The Almost Wife

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  Evie, unsettled by Madison’s banging and yelling, started to cry. I took her into the kitchen and sat her in her high chair, offering her the mushy banana to distract her.

  When I swung back to the foyer, Madison was inside, the front door wide open behind her. She trotted, determined, across the expansive floor, her stiletto heels leaving pockmarks in the maple. “Olive!” she called, her voice shrill with desperation. “Olive, come downstairs. Now!”

  5

  Olive appeared at the top of the stairs, her wet hair snaking around her shoulders. She had changed into a T-shirt, cropped hoodie and joggers. “Maddy?” she said, her face lighting up as she looked down. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, sweetheart. We have so much to talk about.”

  “How did you get in?” I demanded. “You copied Olive’s key?” And when? She must have done it before Olive moved in with us. The thought chilled me. She might have already been in our house when we were out, rummaging through our things, looking for something she could use against Aaron in court.

  Madison waved Olive downstairs. “Quickly,” she said. “This is important. You need to come with me, now.”

  “Why?” Olive asked, stepping down.

  When I sprinted over to the stairs to block Madison’s way, she danced sideways to get around me, but I anticipated her moves, jumping onto the first step to stop her from reaching Olive. From the kitchen, Evie pointed a wet finger in our direction and then clapped, as if we were playing a game. “Mum-mum,” she said.

  “What’s going on?” Olive asked.

  “Just—let’s go. I’ll explain everything once we’re out of here.”

  “What the hell are you trying to pull?” I asked Madison.

  She eyed me a moment. “If you want to listen, I’ll be happy to tell you once I’ve spoken privately with Olive. But I know the place you’re in, Kira. I’ve been there. Full denial. Or maybe Aaron just hasn’t shown you his true nature yet. Either way, I doubt I can convince you of anything right now.” She clapped her hands twice, as she would to gain the attention of her students. “Olive, let’s go!”

  “Whoa,” I said. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “You have no right to stop me from seeing my daughter.”

  Stepdaughter. “And yet you feel you can stop Aaron from seeing Olive,” I said.

  “I’m trying to keep my daughter safe. If you cared anything for Olive, you would let us go.” She turned to look up at her stepdaughter. “Olive, come down these stairs this instant.”

  “You really shouldn’t be here,” Olive said, taking another step down. “When Dad finds out—” Olive looked at me. And he will find out, she implied. Kira will tell him.

  You better believe I will, I thought.

  But Madison pushed past me, heading up the stairs, intending, I thought, to force Olive to go with her. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back, and she stumbled on those heels, nearly falling, clutching the railing to right herself.

  “Get off me!” she cried. She was petite, nearly a head shorter than me, so much smaller than the image of her I carried in my head. I imagined she wore those ridiculous heels to add some height. In the scuffle, her hair unraveled from the tightly wound bun, and her bloodshot eyes, heavy in eyeliner and mascara, looked wild.

  “You need to leave,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” Olive said to me, holding out a hand as she stepped cautiously downstairs.

  She wasn’t really thinking of going with this woman, was she?

  “Olive, do you remember what your father told you this morning? You’re not allowed to see Madison, not right now.”

  She looked from me to Madison and back again, feeling torn, I knew. I felt a maternal urge to wrap my arms around Olive and hug her. But I squashed it. The kid wasn’t a hugger. At least, not with me. Instead, I held out an arm protectively. “She’s not going anywhere with you,” I told Madison.

  “I said, let’s go!” Madison reached past me, took Olive’s hand and tried to pull her down the remaining steps, but I pushed her away, hard, and she fell backward to the floor, shrieking in pain as the heels gave out beneath her and she twisted an ankle.

  “Maddy!” Olive cried as she rushed to help her.

  I stopped her. “Get Evie,” I told her. “Take her into the downstairs bathroom and stay there until I tell you to come out. Lock the door.” When Olive froze, her eyes on Madison trying, in an ungainly way, to get up from the floor, I said, “Do it! Now.”

