by Mary Kubica
receiving line. She is gaunt.
“This will ruin—” Karen begins, but before she can finish,
a woman sweeps in through the door, making her way toward
Jeffrey. As she does, the smile disappears from his face.
“Oh,” I hear Karen say under her breath. “Oh my. Susan.
Look who’s here.”
We all look. The woman is tall like Jeffrey. She’s thin, dressed
shamelessly in red while nearly everyone else in the room is in
dark or muted tones. Her hair is long and dark. It falls down her
back over a red top that’s floral and drapey and has a notched
neckline that reveals a hint of cleavage. Her pants are tight. Over her arm hangs a winter coat. She stops just short of Jeffrey and
says something to him. He attempts to take her by the arm, to
lead her from the room, but she’ll have no part of that. She pulls
sharply back. He leans into her, says something quietly. She puts
her hands on her hips, takes on a defensive posture. Pouts.
“Who’s that?” I ask, unable to take my eyes off the woman.
They tell me. This is Courtney. Jeffrey’s first wife.
“I can’t believe that she would show up here of all places,”
Susan says.
“Maybe she just wanted to pay her respects,” Karen suggests.
Susan harrumphs. “Highly doubtful.”
“I take it the marriage didn’t end on friendly terms,” I say,
though it doesn’t need to be said. What marriage ends amicably?
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The ladies exchange a look before they tell me. “I thought
it was common knowledge,” Susan says. “I thought everyone
knew.”
“Knew what?” I ask and they shift seats, getting rid of the
empty one in between, and tell me how Jeffrey was married to
Courtney when he and Morgan met. That their marriage started
as an affair. Morgan was his mistress, they confess, whispering
that word, mistress, as if it’s dirty. A bad word. Jeffrey and Morgan worked together; she was his administrative assistant. His
secretary, as cliché as that sounds. “They met, they fell in love,”
Susan says.
The way Morgan’s mother told it to them, Jeffrey and his
then-wife, Courtney, had been at each other’s throats for a long
time. Morgan wasn’t the one to break up their marriage. It was
already broken. Their marriage had always been volatile: two
like-minded people who constantly clashed. What Morgan told
her in the early days of their affair was that Jeffrey and Court-
ney could both be stubborn and hotheaded. Overwhelmingly
type A. Morgan’s demeanor, on the other hand, was the better
fit for Jeffrey.
I turn back to Jeffrey and his ex. The exchange is heated and
brief. She says something curt, then turns and leaves.
I think that’s it then. That’s all.
I watch as Jeffrey turns to the next in line. He forces a smile
and reaches out his hand.
The ladies beside me go back to their gossip. I listen in, but
my eyes stay on Jeffrey. Susan and Karen are talking about Mor-
gan and Jeffrey. About their marriage. True love, I hear, though
from the expression on his face—detached, dispassionate—I
don’t see it. But maybe this is a form of self-preservation. He’ll
cry later, in private, once the rest of us are gone.
“There’s no stopping true love,” Karen says.
A thought runs through my mind just then. There is one
way to stop it.
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MARY KUBICA
Susan asks if anyone wants more cookies. Karen says yes. Susan
leaves and returns with a plate of them for us to share. They re-
turn to their conversation about Patty, decide to start up a meal
train for her to be sure she eats. If no one is cooking for her,
it’s liable, in her grief, that Patty won’t eat. This worries them.
Karen thinks aloud about what she’ll make. She has a potpie
recipe she’s been wanting to try, but she also knows that Patty
is quite keen on lasagna.
Only I am still watching as Jeffrey, a minute later, excuses
himself and slips from the room.
I push my chair back and stand. The legs of the chair skid
across the floor and the ladies look sharply at me, surprised by
my sudden movement.
“Any idea where the restroom is?” I ask, incanting, “Nature
calls.” Karen tells me.
The hallway is relatively quiet. Though not a large building
by any means, there are a handful of halls, which lessen in peo-
ple the further I go. I turn left and right, the halls becoming
vacant before I come to a dead end. I find myself backtracking
to where I began.
The lobby, when I reach it, is empty. Everyone is inside the
fellowship hall.
There are two doors before me. One for the sanctuary, and
one to go outside.
I draw open the doors to the sanctuary by an inch or two,
just enough to see inside. The sanctuary is small, poorly lit, cast in shadows. The only light comes from the four stained glass
windows on either side of the room. A cross hangs above the
pulpit, looking out at the columns of rigid pews.
