The Wife Upstairs

by Rachel Hawkins

  “Are you okay?” he asks, and I make myself smile up at him as I wrap my arms around his waist.

  “Yeah, fine,” I say, even though I definitely am not. “What did she want?”

  He leans in close, resting his chin on the top of my head. “To talk about Blanche. And Bea.”

  “Did they find her?” My voice is quiet. It’s such a gruesome question, a gruesome image, them finding Bea after she’s been in the water this long …

  “Not Bea,” Eddie replies, his voice rough. “Blanche, though. They found Blanche.”

  “Jesus,” I mutter, trying hard not to think about what exactly they found as I pull out of his embrace.

  His skin has gone a sort of grayish-green, and a muscle keeps ticking in his jaw. He looks more like the Eddie I first met than he has in ages, and my stomach lurches.

  “Is there more?”

  “She was … there was a fracture on her skull. Like she’d been hit by something. Or someone.”

  He turns away from me, then, rubbing the back of his neck, and I stand there, absorbing the news, peeling through the shock and fear to see what this means.

  Now I’m not just nauseous, I’m cold. Numb, almost as I reach up and press my fingers to my lips. “She was murdered?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

  Eddie still has his back to me, his shoulders tense, and I can’t help but add, “And Bea?”

  “Considered a homicide, now, too,” he says. “That’s what they wanted to talk to me about. To tell me they’re now investigating her disappearance as a murder.”

  I feel like my vision is graying out, and my knees are suddenly weak, watery. “Oh, god. Eddie.”

  I don’t know what else to say.

  We were finally starting to make peace with Bea’s ghost. We’re engaged, for fuck’s sake. Talking about a wedding. And it’s one thing to have lost your wife in a tragic accident. But to find out someone did it on purpose? That’s a nightmare.

  And then another thought occurs to me. “They don’t…” I don’t even want to finish the sentence. Don’t want it hanging there in the air between us.

  “Think I did it?” he asks, turning around. He’s still pale, but his expression isn’t quite so intense now. “No, they just wanted to let me know that things had changed. They’ll have questions, of course, but I got the impression they were looking at me as the grieving widower, not a suspect.”

  The more he talks, the more that the normal Eddie, the Eddie I’m used to, starts bleeding back into his face and voice. I can practically see his other persona sliding on like a shell. Or a mask.

  He looks at me then, frowning. “Christ, Jane, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?” I step toward him, taking his hands. “Why would you say that?”

  Sighing, he pulls me into his arms. “Because this is such a fucking mess, and I don’t want you to have to deal with this. I don’t want you … I don’t know, sitting in some little room, answering questions about something that happened before you even fucking knew me.”

  I thought I’d felt as scared as I could, but now a new horror rushes over me, making my mouth dry as I look up at him. “You think they’ll want to question me?”

  “They mentioned it,” he says, distracted. “Just that you should come along when I go in.”

  I’ve spent the past five years avoiding attention, avoiding questions, definitely avoiding cops. Fuck, if they look into Eddie over this, they’ll look into me. His fiancée. The girl he got engaged to less than a year after his wife disappeared.

  John, the call from Phoenix, now this. I can practically feel the teeth of a trap starting to snap closed, and I close my eyes, pressing my forehead against Eddie’s chest and taking deep breaths.

  Eddie’s hand goes to the back of my neck, rubbing. “Don’t let it worry you, though.”

  “It doesn’t,” I automatically reply, but he gives a rueful smile, reaching out to cup my cheek.

  “Janie, you’re pale as a ghost.”

  I capture his hand before he can pull it back, pressing it closer to my face. His skin feels so warm. Mine is still freezing. “This is a lot, I know,” he says. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it. But I want you to know you have nothing to worry about, okay? I’m not going anywhere, and we’re going to get through this.”

  He’s speaking in this calm, measured tone, but it doesn’t help. In fact, I think it might actually make it worse, and I step back from him, running a hand through my hair.

  “Eddie, your wife was murdered,” I say. “It’s not going to be okay. It can’t be.”

  Things like this weren’t supposed to happen here. I was supposed to be safe here, this place was supposed to be safe.

  And even though Blanche and Bea had disappeared before I even arrived in Thornfield Estates, there was a part of me that felt like maybe this was my fault. Had I brought this here? This sordidness, this violence? Did it cling to me like some kind of virus, infecting anyone who got close to me?

  It was a silly, self-absorbed thought that didn’t make any sense. But what made even less sense was the thought that Bea and Blanche could’ve stumbled into something that got them killed. Who would’ve wanted to hurt either of them? And why?

  And why was Eddie so calm?

  “I know, it’s fucking awful,” he says on a sigh. “Believe me, I know.” Closing his eyes, he pinches the bridge of his nose. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. Worrying about it isn’t going to change it.”

  Worrying about it isn’t going to change it. I want to tell him that it’s pretty fucking normal to worry about who might have wanted your wife and her best friend dead, but something stops me.