  She jogged over to the island and lifted Evie out of her high chair as Evie snatched a handful of mushy banana for the road.

  “Olive,” Madison said, tugging her blouse down. “Please.” She was almost in tears. “You need to come with me. There are some things—” She glanced at me. “There are things you need to understand.”

  Olive hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” And she hugged Evie, pressing my baby’s face to hers, before carrying her to the bathroom.

  When Madison took a step in their direction, I grabbed my phone from the kitchen island. “That’s it. I’m calling the cops.”

  It was a bluff. I tapped on Aaron’s number instead. The call went to voice mail, as I’d known it would now that he was on the plane. I didn’t want the hassle of dealing with the police, explaining this embarrassing situation to them and facing their judgment when they realized I had broken up Madison and Aaron’s marriage. More to the point, I was fearful and anxious about dealing with authorities and would do almost anything to avoid talking to lawyers or cops. I had done too much of that as a child, after my father’s death.

  “Wait,” Madison said. She limped to the front door and stood just outside. “Just—wait.”

  I tapped out of the call and marched to the door, intending to close it on her, but Madison held out both hands to stop me.

  “Okay, look, I handled this badly,” she said. “I shouldn’t have barged in like that. But if you’ll just listen—all I want is an hour or two with my daughter. Here, if you want. I was hoping to talk to her privately, but you can listen in. You should listen in. You’ll understand, then. Please.” Her eyes had gone watery again.

  I pressed the door closed, but she inserted her body into the doorway so I couldn’t shut it.

  I held up my phone. “I am phoning the cops,” I said. (Of course I wasn’t.)

  Madison stepped back and I slammed the door and locked it, though it was a useless exercise now that I knew she had a key. My god, she had broken into my house and tried to take Olive. What the hell was she going to do next?

  All at once I ached to hear Aaron’s voice. Many nights, when I woke to a panic attack, Aaron talked me down from that bridge railing with his comforting voice. I’m here, he said, holding me. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you. Just tell me what you need. He made everything okay. He had to make this okay.

  I dialed Aaron’s number again and, with the phone still to my ear, squinted through the foyer window to see Madison getting into her VW and beetling away. I didn’t expect him to pick up, but he answered so quickly I couldn’t help blurting out, “Madison was just here, at the house. I mean, she broke into the house.”

  “Madison broke in?” he asked.

  “You’re not in the air?”

  “We’re still waiting on the tarmac. The flight was delayed. She broke in?”

  “She had a key.”

  “What the hell?”

  “She was trying to take Olive out of the house.” I focused on my engagement ring as I spoke. My hand shook. “I actually had to fight her off.”

  “Is Olive okay? Are you okay?”

  I looked back to the hall, to the bathroom where Olive and Evie were hiding out, and lowered my voice. “Yeah. Olive was scared, though, I think.” I was scared.

  “I’ll phone the locksmith, have all the locks changed. But that will likely take a day or two.”

  “Can you come back home now?”

  In the pause behind him, I heard a woman’
s voice on a PA system. “They won’t let me off the plane,” he said. “We’re about to take off. We’re just waiting in queue.”

  “I don’t know how to deal with Madison,” I said. “She’ll come back. I know she will. What if she breaks in during the night when we’re asleep?” I felt the tears well up.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine. Here’s what you do.” His voice had taken on that confident, take-charge tone I had been waiting for. “Pack a couple of bags and take the girls out of the city—”

  “To where?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Anywhere. You were going to Manitoulin. Take Olive there, like I suggested earlier.”

  It was still early. We could still catch a flight to Sudbury, rent a vehicle and be at my family cottage on Manitoulin Island around suppertime.

  “But Olive won’t want to go,” I said.

  “Sell it. Canada Day on the beach.”

  I heard another muffled announcement over a PA system on his end.

  “I’ve got to go,” Aaron said. “The stewardess is eyeing me. We’re about to take off. So you’ll take the girls to Manitoulin?”

