The Other Mrs.
Page 17
“That’s what they say,” the woman named Jackie continues. “Just stating the facts, ladies. According to coroner reports, it was a boning knife by the shape and length of the wound. Narrow and curved. About six inches long. Though that’s just speculation because Morgan’s killer didn’t leave it behind. He took it with him. Took it with him and probably tossed it out to sea.”
Sitting there in the café, I imagine the angry, tempestuous waves I saw on my run. I think of all the people who ride the ferry to and from the mainland day after day after day, sitting at the top of it with over three miles of seawater with which to dispose of a murder weapon.
So much latitude, so much leeway. Everyone so wrapped up in themselves, not paying attention to what others around them are doing.
The current of the Atlantic sweeps upward along the coast and toward Nova Scotia. From there it’s Europe-bound. There’s little chance a knife would wash ashore on the coast of Maine if the killer tossed it out to sea.
I leave my coffee where it is when I go. I didn’t drink a drop of it.
CAMILLE
I’ve always hated the ocean. But somehow I convinced myself to follow him there because wherever Will was was where I wanted to be.
I found a place to stay, an empty house near his. The house was teensy, tiny, pathetic, with sheets that hung from furniture, making everything ghostlike.
I walked through the inside of the house, looked everything over. I sat on their chairs, I lay on the beds just like Goldilocks. One was too big, too small, but one was just right.
I opened and closed dresser drawers, saw nearly nothing inside, forgotten things only, like socks, dental floss, toothpicks.
I turned the faucets. Nothing came out. The pipes were empty, the toilet was, too. The cupboards, the refrigerator were nearly bare. The only thing there was a box of baking soda. The house was cold.
In that house, my existential crises were frequent. I found myself stuck inside, killing time, wondering why. I was trapped in darkness, feeling like I didn’t exist, feeling like I shouldn’t exist. I thought that maybe I’d be better off dead. I thought about ways to end my life. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’d tried before, would have done it, too, if I hadn’t been interrupted. It’s only a matter of time until I try again.
Some nights I left that house, stood in the street watching Will through the window of his own home. Most nights, the porch light was on, a beacon for Sadie when she wasn’t there. It pissed me off. He loved Sadie more than he loved me. I hated Sadie for it. I screamed at her. I wanted to kill her, I wanted her dead. But it wasn’t as easy as that.
As I stood in the street, I watched smoke come gushing from the chimney and into the night, gray against the navy sky. There were lamps on inside the home. A yellow glow filled the window, where the curtains were parted in a perfect V.
Everything about it read like a damn greeting card.
One night, I stood watching through that window. For a second, I closed my eyes. I imagined myself on the other side of it with him. In my mind, I grappled with his sweater. He tugged at my hair. He pressed his mouth to mine. It was wild and fierce. He bit my lip. I tasted blood.
But then the rev of a car engine roused me. I opened my eyes, saw the car come chugging up the street. The Little Engine That Could. I stepped out of the way, dropped down into the ditch where the driver wouldn’t see me lurking in the shadows.
The car passed slowly by. Puffs of smoke sputtered from the back end of it. I think I can, I think I can.
I watched as Will knelt in the room inside his house. He wore a sweater that night, gray, the kind with a half zip. He wore jeans, he wore shoes. He was playing with his kid, the little one, on their knees in the middle of the room. The stupid kid, he was smiling. He was happy as a damn clam.
He took the kid by the hand. Together, they rose from the floor, went to the window. They stood, looking out into the night. I could see them, but they couldn’t see me. I could see everything on the inside because of how dark it was outside. The fire in the fireplace. The vase on the mantel; the painting on the wall.
They were waiting for Sadie to come home.
I told myself he wasn’t trying to ditch me when he came to this island. He had no choice but to go. Just like a larva has no choice but to turn into a flea.
Just then another car came passing by, but this time I didn’t move.
* * *
I tried not to be a nuisance. But some days I couldn’t help myself. I left messages on Sadie’s car window; I sat on the hood of her car, chain-smoked my way through a pack of cigarettes before some old hag tried to tell me I couldn’t smoke there, that I had to smoke somewhere else. I didn’t like being told what to do. I told her, This is a free country. I can smoke wherever the hell I want. I called her things, a biddy, an old bag. She threatened to tell on me.
I let myself into their home one day when no one was there. Getting inside was easy. If you watch anyone long enough, you know. The passwords, the PINs—they’re all the same. And they’re all there in the paperwork that gets tossed in the trash. Someone’s birth date, the last four digits of a Social Security number on a tax form, a pay stub.
I hid out of sight, watched Will’s car as it pulled away before I went to the garage keypad, plugged some code in. I got it on the third try.
From there, the door to the house unlocked. I turned the knob, let myself in.
The dogs didn’t bark when I stepped inside. Some guard dogs they are. They scurried over, sniffed my hand. They licked me. I petted their heads, told them to go lie down, and they did.
I stepped out of my shoes, made my way around the kitchen first, tinkering with things, touching things. I was hungry. I opened the refrigerator door, found something inside, sat at the table to eat.