I think that the sanctuary is empty. I don’t see them at first.
I’m about to leave, thinking they’re outside, considering the pos-
sibility that they’re not together at all. That she’s left the building and he’s in the restroom.
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But then, it’s the movement I see. Her hands raise up sharply
as she shoves him.
They’re tucked in the far corner of the room. Courtney has
Jeffrey backed against a wall. He reaches out to stroke her hair,
but she pushes him away again, hard enough that this time, he
cradles his hand against himself as if injured.
The ex-wife slaps Jeffrey across the face just then. I flinch,
drawing back from the doorway like I’m the one who’s been hit.
His head turns sharply to the right, then comes back to center.
I hold my breath and it’s only because she raises her voice then
that I hear her, these words louder than all the rest. “I’m not
sorry for what I did,” she confesses. “She took everything from
me, Jeff. Every damn thing, and she left me with nothing. You
can’t blame me for trying to take back what’s mine.”
She waits a beat before she adds on, “I’m not sorry she’s dead.”
Jeffrey grabs a hold of her wrist. Their eyes bore into each
other. Their mouths move, but they’re quiet now, voices muted.
I can’t hear what they say. But I can imagine, and what I imag-
ine is hateful and barbed.
I take a careful step into the room. I hold my breath, sharpen
my focus, try desperately to hone in on what they say. At first, I
just barely make out phrases like won’t tell and never know. A fan has kicked on in the room. Their voices are muted by the sound
of blowing air. It does
n’t go on long, thirty seconds maybe.
Thirty seconds of the conversation I miss. But then the fan qui-
ets down, and their voices rise. Their words come back to me.
“What you did,” he breathes out, shaking his head.
“I wasn’t thinking,” she admits. “My temper got the best of
me, Jeff. I was angry,” she says. “You can’t blame me for being
angry.”
She’s crying now, but it’s more whimpering than anything,
a soft cry that produces no tears. It’s manipulative. She’s trying
to elicit sympathy.
I can’t tear my eyes away.
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MARY KUBICA
He’s quiet for a minute. They’re both quiet.
He says to her, voice light as a feather, “I’ve always hated to
see you cry.”
He softens. They both do.
He strokes her hair for a second time. This time, she leans
in to his touch. She doesn’t push him away. She steps closer to
him. His arms encircle the small of her back. He draws her in
to him. She wraps her arms around his neck, her head falling to
his shoulder. For an instant, she’s demure. They stand at nearly
the same height. I can’t help but watch as they embrace. Be-
cause what was savage and cutthroat only seconds ago, is now
somehow strangely sweet.
The ping of my phone startles me. I pull sharply back, drop-
ping the door. It clicks loudly shut and for a split second, my
knees lock. A deer in headlights.
I hear movement on the other side of the sanctuary door.
They’re coming.
I get a hold of myself.
I walk quickly through the double church doors and outside
into the bitter December day. When my feet reach the church
steps, I begin to run.
I can’t let Jeffrey or his ex-wife know it was me.
I dash for my car parked on the street. I open the door and
quickly get in, eyes locked on the church doors to see if anyone
has followed me out. I lock the car doors, grateful for the me-
chanical click that says I’m tucked safely inside.
Only then do I peer down at my phone screen.
It’s a text message from Joyce. I check the time on my phone.
It’s been over an hour since I left. Sixty-four minutes to be pre-
cise. Joyce is counting them all.
You’re late, she says. Your patients are waiting for you.
My eyes rise back up to the church doors to see Jeffrey Baines’s
ex-wife, not twenty seconds later, step circumspectly outside.
She looks left and then right before jogging down the church
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steps, pressing the plackets of a black-and-white houndstooth
coat together to stave off the cold.
My eyes follow her to her car, a red Jeep parked just down
the street. She tugs open the door and slides inside, slamming
the door shut behind herself.
I glance back at the church to see Jeffrey standing in the open
doorway, watching as she leaves.
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Sadie
There’s a cargo van in the drive when I get home that night. I
pull up beside it, park my car behind Will’s. I read the lettering
on the van, relieved Will is having the furnace replaced.
I go to the front door. The house is at first quiet when I step
in. The furnace is kept in the dingy basement. The men are
down there.
I see only Tate, at the coffee table with his Legos. He waves
at me and I step out of my shoes, leaving them by the door. I
go to Tate and give him a kiss on the head.
“How was your—” I begin, but before I get the rest of the
words out, the sound of angry voices rises through the floor-
boards to us, though I can’t make out what they say.
