Wife-in-Law

by Haywood Smith

I didn’t dial 911, I dialed Kat.

  When she answered, I wheezed out as loud as I could manage, “Who’s the second-best divorce lawyer in Atlanta? Greg just hired James Travis so he could divorce me and marry his secretary!”

  “Oh, Betsy,” she comforted.

  “I can’t breathe.” I burst into tears. “I want to kill him!” I gasped for air. “Never mind the lawyer. I want a hit man! Tell Zach I need a hit man.”

  “I’ll be right over!” Kat said. “Don’t do anything till I get there!”

  The line went dead, and I stood there sobbing, gripping the cordless phone. Then I threw up. Fortunately, the garbage can was close by.

  My breath coming in high, tight squeaks, I heard Kat’s key in the door, then it burst open as she ran inside with a panicked, “Betsy? Where are you?”

  “In here,” I managed, starting to see stars.

  She took one look at me and blanched. “Oh, Lord.” She pulled the phone from my hand and dialed 911, then shoved me toward my room. “I need an ambulance at 3278 Eden Lake Court,” she said to the dispatcher who answered. “Asthma attack. Hurry. She’s about to pass out!” We went by one of Greg’s clean socks in the middle of the carpet as she steered me into the bathroom. “I’m going to put her in the bathroom with steam till they get here,” Kat told the dispatcher. “The front door’s wide open. Tell them to come in.”

  Greg’s closet in the master bath was open, and empty.

  My chest tightened even harder.

  “Stay with me,” Kat ordered, urging me into the enormous shower Greg had insisted we put in when we’d added a new master suite and bath ten years before. She took me to the marble shelf in back. “Okay. Lie on your right side. Or is it the left?” Not waiting for an answer, she pulled off our shoes and set them out on the edge of the Jacuzzi, along with the phone, then closed us in and turned on the hot water. Thanks to the recirculator on our system, it came out scalding right away.

  “Ouch!” I squeaked as a few stray drops hit me.

  Kat adjusted the shower head away from us and added a little cold. “Sorry. Just stay on your side and try to breathe easily. The steam will help.”

  I nodded and closed my eyes.

  I heard the glass door open and looked to see Kat race out for a couple of towels. Back inside, she rolled them into a makeshift pillow. “Here. Put this under your head.” She studied me with barely concealed panic. “Let me know if the steam helps.”

  The air was thick with hot vapor, and I began to breathe just a little easier. “Better.”

  I heard an approaching siren, then the phone rang. “Don’t answer,” I said, but Kat just told me to sit tight and keep breathing long, slow breaths, then went for the phone.

  “Callisons’ residence,” she said in her broad accent, accenting the last syllable. “Oh, hi, ’Melia.” She shot me a worried glance. “She’s kinda busy right now. Kin she call you back?”

  “Fire department!” a male voice shouted from the foyer.

  Kat stuck her head out of the bathroom door. “We’re back here, in the bathroom!” Then she said into the phone, “No, honey, the bathroom idn’t on fire. No, no, no. Yer mama just had a little asthma, so I called 911. Might as well git some use out of all that tax money, you know. But she’s doin’ okay.” She pointed me out as the paramedics entered. “Don’t you worry. The paramedics are here and she’s gonna be just fine.”

  It wasn’t until the two men came in and turned off the shower that I realized my good white linen slacks and silk shirt had gone transparent, showing my pink panties and matching bra, and what was under them. But I was so glad help had arrived, I didn’t care.

  “Hi, Mrs. Callison,” one of them said as he dropped his bag, then bent to check my eyes and my carotid pulse. “Do you have any drug allergies?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Have you ever had an asthma attack before?”

  Words wouldn’t come out, so I raised five fingers.

  “Five?”

  I shook my head again, placing one hand at the height of a child and showing five fingers with the other.

  “Oh. When you were five?”

  I nodded, feeling really dizzy.

  “Let’s get you some oxygen, first.”

  He put a mask on me while his partner asked Kat, “What brought this on? Did she eat something she was allergic to?”

  I tried to tell them, but nothing came out.

