Recipe for a Perfect Wife

by Karma Brown

  31

  Nellie

  Rose Caramels

  2½ cups sweet milk

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 teaspoons chopped dried rose petals

  ½ cup molasses

  1 cup granulated sugar

  Heat milk, vanilla, and rose petals in a small saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain petals and cool milk mixture. Then in separate saucepan boil molasses, sugar, and milk mixture for 15 to 20 minutes. Pour mixture into greased tin and cut into small squares once cooled. An excellent hostess gift!

  Richard had vomited into the front hedge only moments before he and Nellie got into the Studebaker. They were expected at the Goldmans’ in less than ten minutes, having already pushed things as late as possible due to Richard’s upset stomach. He seemed unsteady on his feet, too, and Nellie wasn’t sure he should even be driving. But when she suggested he lie down for a while—they could easily cancel—he insisted he was fine and told her to leave it be. A moment later he was doubled over, gagging into Nellie’s front garden shrub.

  “You obviously are not fine,” Nellie said, setting the bouquet of roses she’d cut and prepared for Kitty, along with the tin of rose caramels, on the stoop to rummage through her purse. She handed him a tissue to wipe his mouth, but he pushed it away. Slugging back some Pepto-Bismol he had tucked into his jacket pocket, he unwrapped a stick of gum and marched toward the car. But Nellie noticed he leaned heavily on the car’s door, pausing for a few breaths before opening it for her.

  “Why don’t I go alone? I’m sure they’ll understand you’re not well.” She had already tried to convince Richard, unsuccessfully, to call Dr. Johnson to see if he could make a house call.

  “Cool it, Nellie,” Richard said. “It’s probably something I ate. It will pass.” Nellie didn’t bother commenting how they’d eaten the same meals and her stomach was fine, understanding that would only incite him further. Richard Murdoch would not want to appear weak in front of their friends, especially Charles Goldman. “We are going. Together.” His limp voice belied his assurances.

  Richard hung his head out the window as he drove, hugging the curb in case he needed to pull over. Nellie had offered to drive, but he wouldn’t hear of it. A few minutes later they pulled up outside the Goldmans’ home and Richard leaned his head back, closing his eyes and breathing deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth. Fine droplets of sweat clustered near his hairline, outlining the dark widow’s peak.

  “Are you ready to go in?” Nellie asked.

  He didn’t answer, simply got out and came around to Nellie’s side to open her door. He offered his arm and she took it, though if anyone needed help, it was Richard. He swayed as they started up the Goldmans’ walkway, and Nellie tightened the muscles in her legs to counteract his wobbling.

  “We can leave whenever you like,” Nellie said. “I don’t mind.” In fact, she’d welcome it. Putting on the charade of things being well and good between them was unpleasant and arduous.

  “Enough, Nellie!” Richard’s tone was snappish. “And don’t you breathe a word of this to anyone tonight. Do you understand?”

  Richard rang the bell, and Kitty opened the door, dressed to the nines and wearing a bright coral lipstick that didn’t suit her coloring. “Nellie, Richard, welcome!”

  They were ushered inside, and Kitty commented on what a lovely idea the rose caramels were. (“Oh! You made them yourself? How fancy, though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth,” Kitty added.) She also initially fawned over the bundled yellow roses, though she soon dropped them onto the kitchen table without so much as a second glance. The yellow rose was a flower of friendship, and while Nellie doubted much could help Kitty become a more thoughtful friend, she was not one to doubt a bloom’s prophecy. Though, if she were being frank, a more suitable flower for tonight’s hostess might have been the narcissus, but they were harbingers of spring and so were long gone from the garden by now.

  After settling into the living room, Kitty fetched cocktails, and Nellie’s eyebrows rose when Richard accepted an old-fashioned, a grimace painting his sweaty, green-tinged face with his first sip. Stubborn bastard. She only hoped he was ill all over Kitty’s living room rug, which looked new and probably cost quite a lot—two details Kitty would share shortly, once all her guests had arrived and she had an audience.

