The Good Wife

by Stewart O'Nan

  “When will I get everything back?” Patty asks.

  “That depends on the outcome of our investigation.”

  “Is that a week, a month, what?”

  “That’s as soon as we can, ma’am.”

  She chains the door after him, shoots his car the finger as it eases down the drive, then stands there, making sure he leaves.

  “Well,” Eileen says, “at least they didn’t take the TV.”

  “Yeah,” Patty says, “great.”

  They clean up, going room to room. The garage looks empty without his weights and his toolbox, like they’ve broken up and the cops have helped him move out. She wishes she could remember seeing the dirtbike before. Outside, snow coats the pines. The drive is a switchyard of tire tracks. She should scrape off her car and bring it in, but just rolls the door closed and goes upstairs.

  IN A HEARTBEAT

  SHE HAS TO CONSCIOUSLY PREPARE TO CALL HER MOTHER, TO PSYCH herself into the right frame of mind, as if she has only this one shot. Eileen understands, and offers to run out to the P&C and grab something for supper. She won’t take the twenty Patty shoves at her, and then she’s out the door and the house is finally quiet. For the first time today, Patty’s totally alone.

  She gathers what little information she has on the lawyers and squares a pad and a pen with her chair at the kitchen table before bringing over the receiver and sitting down. She can’t get too emotional or her mother will turn cold and logical on her, as if Patty’s incapable of dealing with this rationally.

  She stands and hangs up, circles through the living room and the kitchen and the bedroom and then back again, pausing at the front window to stare at the bare trees crossed against the sky, trying to find an answer that will satisfy any questions her mother might ask. Because she can’t just give her the money, that would be too easy. Patty’s fear is that she’ll say it’s just not possible, meaning Patty’s being unrealistic.

  She looks at the estimate she scratched down last night and thinks it won’t be good enough. Her mother will want to know exactly how much this is going to cost her, to the penny. She’ll ask Patty to come up with a number before she makes any decision, and they don’t have time for that.

  She wonders how much she could really get for the truck.

  The fucked-up thing about it is that Shannon would have the money.

  She brings the phone over again and stabs at the buttons before she can think. For the hundredth time today she wishes for a cigarette.

  “I was wondering when you’d call me back,” her mother says.

  “It’s been kind of crazy here.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I saw him. He’s doing okay.” She gives her mother a chance to interrupt, but the line is silent. “They’re saying he broke into this house with Gary—”

  “I heard,” her mother says. “Mrs. Tuthill was good enough to call me and tell me all about it.”

  “He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t.”

  “But he was there?”

  “He was with Gary. They were drunk.”

  “That makes me feel better,” her mother says.

  “Mom, come on.”

  “Are you aware that you knew her?”

  “I haven’t been listening to the news.”

  “Patty, it was Mrs. Wagner.”

  Her mother waits. Patty’s so overwhelmed by the idea that she can’t place the name.

  “Elsie Wagner’s mother. You remember. Elsie used to lifeguard at the Y when you girls were little. Tall blonde, freckles, wore her hair in a ponytail?”

  Patty doesn’t completely remember her, but she can’t say that.

  “Her mother went to St. Ann’s with the Tuthills. They’re going to have the funeral there on Saturday.”

  She mentions this as if Patty should go.

  “I didn’t know” is all Patty can say.

  “So, how are you in all of this?”

  “Okay. Tired. I’m still trying to find a lawyer.”

  “What have you found out?”

  “They’re expensive.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  She mentions the five-thousand-dollar retainer.

  “That’s highway robbery,” her mother comments. “How many of them have you talked to?”

  “He’s the one everyone recommends.”

  Patty registers her silence.

  “The police have the truck. I figure if we sell it—”

  “I know what you’re asking. Do you honestly think I have five thousand dollars just lying around? I wish I did. I’d give it to you in a heartbeat, Patty, I would.”

  “I wasn’t asking. I just wanted to let you know what we’re doing.”

  “Then I apologize. It sounded like you were building up to something. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”

  “Don’t worry,” Patty says, “I’m not.”