  “No,” Kat said for me. “She just had a shock.” I heard Amelia’s response to that all the way from where Kat was standing, which prompted Kat to respond, “Honey, I’ve gotta go. Yer mama’s gonna be just fine, but I need to talk to the paramedics.” She frowned in frustration. “Well, she cain’t talk to you right now. She’s got a little oxygen goin’ there, which is a good thing. I’ll call you back in a minnit.”

  Amelia wasn’t letting her off that easy. Kat scowled. “Now, don’t you go gittin’ all upset, or you’ll have a spell like yer mama.” She shook her head. “All right, I won’t hang up. Just hold on a second while I talk to these people.”

  Kat set the phone on the edge of the tub, then stuck her head into the shower as the paramedics took my pulse and blood pressure. Lowering her voice so Amelia couldn’t hear, she told them what had happened—in way too much detail to suit me. I didn’t want my shame bandied about at the firehouse.

  I lifted the face mask and stopped her with a high-pitched, “Kat! Hush!”

  “Ooo, sorry,” she said in her regular voice, which echoed in the tiled space. “Yer husband just dumped you. I thought they needed to know how serious this is.”

  Amelia’s voice squawked from the phone.

  Perfect.

  “I got upset,” I forced out. “End of story.” Now that the cat was out of the bag.

  My chest got tighter, so I replaced the mask and tried to inhale, but couldn’t do a very good job of it. Glaring at Kat, I pointed to the phone, and she went over to start damage control, thanks to her big mouth. Now Amelia knew, but I didn’t have it in me to reassure her. I couldn’t even reassure myself.

  The paramedic looked at the readouts on his medical gizmo and frowned. “Try to relax, Mrs. Callison. Your oxygen levels are low, so I’m going to give you something to ease your breathing.” I nodded as he rolled up my sleeve and swabbed my arm. “This will hold you till we get to the emergency room.” He shot a look to his partner, who went for the stretcher.

  Kat followed him with the phone, still trying to appease Amelia.

  My groan came out like the sound of a mouse fart.

  Devastated by Greg’s loss and my own complicity, I lay back down on the bench and wished that I could die.

  I didn’t. Forty minutes later, I was sitting up in the emergency room, breathing some kind of mist from an inhaler for the second time. The asthma was gone, but the doctor wouldn’t let me go till I finished the second treatment. When he finally came in to release me, he asked, “Do you need anything to help you sleep? Sometimes the steroids and adrenaline make it hard for people to sleep.”

  “I have some Ambien at home, for trips.”

  He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I know this has been a really hard day, but don’t take more than ten milligrams. We don’t want anything to depress your respiration.”

  “Okay.” I pushed back the sheet. Fortunately, my clothes had dried enough to conceal my underwear. But when I swung my feet over the edge, I looked at my bare toes in consternation.

  Shoes. I had no shoes.

  The doctor reached into a drawer and handed me one of those pairs of beige socks with white rubber herringbones on both sides. “Here. Take these. A hospital is not a safe place to go barefoot.”

  “Thanks.” I put them on, then headed for the waiting room. Kat dropped the tattered magazine she’d been reading and made a beeline for me. “You look a thousand percent better than you did when we came in here.” She put her arm around me. “Come on. Let’s get you home.” We headed outside into the warm dusk
. “It’s time for this day to be over, so you can file it away and move on.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was talk about what had happened, but I asked anyway. “Did you get Amelia calmed down?”

  Kat’s mouth skewed down on the right. “Pretty much.”

  Meaning, no. “How much does she know?”

  Kat sighed as she got to her hybrid Prius. “Well, she heard me tell the paramedics Greg had left you.” She fished her car keys from her ragbag of a purse. “I’m really sorry about that.”

  “You’re forgiven,” I said dully. “She was going to find out, anyway, I guess.” Frankly, I was glad I hadn’t had to be the one to tell her. “Emma,” I thought aloud.

  “Don’t worry about Emma. Amelia said she’d tell her.” Kat opened the passenger door for me. “Amelia was pretty upset.”