I pretended this was my home. I kicked my feet up on another chair, reached for a days-old newspaper. I sat awhile, reading obsolete headlines as I ate.
I glanced across the table, imagined Will eating with me, imagined I wasn’t alone.
How was your day? I asked Will, but before he could reply, the phone rang. The sound of it was unexpected. I startled, bounding from my chair to answer the phone, feeling aggrieved that someone would call in the middle of Will’s and my dinner together.
I lifted the receiver from the cradle, pressed it to my ear.
Hello? I asked. It was an old rotary phone. The kind no one in the world still used.
Is this Mrs. Foust? he asked. The voice belonged to a man. He was chipper.
I didn’t miss a beat. This is she, I said, leaning my back against the countertop, grinning. This is Sadie Foust, I said.
He was from the cable company, calling to see if Will and I wanted to upgrade our cable package. His voice was persuasive, friendly. He asked questions. He called me by name.
Well, not my name exactly.
But still.
How is your current package treating you, Mrs. Foust? Are you happy with your choice of channels?
I told him I was not. That the selection was quite slim.
Do you find yourself ever wishing for the hottest premium channels, Mrs. Foust, or your husband the MLB Network?
I told him I did. That I wished for that all of the time. That I longed to watch movies on HBO or Showtime. They’re not part of our current package, are they, sir?
Unfortunately, no, they’re not, Mrs. Foust, he told me. But we can change all that. We can change it right now over the phone. This is a great time to upgrade, Mrs. Foust.
His offer was hard to refuse. I couldn’t say no.
I set the phone back into its cradle. I left my casserole where it was. I ran my hands over the countertop. I opened and closed drawers, fiddled with the knobs of the gas range.
I turned the dial, bypassed the ignition valve.
It didn’t take long for the smell of gas to re
ach my nose.
I moved to the living room, laid my fingers on photographs, sat on the sofa, played the piano.
I turned and headed toward the stairs, where I gripped the handrail, climbed the steps up. The steps were wooden, sunken in the middle. They were old, as old as the house was old.
I moved down the hall, looked in each room.
It didn’t take long to figure out which bedroom was his.
The bed was wide. A pair of his pants was draped over the edge of a laundry basket. Inside were his shirts, his socks, her bras. I thumbed the lace of her bra, dropped it back in the basket, dug through until I found a sweater. It was brown wool, a cardigan, ugly and worn, but warm. I slipped my arms into it, ran my fingers along the ribbed trim, touched the buttons. I sank my hands into the big apron pockets, did a little spin.
I went to Sadie’s dresser, where her jewelry hung from a stand. I draped a necklace over my neck, slipped a bracelet over my wrist. I slid open a drawer, found makeup there. I watched on in the attached mirror as I patted my nose with her powder puff, as I swept her blush across my cheeks.
Don’t you look lovely, Mrs. Foust, I said to my reflection, though I’d always been so much prettier than Sadie. But even so, if I wanted to, I could do my hair like hers, I could dress like her, pass myself off as Mrs. Foust. Persuade others to believe that I was Will’s wife, his chosen one. If I wanted to.
I went to the bed, grabbed ahold of the top sheet and pulled it back. The sheets were soft, gray, the kind with a high thread count, no doubt expensive.
I ran my hands over the sheets, I fingered the hem. I sat on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t help myself; I had to get inside. I slipped my feet under the sheets, moved down beneath the covers. I lay on my side, closed my eyes awhile. Pretended Will was beside me in bed.
I was gone before he came back. He never knew I was there.
* * *
I was there at the pier when he came. The day was dingy, gray. The clouds sank from the sky, they fell to street level, like smog. Everyone and everything was blurred because of it. Everyone was gray.
There were people outside just for the hell of it. As if they liked this, the dreary cold. They stood, staring at the ocean, watching a dot at sea that may or may not have been the ferry. It moved in, getting closer, leaving small boats behind. They rolled back and forth in the ship’s wake.
The wind cut through me like a knife. I stood with my ticket in hand, holed up behind the ticket booth, waiting for Will to come. I spotted him as he made his way down the street for the dock.
His smile was electric. My heart beat hard.
But he wasn’t smiling at me.
He was smiling at the hoi polloi, making small talk with the commoners.
I waited behind the ticket booth, watched him take his place at the end of the line. I waited, then fell in line behind him, a handful of people between us.
I draped a hood over my head. With sunglasses, I hid my eyes.
The ferry was the last of us to arrive. We paraded across the bridge, prisoners on a death march. There were holes in the bridge, one of those you see straight through to the churning water below. I saw seaweed. I smelled fish.
Will went up the steps to the upper deck. I sat where I could watch him without being seen. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I watched as he stood at the stern of the ship; as he gripped the guardrail; as he stared at the shoreline as it slipped from view.
The water beneath us was briny and brown. Ducks circled the boat.
