Wife-in-Law

by Haywood Smith

  I knew they probably had to report suspicious injuries, but this one was a slam dunk. “The teacher did it,” I volunteered in outrage. “First day of school, and look what happens.”

  The doctor let out a low whistle. “I’ll give you my name and information, in case you need to contact me in the future.”

  As in witness.

  Kat thanked him again.

  “I’ll go get that splint,” the doctor said. “Then you can take her to the orthopedist.” He left us alone.

  Amelia busied herself entertaining Zach and Emma. Meanwhile, Sada chanted idly as she inspected her bruised arm, “Child abuse, child abuse, child abuse, child abuse.”

  I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing.

  Indignant, Kat straightened. “And what’s so funny, might I ask?”

  “One hour,” I managed, overwhelmed by the twisted humor of the situation. “They’re only in school for one hour, and we’re talking lawsuit.” I couldn’t help myself. The tension and absurdity of the situation struck me as hysterical. “God help the teacher who gets them next,” I told her. “And God help us. One hour of kindergarten.”

  Sada exploded with laughter, setting off Amelia and the babies, none of whom got it, but all of whom could use a good laugh as much as I could.

  Kat tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it either. By the time the doctor got back, we were all weeping with hilarity.

  “I’d like a shot of whatever y’all are having,” he said, gently positioning Sada’s arm into the cast.

  “Hoo-hoo.” Kat wiped her eyes. “Trust me, you don’t want enny.”

  I blew my nose on a paper towel and wiped my eyes. “Katie bar the door,” I warned her. “We’ve got twelve more years to go.”

  Kat sighed with a wry smile. “Guess it’s Montessori for our Miss Sada.”

  I nodded. “A much better fit.”

  “Thank the good Lord for that trust fund,” Kat said. “What about Amelia?”

  Considering the girls’ first day of school, I realized that both of them would probably be better off in separate schools. “I’m thinking D’Youville Academy.” We didn’t have a trust fund, but there was no way she was going back to that public school.

  Amelia straightened, horrified. “But we don’t want to go to different schools!”

  Sada started crying. “Don’t separate us! I swear,” she hollered at the top of her lungs, “I’ll never take off my panties again.”

  “And I won’t bite the teacher,” Amelia howled, joining in and setting off the babies.

  The doctor glanced at the guilty parties in surprise, then shot us a look of sympathy. “Looks like you two ladies have got your hands full.”

  “You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie,” Kat said. She comforted Sada. “You’ll still be best friends, every day when you get home from school.” Sada’s tears abated.

  Kat stood. “Come on, let’s get that arm fixed. Then I’m takin’ everybody to Shoney’s, my treat.”

  And we were off to the orthopedist.

  We didn’t sue. The teacher wrote a letter of apology, and Kat went to talk to her, coming home with the woman’s solemn vow that she would never get physical with a student again. “After all,” Kat said, “people make mistakes. Long as she learns from this one, I’m happy.”

  The girls carried on something fierce about being separated at first, but they gradually got used to it, and their new schools were definitely what the doctor ordered.

  But they still managed to get into plenty of trouble after hours, sneaking off to cruise for boys at Lenox Square. Putting on heavy makeup in sixth grade after we dropped them off at school. Trying pot—out of Zach’s secret stash. And cigarettes—out of Kat’s. The list of infractions was endless, but never dire—and never Amelia’s idea.

  By some miracle, though, they escaped juvenile detention and lived to graduate high school. In Sada’s case, by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin. That’s when Sada decided to live la vida loca. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Fifteen

  March 7, 2004

  We’d all been reading about the whole Enron thing, but I was as shocked as anybody when I went to get the morning paper and opened it to see that Arthur Andersen had been indicted for fraud and tax evasion.

  I stopped in the middle of the driveway and let out a strangled yelp.

  Dear God. The goose that laid our golden egg was under arrest!

  What if Greg lost his job? Ohmygod.

  He was eligible to retire. If the company bellied up, would he lose his pension?

  How would we manage? (I didn’t know about his condo developments in the Caymans till long after that. Or the racehorses. Or the stocks.)

  Visions of homelessness and destitution chased me back into the house to call Greg on his cell phone.

  He answered with an annoyed, “I really don’t have time to talk right now, Betsy.”

  “Greg, the paper—”

  “This whole thing is politically motivated,” he recited briskly, like a presidential press secretary facing reporters after the chief of staff got caught having sex with a hooker in the Oval Office. “The company is fine.”

  Fine, with its founder indicted for corporate fraud?

  Even I didn’t buy that.

  My insecurities swelled as big, and as heavy, as Stone Mountain.

  Greg had grown increasingly distant in the past few years, but I’d assumed that was normal. Relationships cycle, and he had a lot on his shoulders at work. The higher he went in the company, the closer to his vest he played it. And the longer hours he worked. After getting the top job in the Atlanta branch two years before, he’d begun to sleep over on the sofa in his corner office several times a week, but I hadn’t complained. I’d actually felt sorry for him. And I’d believed him when he told me they had so much business he couldn’t get it all done in a day.