  I paused. I didn’t want the call to end. “Aaron, are we really getting married?”

  “What?” He laughed a little. “Of course we are,” he said. “I gave you a ring, didn’t I?” Just the week before.

  “I know, but . . .”

  “But?

  “You are still married.” To this unstable woman who had just broken into my house and scared the shit out of me.

  “Kira, you’re being a bit . . .” He paused. “Hormonal.”

  He was right, of course. But still . . .

  “When I get back, I’ll phone my lawyer and see how we can speed things up. This latest stunt won’t help her case. Breaking into the house! We could probably get a restraining order.” He sounded almost pleased.

  “You know she won’t agree to anything less than fifty-fifty custody, and she wants Olive to live with her.”

  “Well, she won’t get it. I’m Olive’s father. She’s only her stepmother.”

  “But she’ll fight you for it.” And the divorce proceedings would drag on.

  “Kira, you and I are living together now, with our baby, with Olive. We are a family. In every way that matters, you are already my wife.”

  Almost, I thought, as I twirled the engagement ring around my finger. I was almost his wife. After Madison’s latest invasion into our lives that morning, I was beginning to wonder if that’s all I’d ever be, the almost wife. Was this really what I wanted? Constantly battling for my place in Aaron’s life, protecting Evie and Olive from his crazy ex?

  After ending the call with Aaron, I pulled up Nathan’s landline number, but then, chickening out, I ended the call before it went through. I tapped Message instead. Coming up after all, I typed. I hesitated, then added: I have news. News? I was getting married to another man. I deleted it all. There were some things that couldn’t be said in a text or even a phone call. I had to explain myself to Nathan face-to-face.

  As I was about to tuck my phone away and call the girls out of hiding, my phone buzzed again, then again and again. Aaron had texted I LOVE YOU! a dozen times over. Despite my efforts to stay angry at him, I felt a smile creep onto my face. He always knew exactly what to do, how to fix things.

  I texted him back. I love you too. But in lowercase, so he’d know I was still pissed.

  6

  As I drove the last stretch of road before Little Current, I kept an eye on the tenacious grasses and juniper bushes that forced their way up through cracked limestone on either side of the road, watching for deer that might leap in front of the pickup. There were so many deer in the region, and collisions with them were so common, that on this stretch of highway leading to the swing bridge, a row of deer detectors flanked the road. They were strange, futuristic contraptions, a line of black posts each capped with a spacy array. The locals thought they were a joke. Deer wandered across the road when no lights blinked, or the lights flashed when there were no deer in sight. But at least, I supposed, the devices reminded drivers to slow down and watch for danger. Lights flashed now.

  In minutes the girls and I would reach the swing bridge that crossed over to Manitoulin, an island filled with lakes that contained islands of their own. I felt a stirring, a little leap of joy inside my belly, as I always did on my return. I was going home.

  Still, I wasn’t looking forward to the tasks ahead. There was that letter from the lab, and then, aside from breaking the news of my engagement to Nathan, I would have to clear out my mother’s things from the cottage, selling what I could and taking the rest to the thrift store or garbage dump. I’d rented this pickup with that in mind, and I was more than a little frightened of what I might find as I cleaned the cottage. When I’d readied my mother’s house in Sudbury for sale, I had discovered a stack of boxes in her basement, of various sizes, all still wrapped in brown mailing paper, never opened, addressed to me, from my father. After my parents’ divorce, and during the infrequent visits my mother allowed (or was forced by court order to allow), my father had sworn he’d sent me letters and small parcels every week. My mother had called him a liar. “He’s a cheap bastard,” she said. “He’s telling you he bought you gifts when he didn’t, so he doesn’t have to lay out any money on you.”

  “Maybe they got lost in the mail,” I said hopefully, at first. “Maybe they will turn up.”

  “They won’t,” she said. “You know what your father is like. Never thinking of anyone but himself. You know that about him, don’t you? He doesn’t love anyone but himself.”