  “Amelia gets ‘pretty upset’ when she runs out of orange juice.” I slid into the seat and laid my head back against the headrest, closing my eyes. “Lord knows how this must feel. Poor baby.”

  “She’ll get over it, and so will you.” Kat closed my door, then walked around and got into the driver’s seat. She started the engine. “Buckle up.”

  “Why? I’d rather throw myself out on the expressway at seventy miles an hour,” I said as I obliged.

  Between the asthma and the treatments, the paper-cut sharpness of Greg’s desertion had subsided to a dull, relentless throb. Then a fresh stab of self-pity surfaced abruptly, bringing the threat of tears. “Oh, Kat. What am I going to do without him?”

  Kat scowled, gripping the steering wheel. “I read the note. You’re going to take what that cheatin’, sorry-assed husband of yours offered you and have a great life, that’s what you’re gonna do.”

  I stared out the window at the lights that shone from the buildings and houses we passed in the darkness. I didn’t want Greg back if he didn’t want me. What I wanted was for things to be the way they had been in the beginning.

  But that wasn’t possible. The truth had shattered the illusion I’d created about Greg and my marriage, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.

  They say the biggest lies we ever tell are the ones we tell ourselves, and I’d done it up brown. Looking back, I finally saw my life for what it was, and it wasn’t anything to be proud of.

  Do over, do over, do over, my inner child wailed.

  But life doesn’t work that way. I’d been the perfect wife, and what good had it done me? Greg had taken me for granted, then dumped me.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.

  Would it have changed anything if I’d been brilliant and dynamic and challenging?

  Experience said no.

  Men leave. My father had left, but he’d had reason; he couldn’t stand Mama’s hoarding and craziness. So I’d done my best to make sure Greg didn’t have a reason to desert me, but he’d left me anyway.

  I wondered how long it would be before Zach left Kat, but felt disloyal just thinking it.

  Greg shouldn’t get away with this so easily. “I think he’s hidden a lot of money,” I told Kat. “Georgia has no-fault divorce. Half of everything is legally mine.”

  Kat exhaled. “Oh, honey.” By the light of the dashboard, her freckled face mirrored the resignation in her voice. “He probably has millions, but you and I both know Greg’s too smart to hide it where anybody could find it.” She took a left onto Hammond Drive. “Take what you can get. You’ll be sitting pretty. You can go to college, if you want, or start a new business, or just sit on your ass and collect the checks. But you don’t have to figure that out now.” She turned in at our subdivision. “All you have to do now is go home, take a couple of sleeping pills, and go to sleep. I’ll stay with you, in case you need anything.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t want to be alone. “I’ve spent twice as much time at home without Greg than with him,” I mused aloud. “So why does the house suddenly seem so empty?”

  “Give it time, sweetie.” She turned onto Eden Lake Court.

  When Zach saw us, he got up from his chair on Kat’s porch and headed over at a lope. He was waiting to let me out when Kat pulled up at my walk.

  “I sure am glad you’re okay.” He opened the door and leaned in for a hug. “Come here, sugar. Let me carry you.”

  “I can walk,” I grumbled, but he scooped me up into his strong arms anyway, with only a slight stagger as he gained his balance.

  “Put me down. I’m fine, really.”

  “I know you can walk,” he told me. “I just want to give you something to hold on to for a little bit.”

  That did it. I started crying again and curled against him. “Oh, Zach.”

  Halfway to the door, he staggered slightly again.

  “Put me down,” I said, still crying. “I mean it. I don’t want to give you a hernia.”

  “Oh, hush,” he said, holding on tight. “I lift three hundred at the weight room all the time.”

  It felt so good to have the reassurance of his arms around me, I gave in. “This is the worst day of my life, right up there with the one when my daddy left. How could I be so blind?” I said into his neck. “Greg must have been sleeping with her for years. All those ‘nights at the office,’ he was with her.”

  “You want me to have the son of a bitch arrested?” Zach asked grimly as Kat let us inside. “I can have him arrested. Put him in a lockup where they’ll screw him over the way he screwed you. See how he likes that.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Oh, right. What if I said yes?”