  When one gin and tonic turned to two or three whenever he finally did get home, I didn’t comment, or say anything when he came to bed so snockered that sex was nothing but a dim memory. I just had his drink and supper ready when he did come home, massaged his shoulders while he was in his chair, and made sure he always found peace and refuge at our house. But I needed to know if our home was threatened.

  “Greg, this is me, your wife, not a reporter,” I pleaded. “Please talk to me. I deserve the truth. What does this mean for us?”

  He covered the receiver, and I heard him bark muffled instructions to somebody. When he came back on, he practically shouted, “I told you, I’m too busy to talk now.”

  He’d told me before we married that he had a bad temper, but I’d never seen it. Till then, when I finally stuck up for myself. “Don’t you dare hang up on me,” I insisted. “I deserve the truth.”

  I looked at the headline again, and my blood ran cold. Indicted.

  Could Greg be indicted too? His nickname at work was “the shark.” He’d always been so ambitious, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d cut corners to get ahead.

  “Talk to me!” I all but yelled back.

  I heard a chair scrape back, then the sound of footsteps, followed by a door opening, then closing. His words slightly deadened by close quarters, Greg turned into somebody else and started yelling a string of profanity the likes of which I had never heard, punctuated by the sound of breaking glass, crashing metal, and papers flying.

  Oh no, oh no, oh no! Mustn’t make him mad, my inner child scolded.

  When Greg ran out of breath from cussing, he panted hoarsely a few times, then tried to yell again, but his voice was broken by strain. “How will this affect us?” he accused. “Are you a moron? An idiot? How the hell do you expect me to know that? I’m up to my ass in Feds, here, trying to keep this office afloat! And now I’ve just trashed my storeroom, thanks to you!” He paused briefly, but I was too stunned by his transformation to say anything, so he added, “I could end up in jail, that’s what could happen!”

  Jail. Would I end up homeless and destitute, ma
rried to a jailbird?

  He inhaled deeply, collecting himself. “Or I could get another job. Or keep running the Atlanta office.” He was calmer, but his voice was still harsh. “Which I know you would prefer, since all you care about is having nice things, never mind what rules I had to break to get them.”

  That one sent a javelin straight through my heart, because it was true.

  I never should have confronted him, with all that was going on. “I’m sorry,” I said. Sorry, sorry, sorry. “I didn’t mean to make you so angry. Of course you’re under a terrible strain. Please forgive me.”

  “Don’t ever ask me about this again,” he said, and hung up on me.

  It took me a while to regain my equilibrium, hampered by an inner voice that said I’d ruined everything.

  I needed to talk to Kat, but decided not to tell her about Greg’s lapse—after all, he was under all that pressure, and it was the only time he’d ever done it.

  Such things should be private.

  I dialed her number, and she answered with a cautious, subdued, “Hey.”

  “Have you seen the paper?”

  “Yeah. Zach showed me before he went to work. So what does this mean for Greg?”

  Ironic, that she could ask me, but I couldn’t ask Greg without provoking the Hulk.

  “I have no idea,” I lied. “I’m hyperventilating, here. I called him, but he said he couldn’t talk. All he told me was that this was all politically motivated, and the firm was fine, but it sounded like a sound bite from the PR department. He’s under a huge amount of pressure.” I sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if he’ll ever tell me the truth.”

  After a pause, Kat said, “Well, sugar, good for you for finally waking up and smelling the coffee. I was beginning to wonder if you ever would.”

  My frustration found a safe target. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I just mean that you never look past the surface with Greg, and it may come back to bite you in the ass.”

  “Thanks a lot for your support,” I snapped.

  “Oh, honey, you know you have that,” Kat said, contrite. “I didn’t mean to upset you when you’re down. This is all gonna be okay. Greg’s a whiz with money. He’s helped me and Zach make some really good investments, so I know he’s done well for y’all.”

  An excellent point, though I had no idea how much money we really had. That was Greg’s department. All I knew was that he had three million dollars of life insurance, he’d made trusts and college funds for the girls, and I had an extra ten thousand dollars in my household account for unforeseen emergencies.

  It occurred to me that I probably should get the particulars about our finances, but this was hardly the time to rock the boat.

  Kat went on. “No matter what happens to the company, I’m sure y’all are well fixed.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling better. “I needed to hear that.”

  “And I’m sure things at Andersen are a zoo right now, so that’s why he couldn’t talk to you.”

  Another good point.

  “It’ll probably get worse before it gets better,” she cautioned, “but I’m sure y’all will be okay, regardless.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think I can breathe again.”

  Rule number one for best friends: even when the bombs are dropping, say it’s going to be okay.

  Greg didn’t come home that night. Or the next. But when he did, I made him welcome and fed him his favorite foods.

  Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.

  I truly intended to find out where we stood financially—I mean, what if something happened to him? I’d need to know. But when I mustered up the courage to ask Greg, after his second gin and tonic, he frowned and said everything was all arranged, that the firm would handle everything, so I shouldn’t worry. The girls and I would be well provided for.

