The Almost Wife

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  When Aaron had finally left Madison, he and I had moved into this house, an investment property he owned that, at the time, had been up for sale. Aaron had hired a designer to stage the house, and when we took it over, he simply bought the furniture from her. Everything was beige on beige: beige pillows on the beige leather sectional, a beige ottoman, beige leather stools at the kitchen island, beige leather chairs around the maple dining table. Aaron wouldn’t let Evie near any of that beige, of course. I lived in fear of her crawling onto the couch, covered in mashed blueberries, when I was distracted.

  Aaron appeared at the upstairs landing, wearing a slim-fit Armani suit over a tasteful violet shirt and tie, carrying Evie. He quick-stepped the carpeted stairs. All the way down, Evie reached out her arms to me, mumbling, “Mum-mum-mum.” She was wearing one of Olive’s old red T-shirts over her ladybug print dress and cardigan set. (It was one of Aaron’s many parenting hacks: he threw the T-shirt on her when she ate, as a bib never cut it.) Her hair was so blond it was almost white, as mine had been when I was a girl. She would be flaxen-haired and fair like me, like my father. My grandfather was from Finland, and I could see that ancestry in myself and in Evie, as I had seen it in my father. And my god, Evie’s ghostly pale blue eyes. I saw so much of my father in Evie that I often had to look away.

  Aaron held Evie at one shoulder so lovingly now, with such experienced ease and tenderness—his long fingers cradling her—that I felt the flutter in my chest I’d felt off and on all week since he’d asked me to marry him. I was engaged to this loving, caring man! The affection and attention he poured on both Olive and Evie was one of the many things I loved about him. He often got down on the floor of Evie’s room to play with her and Olive. And he had taught me so much. I’d be the first to admit that Aaron had far more experience as a parent. He’d even had to show me how to put a cloth diaper on Evie (as he had arranged for a diaper service) and how to bathe her, filling the large nursery bathroom sink and cradling her head and upper body with his arm as he gently submerged her in the water.

  As Aaron reached the bottom of the stairs, I took Evie from him, handing him his coffee. He had carefully groomed his salt-and-pepper hair, and his expensive suit hung well on him thanks to his slender runner’s physique. Our shared passion for long-distance running was one of the many things that had drawn us together. While Aaron wasn’t an elite runner or even a sub-elite, he pushed himself in ways most recreational runners didn’t. We had met at Ottawa’s grueling Winterman marathon, run in the dead of winter.

  “You’re looking gorgeous,” I said, then hesitated before continuing, because I knew what the suit meant. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “I’ve got to catch an early flight to Ottawa this morning to put out a fire. I expect I’ll be gone a couple of days.”

  “On this short notice?”

  He took a sip from his espresso. “I just picked up a text from one of my clients when I woke. I may lose the account if I don’t get up there.”

  Aaron was an independent sales rep, selling the products of several manufacturers and wholesalers to retailers throughout the province, so he was always on the road.

  “But I’m heading to Manitoulin today,” I said.

  I had everything arranged. I would fly up to Sudbury that morning, then rent a truck to drive down to the island, to clean out my family cottage. I had booked an appointment with a realtor for later in the week. Then there was the letter from the lab that was undoubtedly at the summer house now, lying on the kitchen table where my next-door neighbor Teresa left my mail after picking it up for me each week. And, of course, once I had opened that, there was Nathan to face. I just wanted to deal with things and get on with my new life.

  “Take Olive with you,” Aaron said.

  Oh god. “She’d be bored up there,” I said quickly. “I’ll be spending the whole time packing and hauling my mother’s crap to the dump. Anyway, you know how Olive is about travel.” She was one of those kids who couldn’t stand to be confined for any length of time, whether in a plane or a bus. I suspected she was claustrophobic. Aaron resorted to letting her use her phone nonstop when we traveled (a practice that was not allowed at home), as a distraction, a way to cope. Otherwise, she’d freak, crying and begging to be let out.

  “You could use the babysitter,” Aaron said. “And there’s a beach there, right? She’d like that.”

