My Lovely Wife

by Samantha Downing

  An hour passes, or two. No idea. Maybe it’s been only five minutes.

  My kids are what get me up.

  And what Millicent might do to them.

  Seventy-one

  THE HOUSE IS not quite pitch-black. Light from street lamps and the moon filters in through the windows, allowing me to see just enough to not trip. To not make any noise. Although I know I will be caught, and soon, it can’t happen yet.

  At the bottom of the steps, I pause to listen. No one upstairs is moving. I go up.

  The fifth step creaks a little. Maybe I knew that, or maybe I never paid attention.

  I keep moving.

  Jenna’s room is on the left, followed by Rory’s room and, at the end of the hall, the master bedroom.

  I start with my daughter.

  She is lying on her side, facing the window, and her breathing is steady. Peaceful. Her big white comforter is bunched up around her, like she’s inside a cloud. I want to touch her, but know it’s a bad idea. I watch, memorizing everything. If they put me in prison forever, this is how I want to remember my little girl. Safe. Comfortable. Healthy.

  After several minutes, I leave and close the door behind me.

  Rory is spread out on his bed, limbs everywhere. Most of them, anyway. The arm he has in a sling is the only one by his side. He sleeps with his mouth open but does not snore; it’s the strangest thing. I watch him the way I watched Jenna, memorizing everything. Hoping my little boy turns into a better man than his father. Hoping he never meets a woman like Millicent.

  I cannot blame him for telling his mother everything. I blame myself. For Petra, for taking the earrings. For all of it.

  I leave his room, close the door without making a sound, and start down the hall. I imagine Millicent in bed, curled up under the covers, her red hair spread out on the white pillow. I can hear the long breaths she takes when she is in a deep sleep. And I can see the shocked look in her eyes when she wakes up and feels my hands around her throat.

  Because I am going to kill my wife.

  When Millicent discovered I’d cheated on her, she found her breaking point.

  Tonight, I found mine.

  I reach the closed bedroom door and lean close, listening. No sound. When I open the door, the first thing I see is the bed.

  Empty.

  My first instinct is to check behind the door. Maybe because I know Millicent would stab me in the back.

  Empty.

  “It’s about time.”

  Her voice comes from across the room. I see a shadow, her outline. Millicent is sitting next to the window, in the dark. Watching for me.

  “I knew you’d come,” she says.

  I step forward. Not too far. “Is that right?”

  “Of course. It’s what you do.”

  “Come home?”

  “You have nowhere else to go.”

  The truth hits like a slap. The worst part is I can hear her smile. It’s too dark to see it until she turns on the light and stands up. Millicent is wearing her long cotton nightgown. It’s white and swirls around her feet. I was not prepared for her to be awake. I didn’t even bring a weapon.

  But she did.

  The gun in her hand is at her side, facing down at the floor. She is not pointing it at me. She is also not hiding it.

  “That’s your plan?” I say, pointing to the gun. “To kill me in self-defense?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re here to do? Kill me?”

  I raise both my hands. Empty. “Not likely.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? Maybe I just want to talk.”

  She chuckles. “You can’t be that stupid. If you were, I wouldn’t have married you.”

  The bed is between us. It’s a king-size, and I wonder if I can leap over it before she can raise the gun and shoot.

  Probably not.

  “Didn’t find that emergency card, did you?” she asks.

  I say nothing.

  “Rory gave me that cheap little earring,” she says. “He thought you were cheating, but then realized you were sneaking out to kill women. Of course, I didn’t tell him he was right the first time.”

  I shake my head, trying to understand. “Why—”

  “I left that woman alive so everyone would find out what a cheating bastard you are,” she says.

  Petra.

  Petra is still alive because she had sex with me. And she’ll never even know it.

  “Do you have any idea,” Millicent says, “how much therapy our son is going to need?”

  I cannot comprehend the madness of what she has done. The staggering amount of patience. Of discipline. “Why not just leave me?” I say. “Why do all of this?”

  “Do what? Set up our home, take care of the kids, make sure everything runs smoothly? Keep track of the finances and cook dinner? Or are you referring to Owen? Because the original plan was to bring him back. For us.” She takes a step closer to the bed but not around it.

  “No—”

  “And you were so willing. I barely had to do anything. You killed Holly, not me.”

  “She threatened you. Threatened our family.”

  Millicent throws her head back and laughs. At me.

  I stare at her, remembering all the stories she’d told me about Holly. The injuries, the accidents, the threats. The cut on her hand, between her thumb and forefinger. The pieces rearrange in my head, like a puzzle that had been put together wrong.

  Millicent had done it all to herself. Holly just got the blame.

  “Jesus,” I say. “Holly was never a threat, was she?”

  “My sister was nothing but a weak, sniveling girl who deserved everything I did to her.”

  “She crashed the car because you were torturing her,” I say. “Not the other way around.”

  Millicent smiles.

  Everything hits at once. It’s hard enough to make me dizzy. Millicent set her sister up the same way she set me up.

  She has always tortured people. Her sister. Lindsay. Naomi.