  The mood was gay, the cocktails flowing, and Richard did perk up, though the gray pallor remained. No one but Nellie realized he wasn’t well, and as promised, she made no mention of it. She stuck with the women on one side of the room, discussing the next neighborhood-watch meeting and Kitty’s new rug and Martha’s baby boy, Bobby, who had been born a few days earlier.

  “She’s still the size of a ship,” Kitty exclaimed. “But the baby is quite sweet, even though I personally don’t care for the name Bobby. She’s going to have her hands full with the two of them, without a live-in girl. Better her than me!” Kitty laughed, and the other women joined in. Except for Nellie, who escaped with the excuse that she needed to powder her nose.

  When she came back to the living room, a shout erupted, Kitty especially gleeful, like she’d just received the best news. She squealed as she strode toward Nellie, who was unsure about what had transpired in the few minutes she’d been gone. Until she caught Richard’s eye and his triumphant smirk told her everything.

  “Nellie, you sly fox! Why didn’t you tell us?” Kitty grabbed her arms, pulled her into a hug. The other women gathered around and fussed over her, asking how she was feeling, if her ankles were swelling yet. The men pumped Richard’s hand, slapped him on the shoulder in congratulations. Nellie fumed but hid her anger behind a practiced smile. Richard had assured her they wouldn’t make the announcement tonight—Nellie had said she wanted to let the women know first, at their next meeting (though she had a different plan in mind) and he’d agreed to wait. But Nellie shouldn’t have been surprised. Richard would exert his control wherever he could.

  Soon the hubbub died down and they were seated for dinner, and Nellie found herself beside the widower Norman Woodrow, a sweet, quiet man whose wife, Kathleen, had died only six months earlier. Kathleen had been in their neighborhood-watch club and was president of the church knitting circle before she fell ill, the cancer taking her so suddenly she went from vision of health to deathbed skeleton in mere weeks.

  Nellie had always liked Kathleen—she was a good mother and friend, never gossiping about the other women or their husbands, and had boundless energy for church fund-raisers and bake sales. She also wore flatties exclusively, most assumed because she was quite tall, but she once confessed to Nellie she found heels excruciating and “life is too short for miserable shoes!” She had been quite right, especially about the life-being-too-short part.

  Nellie hadn’t seen Norman since the funeral but had heard he was keeping to himself, busy caring for their two young children with the help of Kathleen’s mother, who had moved in. She thought Norman looked well; better rested and not as grief-thin as the last time she had seen him.

  They chatted through the meal, and she found Norman to have a lovely sense of humor. She laughed at the few jokes he shared during the lulls in the larger group conversations and he seemed delighted by the attention. Richard, however, was displeased with Nellie’s interest in Norman, which only made her want to give him more. At one point, she put a hand on Norman’s arm, gushing about how wonderful it was that he was doing “so very well these days,” which was the moment Richard snapped.

  It was a quiet jealousy—no one else at the table would see it—but Nellie felt it rolling off him. She raised her eyes to Richard’s but didn’t remove her hand from Norman’s arm.

  “You’re making a fool of yourself,” Richard hissed. Kitty was clearing the dinner plates, and drinks were being refreshed, so Richard’s mumbled comment went mostly unnoticed. Except by Nellie, for whom it was intended. The other g
uests were focused on the iced chocolate cake Kitty presented, and even Norman, seated beside Nellie and certainly within range to hear what Richard had said, seemed distracted by the dessert’s pomp and circumstance.

  Nellie—her voice at full volume—calmly retorted, “It takes one to know one, Richard.” She picked up her dessert fork, lavished Kitty with an appreciative smile as the hostess set a piece of cake in front of her. “This looks absolutely delicious, Kitty.” In truth, it looked dry, had obviously been baked too long.