  “My neighbor will take care of Evie,” I said. Teresa, Nathan’s mom, thought of herself as Evie’s honorary grandma. “Anyway, you know Olive won’t want to go.” Aaron had planned to take her to the Canada Day fireworks on the waterfront that evening.

  “Then Manitoulin will have to wait. Obviously, we can’t leave Olive alone in the house, especially now.” Now that Madison was determined to get to Olive, and Aaron was determined to stop her.

  I nodded, resigned. Aaron was the one paying the bills. I’d fly up to Manitoulin when he returned, as he could keep tabs on Olive when he worked from his home office.

  I shifted Evie to my other hip. “Listen, Aaron, I saw Madison this morning, on my run. I mean, she knows my routines. Last week she was at Starbucks, like I told you. This morning she was waiting for me toward the end of my route.”

  “Seriously?” Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose, as he often did when exasperated, which he usually was when we spoke of Madison. In response, Evie grabbed my nose as if we were all playing “got your nose!”

  “She texted first,” I said, “and tried phoning. Then she started making her way over to me.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t talk to her.”

  I had answered her text. But he didn’t need to know that. “I didn’t answer her call,” I said.

  “That’s good. Just ignore her. Keep your distance. I wish to god I had when all this started.”

  Another wave of guilt welled up as I thought of how I’d talked to Madison at the school the week before, however briefly, when she demanded to know why Aaron and I weren’t allowing her to see her daughter. Stepdaughter, I’d said. And you know why.

  “I took off as soon as I saw her,” I said.

  “I can’t believe she’s started targeting you now,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry to involve you in this, Kira. I find it all so repugnant, so embarrassing.”

  Madison had been “targeting” Aaron for a few weeks now, ever since Olive moved in with us. She had phoned Aaron’s cell phone and our landline repeatedly, demanding to see Olive, and at first Aaron took the bait, answering the phone and yelling at her so his voice boomed around our open-concept house before he hung up on her. I hated these brief arguments. I felt as panicked and scared as I had as a kid, trying not to listen when my parents fought. The way he talked about Madison, the way he talked to her, with such contempt, and as if she were mad. That was one of the things he called her: Mad Madison. But then, wasn’t that how people who were going through a bad divorce acted?

  After I complained about his fights with Madison, pointing out they must be disturbing for Olive, he promised he would no longer answer her calls. He would engage with her only through his lawyer. He blocked Madison’s number and, for a couple of days at least, we had peace in our home. But then Madison turned up at the school, trying to take Olive, and then at Starbucks, and then again on my run. Now that she couldn’t get to Aaron, it seemed she was turning to me.

  “Is she following me, you think?” I asked Aaron. “Stalking me? How does she know where I regularly go?”

  Aaron glanced upstairs, and I knew he was wondering the same thing I was: was Olive still talking to Madison, letting her know where we would be?

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Evie fussed and I bounced her to keep her quiet. “Is Madison likely to do anything stupid while you’re away? I mean, should I be afraid of her?” I was afraid of her.

  He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “She phones at all hours. You saw her try to steal Olive away. Now she’s stalking you. And o
f course, she tried to end my relationship with my own daughter. My god, all those terrible lies she tells about me! It seems she’s capable of anything.”

  Strangely, we thought at first that Aaron and Madison would have an amicable divorce. After we first moved into this house in January, Olive continued to live with Madison because she didn’t want to leave her friends or start a new school, and Aaron agreed it was too much for her to deal with in the midst of all this change. He also felt we needed a little time to focus on ourselves and our new baby. So he decided that Olive would spend weekdays with Madison and weekends with us, and would move into our house at the end of the school year, when she had become a little more used to me and the new order of things. At least, that was the plan.