  She barely listens after this, drawing a fat black X through the numbers in front of her. Her mother won’t let her go, offering to come over. She saw a show about burglars taking advantage of women in her situation; the way she says it, it’s like Patty has a terminal disease.

  “Eileen’s here,” Patty says.

  “Eventually she’s going to have to go back to work. You really shouldn’t be there by yourself.

  “Let me know if you need help,” her mother says as they say goodbye.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Patty says. “I will.”

  EASY

  SHE TALKS WITH THE PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE, THEN MAKES A second trip to the jail. He takes it better than she expected, and she understands that she’s let him down. The sun is setting over the hills as Eileen drives her home. Patty’s glad to see it go, and at the same time worries about him spending the night there by himself. The day is finally over, but the feeling that she’s forgotten something nags at her.

  Eileen makes dinner, their mother’s chicken casserole with the swiss cheese and boxed stuffing mix. It smells good, but they’ve both been awake too long, they’re shaky from running on raw nerves, and neither of them feels like eating. Patty rakes hers over her plate, wondering what Tommy’s having. She’s supposed to drink milk for the baby, and gags a glass down, tipping her chin up to help her swallow. What she could really use is a double shot of Jack to punch her into a different frame of mind, but that’s at least three months away. She takes her vitamin at the sink and starts to do the dishes.

  “I’ll get those,” Eileen says.

  “I’ve got to do something, otherwise I’ll go nuts.”

  So Eileen dries, squatting and craning to fit the pots and plates into the cupboards.

  They don’t dare watch TV, and the stereo’s a trap, all the songs that belong to him. Eileen votes for gin, and Patty gives in to her. They sit tailorseat on the couch, facing each other, wrapped in sleeping bags, a supply of soft dutch chocolate cookies within reach.

  “This is like a slumber party,” Patty says.

  “Except there’s not popcorn all over the floor.”

  “And Mom’s not screaming at us.”

  They pick up and discard from a pillow set between them.

  “That was stupid,” Eileen tells herself when Patty nabs the queen she just dumped.

  They don’t keep score, but it seems to Patty that Eileen wins almost every hand. She wonders if it’s too early to go to bed.

  Eileen wins again.

  “It’s just not my day,” Patty says, and they quit. She finds the jokers and folds the flaps closed. “Are you going to be okay out here? You can watch TV if you want, it won’t bother me.”

  Eileen’s fine.

  “Thank you,” Patty says, and leans down to kiss her forehead the way she did when she used to babysit her. Now Eileen’s taking care of her; it’s like they’ve changed places. Like always, their mother and Shannon are nowhere.

  She brushes her teeth and pees, the bathroom all hers, unnatural. Dropping her clothes in the hamper, she sees one of his tube socks under
yesterday’s jeans, the butterscotch dye of his workboots worn into the heel. For an instant she’s tempted to rescue it, but doesn’t.

  She circles the bed and gets in, her skin absorbing the chill of the sheets. She’s too tired to read, and the book seems stupid now, bad luck; she’ll give it back to Eileen. She settles in, then decides it’s too cold and levers herself out, gropes the three steps to his dresser and hauls on his favorite Bills T-shirt and a pair of wool socks. They don’t help right away; she just has to stay still and let the bed warm, like an engine. All day she’s wanted to crawl under the covers and surrender; now, with the house fallen silent around her, it doesn’t feel like an escape. She rolls over and curls around the body pillow.

  She’s seen the beds they have in jail on TV—steel bunks with thin mattresses and scratchy blankets. She’s afraid he’ll be cold. He needs two pillows; sometimes when he doesn’t sleep right his neck hurts and she has to rub Heet into his muscles.

  She feels herself concentrating, focusing her closed eyes as if she can see his cell. She needs to relax and see nothing, an empty screen. She thinks of Casey, floating warm inside her, his heartbeat slowing, echoing hers. Sometimes at night she feels him flutter or turn, a dolphin swimming, but right now he’s quiet. He’s probably as tired as she is.

