It’s the one thing missing in her life, a partner, and as she watches Blanche slip her arm through Tripp’s, she wonders why she hasn’t given any thought to her romantic life before now.

  She knows it’s mostly because she had more important things to do, that Southern Manors has been her entire world since she graduated from college, but she suddenly feels the lack keenly and resolves to do something about it.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight is for her, for her success. For what she’s made from nothing.

  Her mother is there, wearing a mint-green dress that Bea picked out for her because she thought it would look pretty with the soft red of her mother’s hair. But she sees now she chose wrong—it only brings out the yellow, jaundiced look of her skin, makes her seem tired and faded.

  “Mama, do you want to go up to your room?” she asks quietly, leaning close as her mother sits at a table, a bottle of sparkling water by her elbow. Bea has given all the waitstaff strict instructions not to give her mother a drink, and so far, they seem to have been complying.

  “No,” Mama says softly, reaching up with a trembling hand to push her hair back. She’s wearing her diamonds tonight, too. Not as ostentatious as Blanche’s, and in dire need of a cleaning given how dully they attempt to glitter, and Bea can’t believe she forgot to get Mama new accessories, something from Southern Manors.

  “So proud of you, Bertha-Bear,” Mama says, smiling, and Bea doesn’t even correct the name. Tonight, she’s finally put that past behind her, emerged shiny and new.