  Zach lowered me to my hospital sockies and looked me in the eye. “I would do it,” he said, and I believed him, which helped a little.

  “He’s too smart to leave any evidence.” I shook my head, thinking of their tennis-only friendship. “What would you charge him with? Felony foot fault?”

  Zach hugged me to him, patting my back, and Kat joined in. “I’ve played my last game of tennis with Greg,” he said. “This is a deal breaker.”

  It felt good to hear Zach’s loyalty for me, but he was Greg’s only real friend, and vice versa. Greg had ruined that too.

  I pulled free. “You two have been friends for so many years.”

  “Greg’s a fool,” Zach said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to him. Mark my words, he’ll come to his senses one day. Until he does, I don’t want any part of him.”

  Kat patted his shoulder. “Good for you, honey. Good for you.”

  Suddenly I felt so tired I could hardly stand. “Thanks. On that note, I think I’ll lie down.”

  Kat gave Zach a peck. “I’m gonna stay over, if that’s okay with you.” She dropped her voice, but I heard her murmur, “We can finish what we started when I get home.”

  Zach pinched her butt, then headed out. “Call me if you need me.” He hollered in my direction, “And call me if you want him locked up. Any time, day or night.”

  “Thanks,” I hollered after him, then waited till the door closed to start shucking off my clothes. I never wanted to see them again, especially those wretched socks.

  Kat got my gown from its hook on the back of the bathroom door. “Here. I’ll get you some of that eco-wretched bottled water from the kitchen.” She took the disposable bottles personally, in spite of the fact that I recycled them.

  I stripped to the skin, tossing my clothes into the trash can, then put on my gown and crawled into bed. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving me deflated, but I decided to take the Ambien, anyway. With any luck, I’d sleep through the next three months.

  The pills were in the top drawer of my bedside table, right where I’d left them when I got home from taking the girls to Europe three years before.

  Greg had stayed home. With her. And I’d thought he was being so sweet, sending us first class, for two weeks.

  God, would everything be tarnished by this awful truth?

  I poured two pills into my palm, then lay back. The smell of him was still there, on hi
s pillow. I threw it across the room, narrowly missing Kat.

  “That’s good, honey. Git it out.” She sat on the edge of the bed and proffered the water. “Here.” Seeing the pill bottle and my closed hand, she narrowed her eyes. “How many of them did you git? Lemme see.”

  I sat up and showed her. “Two five-milligrams. Just what the doctor ordered.” I threw them into my mouth, then chased them with a slug of cold, sweet water.

  “Just checkin’,” Kat said. “Yer not thinkin’ about doin’ anything crazy, are ya? ’Cause trust me, sweetie, this is gonna be hard enough on the girls without you doin’ something crazy.”

  “I’m not going to do anything crazy.” I lay back, closing my eyes. “I’m too tired and too miserable to do anything but sleep.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I groaned out, freshly horrified. “Mama.”

  The thought of dealing with her reaction was more than I could stand.

  “Don’t you fret one minnit about yer mama. I’ll call and tell her, first thing in the morning.” Thank God. “We’ll have a little ‘come to Jesus’ meetin’ about her leavin’ you alone fer a while. Where’s yer cell phone?”

  “In my purse.”

  “I’ll answer it fer you till you git ready to deal with things.” She started to get up.

  I grabbed her forearm. “Thanks. I don’t know how I could get through this without you.”

  “I’m here, as long as you need me.” Kat stroked my hair with one hand, palming the pills with her other. “Yer gonna be okay, sweetie. Okay. Just give it time.”

  I pretended I didn’t see her take the pills. “Thanks.”

  She turned off my bedside light, then went into the bathroom and closed the door. I heard her quietly cleaning up, then blessed oblivion overtook me.

  Kat was right.

  I took what I could get, and I survived. And she was with me all the way.

  I don’t remember how long it was before I first woke up without thinking about what had happened, but the day did come. Followed by a whole day without thinking about it. And best of all, the day when my dreams were finally free of the past.

  Thanks to Kat, a year later I was whole and healthier than I had ever been.