  “Why, thank you, Nellie. Coming from you, our master baker, that’s high praise!” She continued slicing and plating another piece. “It’s a new recipe from—”

  “Eleanor,” Richard said, interrupting Kitty. Everyone looked at him in surprise—Richard Murdoch had impeccable manners, would never be so rude at a party, nor speak to his wife in such a tone. “You would do well to be quiet. Now is not the time.” The other guests detected it then, the taut band of tension between husband and wife perilously close to snapping, and were perplexed. What on earth is going on with Richard and Nellie?

  “No, it isn’t.” Nellie licked the chocolate crumbs from her fork. “So perhaps you should be quiet, Richard.”

  A small gasp came from one of the women—Kitty? Judith?—Nellie wasn’t sure, but it sent a surge of power through her. She smiled at Kitty. “Dinner was excellent, as always.” She pushed back her chair and the men politely followed suit. Except for Richard, who was statue still in his seat. “But I’m sorry we have to be leaving now. I find myself exhausted.” She laid a hand to her stomach. “You all understand, surely.”

  Kitty was about to say something in response, but everyone had turned to Richard as a strange, choking noise erupted from his throat. His face was no longer pale but poppy red, as though he had been holding his breath for too long.

  “Richard? Are you quite well?” Kitty, seated at the head of the table and nearest to Richard, put a hand on his arm, which trembled violently against the tablecloth. She frowned at her husband. “Charles, perhaps you should take Richard outside for some air?”

  “Let’s take a walk, Dick.” Charles Goldman set his napkin on the table and came to stand behind Richard, who opened his mouth seemingly to respond. But it wasn’t a flurry of words that spewed forth—rather, it was a loud belch, followed by an ejection of the old-fashioned and Pepto-Bismol and the small amount of food he’d managed at dinner. As Richard’s stomach contents splattered across Kitty’s arm, covering the beautiful tablecloth and the remainder of the cake, everyone jumped back, gasping with shock at the frothy pink mess. Kitty looked as though she might faint, and for a moment no one knew quite what to do.

  Before Nellie endured the put-on role of caring wife, getting Richard cleaned up and into the car, she turned to Norman and said, “It was lovely talking with you tonight. I do hope we see each other again soon.” He nodded, though he remained startled by what had happened, much like the rest of the guests at the table. Nellie resisted the triumphant smile that threatened to betray her as she took in Richard’s livid, sick-covered face.

  32

  Don’t mope and cry because you are ill, and don’t get any fun; the man goes out to get all the fun, and your laugh comes in when he gets home again and tells you about it—some of it. As for being ill, women should never be ill.

  —“Advice to Wives,” The Isle of Man Times (October 12, 1895)

  Alice

  AUGUST 14, 2018

  Please, talk to me,” Alice said for what must have been the tenth time since they’d arrived home from the hospital an hour earlier. Nate didn’t respond. “So, what . . . are you planning to ignore me indefinitely?”

  He threw his phone onto the coffee table, hard enough that it slid off and to the ground. Alice reached over from her reclined position on the sofa to pick it up.

  “Stop,” Nate said, his voice taut with exhaustion and frustration. “Would you just fucking lie there and rest, please?”

  Chastened, Alice retreated to her prior position, a pillow tucked behind her head, a soft blanket covering the rest of her curled-up form. The balls of T-shirt fabric she’d woven into sections of her hair remained, and they pulled on her scalp with uncomfortable pressure.

  Nate had helped her settle in the living room, in part because she didn’t think she could manage the stairs and in part because there was still a mess to be cleaned up in their bedroom. He was furious, but he also wouldn’t leave her alone in this condition, hence the cold shoulder.

  She watched Nate pace the living room, took in his outfit and tried not to laugh, for she knew how poorly that would go over. Plus, she was in no position to be laughing right now. But he did look ridiculous—still wearing the sweatpants he’d quickly tugged on after calling 911 along with one of his work shirts, the fabrics and patterns and buttons as mismatched as though he’d chosen the clothes in the dark.

  As it turned out, her pain, and the quite dramatic ambulance ride, was the result of a large ovarian cyst rupturing. “Can happen with intercourse,” the emergency room resident had said. “You’re the second one in as many days, actually.”