  Outside, a car motors by, a jetlike rush of wind, then nothing.

  The bed warms, and she drifts into a pleasant half-sleep, a dream of summer on her grandmother’s farm when she was eleven—the old metal seat of the tractor, the barn that smelled of musty hay and cow dung. She’s happy there, peeking over the rough boards of the stalls. The cows look up at her with milky eyeballs but don’t stop chewing. Their gums are a mix of pink and black like a dog’s.

  When the phone goes off, it’s like a memory, the ring calling her back to the present. Immediately she knows it’s about him, someone from the jail. It’s past midnight, the time reserved for bad news. She slaps at the phone, grips it.

  A man asks if this is Mrs. Dickerson—older, serious, official.

  “Yes,” she says, “this is she.”

  “Mrs. Dickerson,” he says calmly, “do you know how easy it would be to kill you right now?”

  A FAIR AND SPEEDY TRIAL

  LOVING YOU

  ISN’T THE RIGHT THING TO DO

  FLEETWOOD MAC

  HEART - SHAPED BOX

  SHE CAN’T EVEN CALL HIM. HE CAN CALL HER, BUT ONLY AT PREARRANGED times and only collect. She’s taking unpaid leave, so there’s no paycheck coming in where there used to be two.

  “We better get off,” she says.

  “Yeah,” he says, and then they stay on.

  Their calls are taped, his letters to her opened. She’s not allowed to bring him any food or money or cigarettes, not even a blanket. Sometimes she gets to kiss him hello and goodbye when she visits, sometimes not, depending on the guard, depending on the guard’s mood. Her doctor says the metal detector won’t hurt the baby as long as she doesn’t go through it four or five times a day. Some days she goes through two or three times and then worries.

  The first time she meets their lawyer she wishes she’d tried harder to come up with the money. He’s young and looks nervous in his skinny tie, a college kid dressed for an interview. She’s supposed to call him Andy.

  To start, he says he believes Tommy’s not guilty, then goes on to talk about the problems of the case as if that doesn’t matter. They can place him at the scene, so there’s no way to prove he’s completely innocent. Luckily they don’t have to. The DA has to prove he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that’s their one advantage. The first thing they have to do is ask for severance, make the DA try the cases separately. If they can do that, he wouldn’t be surprised if both of them walk on the murder charge, the evidence isn’t there. If not—and the DA’s not going to want to do that, it makes things a lot harder for him—they could be in trouble. Either way they’re definitely going to see time for the burglary. The danger in a case like this is the other guy taking a plea and testifying against him to get his charges reduced. They’ll have to keep an eye on that. Patty doesn’t ask how.

  That’s the problem—she doesn’t know what to ask him. She thinks she should do more than just sit there and nod like an idiot.

  She understands why Tommy doesn’t squeal on Gary, but if they’re such good buddies, why is Gary hanging him out to dry like this? He should stand up and be a man. Instead, the two of them are acting like little kids. Their strategy is to shut up, say nothing. The lawyer says it’s actually the best thing they can do at this point.

  The cops still have the truck, and Mr. McChesney wants her out by the end of the month. Eileen says she can stay with her and Cy for a while, but for how long, and where’s all of their junk supposed to go? On top of that, her mother’s invited everyone for Thanksgiving, including Shannon and her family.

  Her mother comes over to see her. As always, Patty can sense her grading her dusting, the contents of the refrigerator. They talk about Casey mostly, avoiding the real subject. “I’ve always said Gary was bad news,” her mother huffs, then finishes her cup of coffee and heads off to the library before it closes.

  Eileen goes back to work, and Cy expects her home at night, so Patty’s alone most of the time. She wanders around the house, wrapping their breakables in old PennySavers, deciding what she needs and what can go to storage. She’s learned to not stop and moon over the wedding pictures of him without his mustache or the heart-shaped box she kept from the chocolates he gave her one Valentine’s Day. The pile that’s going to Eileen’s grows. And still, she can’t attack his closet. It will all come with her—she can use it. Already she’s wearing his flannel shirts to stay warm, using his sweatpants as pajama bottoms.