I watched the whole time. Will stood like a ship’s figurehead, Poseidon, god of the sea, keeping watch over the ocean. My eyes orbited his body, traced the shape of his silhouette. They circled his windblown hair, rounded his broad shoulder, slipped down an arm, counted each fingertip. They followed the seam of his jeans from his thighs to his feet. Dropped beneath the soles of his shoes, went up the other side, the same way they came down. Feet to thighs to fingers. I ran my hands through his hair. Remembered what it felt like when his hair got tangled up in the webs of my hands.
Twenty minutes or so, it went on this way.
The shore came closer. Buildings got larger. All the while, they were there, blocks on the horizon. But all of a sudden, they were big and gray like everything else that day.
When the ferry docked, I followed Will from the boat and across a pier. Somewhere on the other side of it, we hopped a bus. I dug in my bag, happy to see I had a Metra card.
I climbed aboard. I found a seat behind him.
The bus clomped along, shuttling us across town.
It wasn’t long before we arrived. Another college campus. More buildings covered in brick. I fell back into my usual routine, following Will as he walked, mirroring him, keeping twenty paces behind all the time.
I watched as he made his way to a building. I climbed the steps thirty seconds after he did. I followed him to a classroom, stood in the hallway and listened to him speak. His voice, it was easy on the ears. Like a babbling brook, the exhilarating rush of a waterfall. It excited and subdued me all at the same time, made me weak in the knees.
Will got all fired up, aroused, talking about population density, about people living in overcrowded conditions, drinking dirty water. I pressed my back to the wall and listened. Not to his words, those meant nothing to me, but to the sound of his voice.
There in the hallway, I closed my eyes, made believe every word out of his mouth was a secret message meant just for me.
When people came tumbling out, they were loud, raucous.
I stepped in when the room was empty.
He stood at the front of the room. A wave of relief washed over him when he saw me.
He was happy to see me. He was smiling, this full-out smile that he tried to hide but couldn’t. The corners of his lips turned up on their own.
I can’t believe it, he said, coming to me, scooping me up into his arms. I can’t believe you’re here. What are you doing here? he asked.
I told him, I came to see you. I missed you.
He asked, How did you know where to find me?
I said with a wink, I followed you here. I think you have a stalker, Professor Foust.
SADIE
I jog home from the coffee shop. The temperatures have dropped even more than before. The rain has turned to sleet, striking me in the eyes so that I stare only at the concrete as I run. It comes down heavy and thick, sticking to my clothing. Before long, this sleet will be snow.
As I approach our house, I hear the sound of a car engine idling nearby, up the hill, ahead of me. I lift my eyes in time to see a Crown Victoria parked at the end of the Nilssons’ drive. The engine is running, exhaust fumes drifting past the red taillights and into the cold air. There’s a man standing beside the Nilssons’ mailbox. On a day such as this, no one should be outside.
I slow down my pace, put a hand to my brow to repel the sleet. My view of the man is obstructed because of the weather and the distance. But it doesn’t matter. I know who it is; I’ve watched this same scene before.
There, not fifty yards from where I stand, is Officer Berg. He hovers behind the rear of his Crown Victoria, with an item in hand. He looks around to be sure no one’s watching before forcing it into the Nilssons’ mailbox. I manage to slip behind a tree just in time.
Officer Berg has done this before, the same day he interrogated Will and me in our home. I watched after he left, as he drove to the Nilssons’ mailbox and left something there that day, too.
It’s the circumspection that piques my interest the most. What is he leaving in the Nilsson mailbox that he doesn’t want anyone else to know about?
Berg closes the receptacle door and climbs back into his car. He pulls away, over the crest of the hill. Curiosity gets the best of me. I know I shouldn’t and yet I do. I push the wet hair from my face, jog up the street. I reach in and take the item fr
om the mailbox with none of the circumspection Officer Berg had.
Nearby, under the canopy of a tree, I see that it’s an unmarked envelope, sealed shut, with a sheaf of paper packed inside. I hold the envelope up to the negligible light. I can’t be certain, but I’m quite sure it’s a wad of cash.
The rev of a car engine in the distance startles me. I thrust the envelope back in the mailbox and walk quickly home.
It’s midmorning, but for as dreary as it is outside, it might as well be the middle of the night. I hurry inside my home, closing and locking the door behind myself. The dogs come running to greet me and I’m grateful for their company.
I turn away from the window. In the foyer, I trip over something. It’s a toy, one of Tate’s toys, which, upon closer inspection, is a doll. I think nothing of it, the fact that it’s a doll. We’re not into gender-specific toys in our home. If Tate wants to play with a doll over Transformers, so be it. But it’s the placement of it that upsets me, lying in the middle of the foyer so that someone might trip. I kick it aside, taking my anxiety out on the poor doll.
I call Will but he’s in the middle of a lecture. When he finally gets a chance to call me back, I tell him about the coroner report, about the boning knife. But Will already knows because he read about it once he reached the mainland this morning.
“It’s horrible,” he says, and together we chew over how tragic and unthinkable the whole thing is.
“Are we safe here?” I ask Will, and when he hesitates—because how can either of us know if we’re safe?—I say decisively, “I think that we should leave.”
Before he can argue, I say, “Imogen would come with us, of course.”