  Jenna. Maybe she didn’t just poison Jenna to keep me out of the way.

  And me. Maybe all those times I was sick, she had done it.

  Because Millicent likes to hurt people.

  “You’re a monster,” I say.

  “That’s funny, because the police say the same thing about you.”

  The look on her face is triumphant, and, for the first time, I see how ugly she is. I cannot believe I ever thought she was beautiful.

  “I found the eye drops,” I say. “The ones in the pantry.”

  Her eyes flash.

  “You’ve been poisoning our daughter,” I say.

  She was not expecting this. She didn’t think I would figure it out.

  “You really are crazy,” she says. A bit less conviction now.

  “I’m right. You’ve been making her sick all along.”

  She shakes her head. Out of the corner of my eye, something moves. I look toward the door.

  Jenna.

  Seventy-two

  SHE IS STANDING in the doorway wearing her orange-and-white pajamas. Her hair is sticking out all over, and her eyes are wide. Awake. She is staring at her mother.

  “You made me sick?” she says. Her voice is so small it makes her sound like a toddler. A heartbroken toddler.

  “Absolutely not,” Millicent says. “If anyone poisoned you, it was your father.”

  Jenna turns to me. Her eyes are filling with tears.

  “Dad?”

  “Baby, no. It wasn’t me.”

  “He’s lying,” Millicent says. “He poisoned you, and he killed those women.”

  I stare at Millicent, not having any idea who I married. She stares back. I turn to my daughter. “She put eye drops in your food to make yo
u sick.”

  “You’re insane,” Millicent says.

  “Think back,” I say to Jenna. “All those times you were sick, who cooked your food? How often do I cook at all?”

  Jenna stares at me, and then her eyes shift to her mother.

  “Baby, don’t listen,” Millicent says.

  “What’s going on?”

  We are all startled by the new voice.

  Rory.

  * * *

  • • •

  HE WALKS UP behind Jenna. His eyes are bleary, and he rubs them while glancing from me to his mother to his sister, looking confused about everything. My kids have seen their own lives implode over the past week. Their father has been accused of being a serial killer; their mother has likely told them it is true. I do not know if they believe it.

  “Dad?” he says. “Why are you here?”

  “I didn’t do what they say, Rory. You have to believe me.”

  “Stop lying,” Millicent says.

  Jenna looks at her brother. “Dad says Mom made me sick.”

  “She did,” I say.

  “He’s lying,” Millicent says. “All he does is lie.”

  Rory looks at her and says, “Did you call the police already?”

  She shakes her head. “I haven’t had a chance. He just walked into the bedroom.”

  “And you just happened to have that gun in your hand?” I say.

  Rory’s eyes widen as he sees the gun at Millicent’s side. She still has not lifted her hand.

  “She was waiting for me to show up,” I say. “So she can kill me and claim I attacked her.”

  “Shut up,” Millicent says.

  “Mom?” Jenna says. “Is that true?”

  “Your father came here to kill me.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not true. I came here to get both of you away from your mother,” I say. And I go even further, because they have to know. “Your mother set me up. I didn’t kill those women.”

  “Wait a minute,” Rory says. “I don’t get—”

  “What is happening?” Jenna yells.

  “Enough,” Millicent says. Her voice is low and hard.

  We all shut up, just as we always do when she says that. It is quiet enough to hear everyone breathing.

  “Kids,” Millicent says, “get out of here. Go downstairs.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jenna says.

  “Go.”

  “Dad doesn’t have a weapon,” Rory says.

  Again, I raise my empty hands. “I don’t even have a phone.”

  Rory and Jenna turn to their mother.

  Millicent glares at me as she steps around them and raises her hand. She points the gun at me.

  “Mom!” Jenna yells.

  “Wait.” Rory jumps forward, placing himself between the gun and me. He throws off his sling and holds out both arms.

  Millicent does not lower her hand. She raises the other one and holds the gun with both hands. The gun is pointed at our son.

  “Get out of the way,” she says.

  He shakes his head.

  “Rory, you have to move,” I say.

  “No. Put the gun down.”

  Millicent takes a step forward. “Rory.”

  “No.”

  I can see the anger in her eyes, even on her face. It is turning an unnatural color of red.

  “Rory,” she says. “Move.”

  Her voice is a growl. I see Jenna jump a little.

  Rory does not move. I hold my hand out, intending to grab his arm and pull him out of the way. Right then, Millicent shifts the gun and fires one shot. The bullet goes right into our bed.

  Jenna screams.

  Rory freezes.

  Millicent takes a step toward him.

  She has lost control. I can see it in her pitch-black eyes. If she has to, she will shoot Rory.

  She will shoot all of us.

  I jump forward and knock Rory down, covering his body with mine. Just as we hit the ground, I see a blur of orange-and-white polka dots. And a glint of metal.

  Jenna. She has the knife from under her bed. I never even saw it in her hand.

  She heads right for Millicent, the knife raised, and crashes into her. They both tumble backward onto the bed.

  The gun fires a second time.

  Another scream.