  But then, shortly after Aaron and I moved into the big house, Olive started giving both Aaron and me the silent treatment. When Aaron picked her up at Madison’s for the weekend, she wouldn’t even say hello. She just stared out the passenger-side window. Once she arrived at the house, she fled upstairs to her room and would have stayed there if we hadn’t tempted her down with pizza and popcorn and movies. Our family dinners with Olive became dull, quiet, tension-filled events where Aaron attempted and failed to start conversations with Olive, and I tried very hard not to make chewing noises. At first I thought she had become jealous of the new baby, and was angry that I had inserted myself into her father’s life, breaking her family apart. She had every right to be.

  Aaron and I kept trying to pull Olive out of herself, though, and by Sunday afternoon she would start to chat with me, tell me a little about school, her friends. The one thing that was guaranteed to make her smile was holding Evie. I expressed milk so Olive could feed her with bottles. She helped me bathe Evie before bed, the three of us enveloped in the scent of the lavender baby bath soap. During these times, I found myself starting to fall in love with Olive, to think of her as family. I got the feeling she felt the same way.

  But on Sunday evening, Aaron drove Olive back to Madison’s for the school week, and the next Friday, she was as closed to us as ever. We’d have to start all over again. We began to suspect Madison was attempting to turn Olive against her father, telling lies about him, because she was afraid of losing Olive at the end of the school year. She wouldn’t be the first woman to pull that shit. My own mother had.

  Then, in the spring, as the end of the school year drew closer, Olive began making excuses, at the last minute, about why she couldn’t come for the weekend: upcoming tests, play rehearsals, sleepovers with friends, a date. A date? She was only thirteen, or “going on fourteen,” as she liked to say. But okay. Then, at the end of May, she stopped replying to Aaron’s calls and texts, and when Aaron, panicked, tried phoning Madison to see what the hell was going on, Madison also refused to answer.

  Aaron went to Madison’s place, his old house, to see if Olive was all right, but Madison wouldn’t, at first, let him see his daughter. She told him pointedly that Olive didn’t want to spend weekends with him anymore, or to move in with him at the end of the school year, or even to see him, because she was afraid of him. Aaron pushed his way in and marched upstairs to find Olive, then told her to pack her things: she was moving in with us full-time starting right then. But Olive told Aaron, almost word for word, the same thing her stepmother just had, as if she’d been coached, and then added, “I don’t want to live with you.”

  Aaron came home, alone, and punched a hole in the foyer wall. Then he sank to his knees and sobbed in my arms.

  That was the one and only time I’d ever seen Aaron act out in violence in any way. And yet Madison had led Olive to believe she should fear her father. It was only because she wanted to keep Olive to herself.

  “Olive thinks I’m an evil bastard,” Aaron said, as I held him. “A monster. She’s afraid of me. My god, Kira, the way she talks, the way she looks at me now—it’s soul-destroying.”

  Soul-destroying. The words sent a jolt through my body, and all at once I found myself there again, looking down at my father’s body lying on the frozen ground, his hunter-orange vest and cap, his camouflage pants, the dirty soles of his boots. The pool of blood that oozed onto the snow from the back of his head. A spot of color as brilliant red as a cardinal’s plumage in the bleak winter landscape. My dead father turned his head and opened his eyes to look at me.

  I had said similar terrible things to my father. I had told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. There had been times when my mother stood next to me while I was on the phone with my father and wrote down words I read out loud to him: I don’t love you. I never loved you. Don’t phone again. I had called him an asshole, to his face, mimicking my mother. She called him “the asshole,” but never said his name, Krister, and she rarely referred to him as my father. Teresa had once confronted me about it. I don’t ever want to hear you talking like that again, she had said to me, especially about your father. Do you hear me?

  I remembered thinking, You’re not my mother. But I didn’t say it. I just stared back at her, with my lips pressed together. Like Olive often did with me now. I’m sure that’s what Olive was thinking when she did that. You’re not my mom.

  “It wasn’t Olive saying those ugly things to you,” I told Aaron. “Those were Madison’s words.” Just as what I had said to my father had been my mother’s words. Madison knew that, as a stepmother, she likely wouldn’t gain sole custody of Olive—not unless Aaron was proven abusive—so she had attempted to get emergency custody, unfurling a feeble and desperate list of accusations against him, things that were categorically untrue. When that didn’t work, she tried hurling those same accusations at Olive, hoping to convince Olive to choose to live with her, and she had succeeded. “She turned Olive into her own personal weapon to use against you.”