  I meant to talk to him about it again, but he was always so harried when he got home, the opportunity never came up. He did confirm what Kat had said: we were fine, financially, no matter what happened. He even went so far as to tell me he’d sold off most of his company stock years ago and invested in managed portfolios, but that was as much as he was willing to discuss. So I swatted down my fears and hoped for the best.

  Even after Andersen was convicted, and the company was sold off by divisions, Greg got a golden parachute and continued to do consulting work. He hired his secretary from Andersen, which I thought was very kind, considering she’d lost her job. So life at 3278 Eden Lake Court remained the way it had been, with both of us pretending everything was perfect, even though we knew better.

  The second Sunday in June, 2004

  Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, but I can honestly say that the day Kat and I got back from a long weekend at Royal Palms Spa Arizona, I was completely clueless about what I’d find—or didn’t, to be more accurate.

  Greg had been so sweet before we left. He’d actually begun to see me again, and I thought the last few years of distance between us had turned the corner back toward closeness. He’d told me I deserved a treat, then given me the plane tickets for Kat and me to go to the spa. When I told Kat, she said Greg had been planning this for weeks, which made me feel really special. So off we’d gone to take advantage of three days of pampering, though Kat still stubbornly refused to get a makeover.

  I should have suspected that something was up, but as always, I took Greg at his word.

  Zach picked us up at the airport, saying Greg was out of town. By the time we got to Eden Lake Court, I was ready for some rest.

  Zach drove up my driveway, then left Kat in the car while he brought my things inside for me.

  I turned, one hand grasping the edge of the front door. “Thanks, sweetie.” Seeing him in the afternoon light, I realized he looked exhausted. “Are you okay? You look whipped.”

  He sighed heavily. “Frankly, I am. Kat keeps giving me vitamins, but I think it’s just my age. We’re not spring chickens anymore.”

  Zach was violently allergic to needles, and doctors. “Maybe you ought to see somebody,” I suggested. He really did look awful. “It could be something really simple, blood pressure or anemia. One pill, and you’re good as new.”

  “Start taking pills, and they’ll just give you more,” he grumbled, then left with, “Call if you need anything. And tell Greg, thanks again for including Kat.”

  I watched him head down the walk toward the car. “Maybe we ought to send you to a spa.”

  Zach shook his head with a wry grin.

  I closed the door and locked it, then started for the bedroom with my carry-on before I saw the envelope on the table in the foyer. “Betsy,” it said in Greg’s impeccable handwriting.

  Puzzled, I opened it and read:

  Betsy—the last thing in the world I want is to hurt you, but the time has come for honesty. We both know our marriage has long been stale. It’s my fault. I admit it. I put so much of myself into my work, I didn’t have time for you.

  The paper started to shake as the words sank in. I steadied it with both hands.

  I never meant for this to happen. Melissa and I were just coworkers for so long. But when she came to work for me, everything changed. We’d been through so much together, spent so much time together, that we’d become halves of the same whole. And suddenly, there was love. Neither one of us planned it.

  He was leaving me for his secretary? That officious little bitch? He couldn’t be more original than that?

  I dropped to my knees on the hard stone tiles, but didn’t feel it. The last decade flashed past me, and I realized what a fool I’d been. Stupid, stupid, stupid! No wonder he’d left me. I was an idiot. It was right there in front of me all along, and I was too stupid to see it.

  Gullible!

  Kat was right! I should have wised up!

  Nausea gripped me.

  I didn’t want to see what Greg had written next, but couldn’t help myself, twisting the knife that had just slashed a hole in my soul.

&nb
sp; I’ve filed for divorce, but I don’t want you to worry. I’m giving you the house and a generous settlement, and a hundred thousand a year in alimony till you die or remarry. You’ll also get my pension, if it’s still there after all the economy’s been through. I want to be fair about this.

  He must be a lot richer than I’d ever imagined, offering to buy me off with that! God only knew what he’d squirreled away to keep it from me. After all, he’d probably been practicing fraud all along.

  You’ve been a devoted wife, and don’t deserve to suffer in any way for what I’ve done.

  Don’t deserve to suffer? The man had been cheating on me, abusing my trust, for years, and just abandoned me, but he didn’t think I deserved to suffer?

  Time suspended, and the earth stopped turning on its axis. I heard wheezing, but didn’t realize it was coming from me.

  For the sake of the girls, I’m hoping we can get through this as amicably as possible.

  That bastard, using our daughters to try to keep me in line! Had he even considered what this was going to do to them, having their father desert their mother for another woman? What kind of example was that?

  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact James Travis—

  The sharkiest divorce lawyer in Buckhead! So much for being amicable.

  He’s handling this for me. As I said, I’m hoping we can get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. Again, I am so sorry. Greg

  Damn right, he was sorry.

  All the frustration, fear, and anger I’d suppressed since I’d married him exploded inside me like an atomic bomb, rising, red and lethal, obliterating everything else.

  For the first time since I was five, I had an asthma attack.

  Phone!