  I jump up. Rory is right behind me. He grabs the gun, which has fallen out of Millicent’s hand. I grab Jenna and pull her off. The knife comes with her. It slides right out of Millicent.

  Blood.

  So much blood.

  Millicent is on the floor now, her hands clasped against her abdomen. The blood is coming from her.

  Behind me, Jenna is screaming, and I turn to see if she’s hurt. Rory shakes his head at me and points to the wall. The second bullet is lodged there, not inside my daughter.

  “Get her out of here,” I say.

  Rory drags Jenna out of the room. She is hysterical and screams all the way down the hall, dropping the bloody knife as she goes.

  I turn to Millicent.

  She is lying on the floor, staring up at me. Her white nightgown is turning red, right before my eyes. She looks exactly like my wife and, at the same time, nothing like her.

  She opens her mouth and tries to speak. Blood comes out. Millicent looks at me, her eyes wild. She does not have long. A few minutes, a few seconds, and she knows it. She keeps trying to say something.

  I grab the knife and bring it down hard, plunging it right into her chest.

  Millicent does not get the final word.

  Epilogue

  Three Years Later

  THE MAP ON the wall showed the whole world, from Australia to the Americas, and the North Pole to the South. We didn’t use darts, because we all have an aversion to metal objects with sharp edges. Instead, we pulled out an ancient Pin the Tail on the Donkey game and put new adhesive on the ribbon tails. Blindfolded, we each took a turn. Jenna went first, followed by Rory. I went last.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when two of the first three tails landed in Europe. Neither the Arctic nor Antarctica sounded very inviting to me.

  We tacked up a map of Europe and played again—wash, rinse, repeat—until we had found a new place to live: Aberdeen, Scotland.

  Our choice was made.

  That was two and half years ago, right after I was finally cleared by the police. I didn’t think I would be. In fact, I thought Millicent would be named another one of my victims. No one knew Jenna stabbed her, not after I wiped off the knife and made sure the only prints were mine. I also confessed. I told the police I killed my wife in self-defense, because she was the real killer. It never occurred to me that anyone would believe it.

  And they wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Andy, who said it couldn’t be me. I couldn’t even use a tablet computer, he told them, so how the hell could I kill so many women without getting caught?

  Then there was Kekona, who said I was a terrible liar and could never be a serial killer. Although she did mention that I was a pretty good tennis coach.

  And my kids. Jenna told the police that she overheard our argument and that her mother admitted to setting me up. Rory told them it was self-defense, because his mother was about to shoot him. Neither told the police what really happened. Those details do not matter.

  I like to think the police believed everyone who stood up for me, that they knew I couldn’t be a killer. But it was the DNA. All the evidence in the church basement underwent rigorous testing at the FBI lab in Quantico. The result confirmed what we already knew: The DNA was mine.

  The samples came from two sources: sweat and blood. And they saved me. Or rather, Millicent’s lack of knowledge saved me. The FBI tests revealed that all the samples of blood and sweat had the exact same a
mount of chemical decomposition. It looked like Millicent had collected my fluids just once and then sprinkled them around all at the same time. The report stated that I must have been in that basement only once, because the DNA had been left on the same day. An impossibility if I had killed those women at different times.

  It’s too bad Millicent never knew how badly she had screwed up.

  As soon as I was cleared, we sold the house and left Hidden Oaks. The first thing I had to get used to was the cold. And the snow.

  I’ve never lived where it snows before, but now it surrounds us. At first, it’s light and fluffy, like hand-spun cotton candy. When it blankets the city, everything goes quiet. It’s as if Aberdeen has been lifted right into the clouds.

  The day after, it’s slushy and dirty and the whole city looks covered in soot.

  Our third winter is coming up, and I have grown a bit more used to it. Rory has not. Just last night, he showed me a website for a college in Georgia.

  “Too far,” I said.

  “We’re in Scotland. Everything is far.”

  He had a point. And that was the point, to get far away from our old life. We are doing okay. I can say that without crossing my fingers.

  Jenna has a new therapist and a couple of prescriptions. I find it amazing that she functions at all, given what Millicent did to her. Rory has his own therapist, as do I. Once in a while, we have a group session, and we haven’t hurt one another yet.

  I do not tell them that I miss her. Sometimes. I miss the family she built, the structure, the way she kept us organized. But not all the time. Now, we don’t have as many rules, but we still have some. It’s all up to me, I can make a rule or not. Break it or not. No one is around to tell me if I am wrong or right.

  Today I am in Edinburgh, a larger city than Aberdeen. I have come to see my tax attorney. Moving out of the country is complicated. Taxes must be paid in multiple places, depending on where money is kept. Our house in Hidden Oaks sold for a good amount; we are more than comfortable for the moment. I also coach tennis. It is a huge sport in Scotland, though much of the time we play on indoor courts.

  When I am done with the tax lawyer, I find myself with a little time before the next train to Aberdeen. I stop in a pub near the station and motion to the bartender for an ale on tap. He fills a mug with a dark, syrupy liquid, unlike any beer I drank back home.