  Aaron wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Yes, yes, exactly.”

  “Olive doesn’t understand what she’s saying. Or the impact it has on you.” Any more than I had as a kid. If I had understood what I was saying, what I was doing, then . . . then everything would have been my fault. I quickly submerged the thought. “You’ll just have to spend time with Olive,” I said. “Show her she can trust you. But you’ll need to keep her away from Madison for a time—a long time—or that woman will just keep brainwashing her.” I had been in my mid-teens before I even began to understand what my mother had done to my father, and even then she continued to exert her influence on me.

  Aaron nodded. “You’re right, of course. You’re absolutely right.”

  He went back to Madison’s house, marched back upstairs to Olive’s room and, despite Madison’s protests, tried his best to explain the situation. Olive finally agreed to come home with him.

  In the few weeks since, we had kept Olive away from Madison while Aaron worked with his lawyer to secure sole custody. Aaron had been trying hard to reestablish Olive’s trust and undo the damage Madison had inflicted on their relationship. His efforts seemed to be paying off. Even after just a month of living with us full-time, Olive talked a lot more and spent much of her day playing with Evie on the floor of the nursery. She seemed more content, but was, at times, still a little wary of us.

  So, yes, as Aaron said, Madison was capable of anything, just as my mother was. I should be afraid of her.

  Aaron placed his espresso cup on the marble counter. “It goes without saying that you’ll have to keep a close eye on Olive while I’m away,” he said. “If you do go out, make sure Madison isn’t following.”

  I pictured myself eyeing the rearview mirror of my SUV, looking for a tail, like a spy in a thriller.

  “She scares me, Aaron,” I said. I paused, lowering my gaze to Evie on my hip. “And I don’t like being put in this position.” Keeping Olive safe from Madison.

  “She scares me too,” he said. He ran a hand down my arm. “But I’ve got to work. And we’re a family now. We’ll just have to find a way to get through this together.” He checked the time on his phone again. “I need to grab a bite to eat be
fore I head out. You clear on all this? Are we good?”

  “I understand,” I said.

  I understood I was now Olive’s personal bodyguard.

  3

  As Aaron foraged for breakfast in the kitchen, Evie patted my breast, wanting milk, and I carried her to the couch, holding her warm, sticky little hand so she wouldn’t tug up my T-shirt. I put her to breast, and the smell of her scalp—peaches and vanilla and human—enveloped me in the memory, as breastfeeding almost always did, of holding her as a newborn that first day in the hospital. Evie, unbelievably tiny, snuggled against my breast, her lips suckling now and again with surprising strength even as she slept. Aaron had left to pick up Olive, and in his absence the flowers he had arranged for were delivered—a bundle of exquisite Cream Yves Piaget roses. They sat on the windowsill, filling the room with their strong, sweet fragrance. I was sure a nurse was about to whisk them from the room, enforcing the no-scent rule. It was snowing outside and the light from the window made the curtains in my hospital room glow. It was just me and Evie in this small, white world. Just us. I hadn’t yet bathed Evie, and the birthing scent, mine and hers, still clung to her. I curled over her to smell the top of her tiny head. I couldn’t get enough of that primal animal scent. Bonding, I suppose. My animal brain taking her in, making her my own. I was never more aware of my animal nature than during my pregnancy. The nesting instinct that drove me to compulsively clean house and ready a place for her, and then, during labor, the drive to push that was so strong, so surprisingly separate from my will. Out of my control.

  Now, on this couch, just as I had been in that hospital room, I was compelled to put my child to breast. The act of breastfeeding filled me with a contentment and peace I had never experienced before. There were times when I wanted only this, to lose myself in this. Before I became pregnant, I had no idea I could love another human this much, that I was capable of this kind of love. I would do anything for my child—anything. I would build a stable family for her, even if that meant ending Aaron’s marriage.