  She sleeps late, and still she’s exhausted. He can’t always tell her when he’ll call next, so she’s always waiting. All morning the snow light reaches through the windows, warming her hands. She walks by the phone, willing it to ring. She packs and packs, taking breaks to rest her back, kneading her kidneys with a fist. Lunch comes. The soap operas are on, but they no longer tempt her, full of murders and hollow plots. The afternoon passes, icicles glinting in drips, birds skirmishing at the feeder, making it swing. The sky fades to gray above the trees and the cars flying by outside turn on their lights. She can’t get used to cooking for herself, and ends up with leftovers. Normally she’d watch TV, but she’s afraid of the news. At seven she’s ready for bed. Some nights he calls around nine and they stay on until she’s sleepy, tucked under the afghans on the couch with her eyes closed, the two of them murmuring the way they do in bed. When they hang up, the day’s over. After ten she won’t answer the phone, lies still, listening between rings, as if someone’s in the house.

  It’s strange not having to get up for work in the morning, a luxury she knows she’ll pay for later. She goes to the jail to visit him, then comes home and feels trapped inside the house. She doesn’t go out, speaks to no one except Eileen and her mother and the lawyer. Donna hasn’t called, and none of his friends. The Myersons don’t look in on her, so she doesn’t bother them. If she needs something—packing tape, more boxes from the liquor store—she drives to Elmira to get it. She gasses up at the self-serve, treating herself to a Snickers bar, humming as she chews. She’s never liked the idea of living in a city before, but now she can see the two of them taking the top half of a duplex and parking on the street, going to work and coming home, completely anonymous.

  Taking apart the rooms she put together, she imagines Mrs. Wagner’s house sitting empty and half-burnt. The man who called could have been a neighbor, the police said, or maybe it was just a nut. Patty thinks she should go over there, take some flowers to say she’s sorry, but it’s not on the way to anything.

  She unplugs the TV. She takes apart the stereo and tapes the gathered cords to the backs of the speakers, tapes down the arm of the turntable the way she’s seen Tommy do it. The records are too heavy; she can barely lift the cinder
blocks the shelves rest on. She’s already done most of the dishes. She can’t box up the toaster oven yet, and the tapestries she’s saving for last—their bright patterns the only relief from the white walls.

  She’s never done self-storage before. She drives by one all the time on her way to work. It’s new-looking, rows of prefab garages surrounded by high fences topped with barbed wire—a prison for their stuff. The ad in the Yellow Pages lists the different sizes. The only really big thing is the couch; the waterbed comes apart. She figures it’ll take five or six trips; they can probably get away with the small. There’s the tarp in the garage if the weather gets bad—at least the cops didn’t take that. She should put it over everything, in case the place leaks.

  When she calls to reserve a unit, the price seems high and the guy has all these questions. Does she want heated or unheated? How long of a lease is she going to need? Long-term, short-term, the price is different. What about insurance? How much are the contents worth, ballpark?

  Without Tommy there to ask, she can’t answer the man. She says she’ll have to check and get back to him and hangs up feeling the same way she does when the lawyer tries to explain the difference between the arraignment and the preliminary hearing.

  There’s so much she doesn’t know.

  THE CONDITION OF THE DECEASED

  THE LAWYER HAS TOLD HER OVER AND OVER THAT THE PRELIM means nothing, so why do the TV people have their lights set up outside? She circles the courthouse, trolling for a parking spot, hoping they don’t know what her car looks like. It’s the middle of the morning, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She expected downtown to be quiet, everybody working, getting ready to call in sick tomorrow—the only reason Eileen’s not here. She would have taken off if Patty asked.

  She finds a spot on the far side of the building and struggles out from behind the wheel. There’s another entrance here, the same arched vestibule like a church. Climbing the stairs, she thinks she might get away with it, then finds the doors are locked. She can see cops and lawyers far down the hall and knocks on the glass, but no one hears her.