  At first all seemed okay. Alice wasn’t dying, as a terrified Nate first thought, and it appeared her ovary was going to make it, too. When the resident said pregnancy shouldn’t be a problem, Nate became emotional, until the possible reason for the cyst’s existence was revealed. The doctor suspected Alice’s hormone-delivering IUD could be the culprit. An IUD that, until that moment, Nate had no clue existed inside Alice’s uterus.

  Nate had looked confused at first and started protesting the resident’s assessment. Alice doesn’t have an IUD . . . we’ve been trying to get pregnant, was on the tip of his tongue. But then he looked at her—a look she wouldn’t soon forget, full of hurt and disbelief because he suddenly knew it had to be true. He had pressed his lips tightly together and nodded, as though none of this was news to him. After which he promptly walked out of the room.

  “Should we wait for your husband?” the doctor had asked. “I have a few things to go over before we spring you.”

  Alice shook her head, holding back tears. The resident went through the discharge instructions, repeating that she might want to have the IUD removed as a precaution, as she was slightly more at risk now for developing further cysts. Alice said she would, feeling ashamed and embarrassed, finally admitting to herself the magnitude of keeping this secret from her husband. What a mess she’d made of things.

  While Alice lay on the sofa, Nate rummaged around the kitchen. The fridge door opened and closed with unnecessary force. Next came the slamming of a cupboard, the echo of something glass set too heavily on the countertop, the pinging of a bottle cap into the depths of the stainless steel sink. A drawn-out sigh (the house, uneasy with all his banging around) reached Alice’s ears, and she sighed in response. Nate finally reappeared, a foamy glass of beer in one hand and a bottle of San Pellegrino in the other. She didn’t remark on the beer, though it was only seven in the morning.

  “You can still make it to the office,” she said evenly. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  Nate ignored the comment. “How’s the pain?” He reached into Alice’s purse and pulled out two pill bottles, frowning as he read the labels. Still he wouldn’t look at her, and she began to feel desperate for him to do so. Why couldn’t this have happened while he was at work? He might have never known what she’d done, and she could have undone it without consequence.

  “It’s not bad,” Alice replied, her syllables drawn out from exhaustion and morphine. “So, are you not going in today at all?”

  Nate gave her a look suggesting she should leave it alone. Popping the lid off one bottle, he shook out two small blue pills and handed them to her with the sparkling water. “Here.”

  Alice didn’t protest, set the pills on her tongue, and took a sip of the water, bubbles erupting in her throat. “Why did you leave it o
ut for me?”

  “Leave what out?” Nate asked, snapping the lid back onto the pill bottle.

  “The test strip. Yesterday morning.”

  A pause, then a tense: “Does that even fucking matter anymore?”

  Alice gave a sloppy wave and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. “You’re right. Forget it.”

  There was a long moment of silence, then, “Obviously you don’t want to have a baby.”

  “I do want to have a baby.” She opened her eyes, and it was a few seconds before everything stopped moving. Morphine was no joke.

  “But not with me. Is that it?” He was furious—his mouth a hard line, his hands trembling.

  “No! Nate. It’s not like that.” Alice shook her head, tried to clear her thoughts so she could reassure him and explain things. “Not exactly.”

  “So, what is it, Ali? What is it exactly?” The words exploded out of him, and she recoiled as they did, having never seen him like this: full of vitriol, all directed at her. Nate, too, seemed alarmed at his outburst, a mask of surprise followed by regret settling over his face. Nathan Hale did not—would never—yell in such a way at his wife. But everyone had a breaking point.

  Alice gingerly rolled on her side to face him. “I made a mistake, Nate. You can’t believe how sorry I am.”

  “A mistake?” he said, and let out a harsh laugh. “Is that what we’re calling this? What part was the mistake? Getting the IUD, or getting caught?” Fair question, and Alice didn’t think too hard on it, because she wasn’t sure which was more truthful.