  Eddie takes my hands. “Focus on the wedding,” he says. “On the rest of our lives. Not this.”

  “It’s just that … I don’t really like the police,” I say, and he frowns in confusion.

  “Why not?”

  Spoken like a rich white guy, I think to myself.

  Instead, I consider my response very carefully. This is another moment where I feel like a bit of truth in the lie might be useful.

  “There was a foster family I lived with,” I say. “In Arizona. They weren’t exactly in it to do good work for kids, you know?”

  When I glance back over at him, he’s got his arms folded across his chest, watching me with his chin slightly tucked down. His listening face.

  “Anyway, when I was sixteen, they thought I was stealing from them, and they called the cops on me.”

  I had been stealing from them, but given that they were using most of the money the state gave them on themselves, rather than to take care of me and two other kids in their care, I hadn’t really seen what the big deal was.

  “The officer they sent was a friend of my foster dad’s, so they took me down to the station, and it was…”

  Even as I talked about it, I remembered sitting there, smelling burnt coffee and Pine-Sol and shaking with so much rage that I could barely talk. But I can’t tell Eddie about the anger. He won’t get that.

  “It was scary,” I finally say. “And I guess I never really got over it.”

  Not the full story at all, of course. No mention of the real Jane. Of that last night in Phoenix.

  But Eddie doesn’t need to know those things.

  Making a clucking noise, Eddie uncrosses his arms, pulls me back into them.

  “This isn’t supposed to be about me,” I say, tilting my head up to look at him. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he says before kissing my forehead. “And don’t worry about any of this. Bea and Blanche are gone. This doesn’t change anything.”

  But when he lets me go and turns away, I see his hand at his side, fingers flexing and unflexing.

  19

  The casseroles start showing up the next day.

  First, it’s Caroline McLaren with chicken Divan and a big hug. “Oh god, this is all just so awful,” she says, before tapping the foil covering her glass dish and saying, “A
nd this can’t go through a dishwasher.”

  Emily and Campbell are just a couple of hours behind her. They bring three big paper bags full of things from the gourmet store in the village, the place that makes the fancy dinners you can pass off as your own.

  As I stack the foil containers in the freezer, Emily and Campbell sit at the island, sipping the iced coffees they’d brought with them, which is kind of a shame because I already feel like drinking today. I know they’re just dying to ask a thousand questions, and I could use the fortification.

  “How’s Eddie holding up?” Emily asks when I close the freezer and turn back to them. Outside, it’s started to rain, and I think back to that first day I met Eddie, the gray skies, the slick roads.

  “Not great,” I reply. “I think he’s still in shock, really.”

  “We all are,” Campbell says, stabbing her straw into her drink. “I mean … it just never occurred to any of us that they’d been murdered. I’ve never known anyone who was murdered.”

  For the first time, I notice that her eyes are red, and that Emily isn’t wearing any makeup, and shit.

  Shit.

  I was so sure they were coming over here to get the dirt, but Bea and Blanche were their friends. Two women they’d loved whose deaths had seemed tragic, but at least accidental. Finding out that someone had killed them had to be awful, and here I am, thinking they just want gossip.

  “How are the two of you?” I ask, leaning against the counter, and they glance at each other.

  “Oh, honey, this isn’t about us,” Emily says, waving her hand, but Campbell says, “Not great, either.”

  Another shared glance, and then Emily sighs, nodding. “It’s just a lot to absorb. That someone wanted them dead, that we’ve suddenly got the police around, asking questions…”

  I’m starting to get too familiar with that feeling of my stomach dropping, the icy wave that breaks over me every time some new, ugly bit of information is revealed.

  “They’re asking you questions?”

  Campbell sighs as she rises. “Not yet, but I’ve got an interview scheduled with them later this week. Em?”

  Emily nods again. “Yeah, Friday for me.”

  I think of the two of them, sitting in a police station, answering questions about Bea and Blanche.

  About me.

  Because the detectives are going to ask, aren’t they? Where did I come from, how soon did Eddie and I start dating?

  They’re going to look into whether I was around last summer or not, and suddenly I want both of them to leave, want to huddle in a ball on the sofa until this somehow magically all goes away.

  But then Emily reaches across the counter and squeezes my hand. “I just hate that you have to deal with all this.”

  My gut reaction is to snarl at her, to search her face for some sign that she’s actually loving this, but when I look at her, there isn’t any. Her gaze is genuinely warm and sympathetic, and I think back on all those times, sitting at lunch tables by myself, self-consciously tugging at the hem of a Salvation Army T-shirt, knowing it never mattered what shoes people were talking about, or what CD everyone wanted, I was never going to be able to have those things.

  I’d always thought it was just the money that I wanted, but looking at Emily now, I know I’ve wanted this, too. People to care about me. People to accept me.

  And while it is weird as shit that, of all people, it would be this crew of Stepford Wives who let me in, they had.