  My mother never allowed me to get the mail, either on the island at the rural post office or at our Sudbury house when it arrived at the door. She always insisted on picking it up herself. When I found those parcels, I understood why. She had hidden my father’s letters and gifts in the basement, thinking, I imagined, that she would dispose of them at some later date. Or maybe they were strange trophies, evidence of how she had managed to one-up him, take me from him.

  In the basement of my mother’s house that day, I opened the largest box, wondering what it could be. My father had often bought me sports or hunting gear when my parents were married, so we could do things together. My mother always told me he bought these items because he wanted a boy, not a girl. “But I wanted you, sweetheart,” she said. “I wanted you with all my heart.”

  Inside the box was a telescope. It would have been a gift for my twelfth birthday, the year of my father’s death. I had told him I wanted a telescope, to look up at the Milky Way from the summer house and see a galaxy with my own eyes. Or the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn.

  The stars were so much more brilliant on Manitoulin than in Sudbury, as there was little light pollution.

  I slipped the paper from the box and a note floated down, in my father’s handwriting. I don’t know if this will reach you, Kira. It seems my letters and gifts get waylaid. I hope we have the chance to look at the stars together. I love you so much, and I always will.

  He had loved me. If he had loved me, if my mother had lied about these gifts, then what else had she lied about? Everything, I realized then, in her basement. Everything. As a child I had trusted my mother. But as time wore on, I believed in her less and less, especially the things she said about my father. She had done everything she could to destroy my relationship with him.

  I wouldn’t allow Madison to pull that kind of crap on Olive. I wouldn’t. I knew what a devoted father Aaron was. I wouldn’t let him lose Olive the way my father had lost me.

  As we neared the island, the smell of Evie’s dirty diaper filled the truck. I would have to change her as soon as we reached the cottage. Beside her, in the back of the crew cab, Olive thumbed her phone with an aggressive obsession, hunched over, peering at the thing at close quarters. She had switched up her favorite hoodie for a brown nylon jacket after she spilled lemonade on the hoodie during our stop in Sudbur
y. The winged eyeliner she wore made her look so much older.

  That morning, when I decided to fly up to Manitoulin to escape Madison, I had counted on the fact that Olive was likely to spend most of our time there on the couch, glued to her laptop. I was thankful, in that moment, for the particular brand of Toronto snobbery that Madison had instilled in the girl, as she was unlikely to talk to any of the locals, to get a sense of who I was when I was here. But now that we had nearly arrived, I worried about how Olive would view me in this context, and what she would pass on to Aaron. I was sure I could leave Evie with her and carve out an hour or two to talk to Nathan, as Olive liked hanging out at the playground with Evie. But we’d have to buy groceries and go out for dinner too, and we’d undoubtedly run into locals I knew, by their faces if not their names.

  And what would Olive think of my aging family summer house, the tiny village? There were few amenities there. When I told Olive there was no Starbucks on Manitoulin Island, she had insisted we find one in Sudbury so she could get her Teavana Shaken Peach Citrus White Tea Infusion Lemonade. I rolled my eyes, but it reminded me of Aaron and his little rituals and specific tastes, his Italian coffee always in the same elegant cup with a saucer. If Olive thought of Manitoulin with disdain, Aaron probably would too. What picture would Olive paint of my life here? Worse, what if someone mentioned Nathan?

  But I had committed to this trip and here we were.

  We reached the lineup of cars waiting to cross the swing bridge over to Manitoulin, and I parked behind the car ahead of me, turning off the ignition. I glanced down at my clothes, brushing them off. I had chosen runners, yoga pants and a matching top for the trip up, for comfort, but the black cotton revealed evidence of a day of travel with a baby: milk stains on my chest, a little spit-up on my shoulder, applesauce on my thigh.

  Olive leaned forward to peer out the front window. “Why have we stopped?”

  “See for yourself,” I said, nodding toward the North Channel.