Tate and I exchange a look, and I tell him, “I’ll be right back.”
When he makes an effort to follow, I say firmly, “Stay here,”
not knowing what I’ll find in the basement when I go down.
I step carefully down the roughened wooden steps to see
what’s the matter. I’m nervous as I do, thinking only of some
strange man in our home. Some strange man who neither Will
nor I know.
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My next thought is: How do we know that this furnace man
is not a murderer? It doesn’t feel far-fetched, considering what’s
happened to Morgan.
The basement is sparse. The walls and the floor are concrete.
It’s harshly lit, only a series of bare bulbs.
As I approach the bottom step, I’m afraid of what I’ll find. The
furnace man hurting Will. My heartbeats pick up speed. I curse
myself for not having thought to bring something down to pro-
tect myself with. To protect Will. But my purse is still with me,
and inside it, my phone. That’s something. I could call for help
if need be. I reach inside, take a hold of my phone in my hand.
My feet reach the final step. I cautiously turn. It’s not as I
expect.
Will has the furnace man pressed into the basement wall.
He stands inches from him in a way that can only be viewed as
threatening. Will doesn’t hold him there—it’s not physical, not
yet—but from his proximity to the man, it’s apparent he can’t
leave. The man, in contrast, stands complaisantly back as Will
calls him a parasite, an opportunist. Will is red in the face be-
cause of it, the veins of his neck enlarged.
He steps somehow even closer to the man so that the man
flinches. Will stabs a finger into his chest. A second later he
grabs the man by the shirt collar and chides, “I should call the
BBB and report you. Just because you’re the only the only fuck-
ing furnace—”
“Will!” I say sternly then. It’s so unlike Will to be profane.
It’s also so unlike Will to be physical. I’ve never seen this side
of Will.
“Stop it, Will,” I demand, asking, “What in the world’s got-
ten into you?”
Will stands down, only because I am here. His eyes drop to
the ground. He doesn’t have to tell me what’s happened. I know
by context clues. This man is the only furnace man on the is-
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MARY KUBICA
land. Because of it, his prices are high. Will doesn’t like that.
But that’s no excuse.
As Will takes a step back, the furnace man quickly gathers
up his tools and flees.
We don’t speak, we don’t mention it again all night.
The next morning, I wrap the towel around myself as I step
from the shower. Will stands staring at his reflection in the
fogged-up mirror above the sink. The silver along the edge of
it is tarnished by time. The bathroom, like everything else in
the house, is suffocating a
nd small.
I stare at Will staring at his own reflection in the mirror. He
catches me. Our eyes meet. “How long do you think you’ll
keep ignoring me like this?” he asks, referring to our silence in
the aftermath of his blowup with the furnace man. In the end,
the man had left without doing a thing and so the house is still
uncomfortable. The furnace has begun to rattle, too. Soon it
will be dead.
I’ve been waiting for Will to apologize for his behavior or
at least acknowledge that it was wrong. I understand why he’d
have been upset. What I don’t understand is the overreaction.
Will’s response was over the top, completely irrational, and so
unlike Will.
But what Will is expecting, I think, is that I’ll just sweep it
under the rug and move on.
Instead I say, “I’ve never seen you like that, over a silly little
thing like the cost of a furnace.”
Will is visibly hurt by my words. He draws in a breath, says
woundedly, “You know how hard I try to take care of this fam-
ily, Sadie. This family means everything to me. I won’t let any-
one take advantage of us like that.”
When he says it like this, I see it differently. And soon I am
the one apologizing.
He does so much to care for us. I should only be thankful
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that Will had done his research, that he wasn’t willing to let
the furnace man price-gouge us like that. Will was protecting
our finances, our family. That’s money that could otherwise
be spent on groceries, on the kids’ college education funds. I’m
so grateful he had both the knowledge and the intrepidity to
protect it. If it’d been me, I would have unknowingly thrown
hundreds of dollars away.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “You’re absolutely right. I’m so
sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he says, and I can see in his demeanor that he for-
gives me. “Let’s just forget it happened,” and like that, it’s for-
gotten.
Will still doesn’t know that I went to the memorial service
yesterday. I can’t bring myself to tell him because he thought we
shouldn’t go. I don’t want him to be mad that I went.
But I can’t stop thinking about the strange exchange I wit-
nessed in the church sanctuary, between Jeffrey and his ex-wife.
I wish I could talk to Will about it, tell him what I saw.