  And I was grateful for it.

  “Thanks,” I reply, squeezing back.

  My phone starts ringing on the counter, and as I glance at it, both Emily and Campbell stand up. “Get that, honey,” Emily says. “We can show ourselves out.”

  I hear them make their way to the front door as I look at the screen.

  A 205 number, which means Birmingham.

  Which could mean the police.

  If they’d found something bad, they’d be over here, I tell myself as I slide my finger across the screen to answer the call. Sound normal. Sound calm.

  “Hello?”

  My voice only cracks a little on that last syllable.

  “Jane.” Not the police, not Detective Laurent. John fucking Rivers.

  “What do you want?”

  I can practically see him smirking on the other end. “Good to talk to you, too.”

  “John, I don’t—” I start, but he cuts me off.

  “I know you’re busy doing whatever it is Mountain Brook housewives do, so I’ll make it quick. The church is raising money for a new sound system, and I thought you’d like to contribute.”

  I’m still so shaken up by everything else going on that at first, I don’t see the threat beneath his words. It takes a second for my brain to turn them over and see what’s really being said.

  “I thought we were good after the other day,” I reply, the fingers of my other hand curled around the edge of the counter.

  He pauses, and I hear him swallow something. I imagine him standing in the kitchen of his apartment, drinking Mountain Dew, and fight back a shudder of revulsion because he’s not supposed to be here. I was supposed to be able to leave him behind forever, but he keeps rising back up, the world’s most pathetic ghost.

  “Well, we were. But that detective from Phoenix called again, which was just a real hassle for me, Jane. And I was going to ignore it, but then I saw in the paper where you and your boyfriend got engaged.”

  Fuck. I hadn’t ever heard of people announcing their engagements, but Emily had submitted it for us, saying, “It’s what everyone does!”

  And I’d let her because I wanted to be like everyone here.

  “So I thought to myself, ‘You know, now that Jane is marrying money, she’d probably really like to help me out. Pay me back a little for taking her in.’” Another pause. “And for keeping secrets.”

  “You don’t know shit about my ‘secrets,’ John,” I say, my voice low.

  “I know you have them,” is his too-quick reply. “And I think that’s enough.”

  Just like that day in the parking lot, I feel my throat constrict, the sense of a tightening noose around me. I wish I’d never met John Rivers, wish I’d never been desperate enough to message him on Facebook from that library in Houston two years ago, wish I’d never taken him up on his offer of a place to stay.

  But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here now. Wouldn’t have met Eddie.

  Eddie, with his murdered wife.

  Gritting my teeth, I lower my head, pushing the heel of one hand against one eye. “How much.”

  “Twenty-five hundred,” he says, and I flinch even though I know that’s a small amount of money to Eddie. He’d probably never even notice it was gone.

  “Cash is preferable,” John continues, “and you remember the address.”

  I nod even though he can’t see me.

  “I’ll put it in the mail this week,” I say, and I can hear the grin in his voice.

  “You’re a saint, Jane. The church will really appreciate it.”

  “Don’t call me again. We’re done now.”

  “I can’t even call to check in with you? As a friend?”

  “We’re not friends,” I reply, then end the call, my fingers trembling.

  The police asking questions. John asking for money.

  And in the middle of it, me. And my secrets.

  20

  JUNE

  “We should go to the lake this weekend.”

  I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, paging through another bridal magazine when Eddie speaks, his tone casual as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

  It’s been a week since Detective Laurent showed up and while neither of us have mentioned her visit, it’s still been there between us, a third presence in the room all the time.

  And now Eddie wants to go to the lake? The same place where Blanche and his wife died? Oh wait, were murdered?

  “Like, the house there?” I ask inanely, and he smirks slightly.


  “That was the idea, yeah. Might be nice to get out of town for a little bit, you know? And you’ve never seen the house.”

  I’m temporarily stunned into silence. Finally, I say, “Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”

  Eddie fixes me with his eyes. He’s still smiling, his posture loose and relaxed, and it’s somehow worse than if he were angry. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  It feels like a dare. It is a dare. He wants me to say it out loud, to ask about the police investigation. Does he wonder if I read into Detective Laurent’s visit, if I suspect him at all? Because, if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know what to think anymore. But I also think that in a twisted way, going to the lake could give me some clarity.

  “Okay,” I say. “We’ll go to the lake.”

  * * *

  We leave on Friday afternoon, Eddie wrapping up work early. The drive to Smith Lake is about an hour from the house in Mountain Brook, and it’s pretty, taking us away from the suburbs and into the more rural parts of Alabama, hills rolling gently, the sky a blazing blue.

  We stop in a town called Jasper to eat lunch, Eddie as at ease in a little barbecue joint with plastic tables and a roll of paper towels for napkins as he is at the fancy French place back in the village.

  Watching him with his sloppy sandwich, managing to get not one drop of sauce on his pristine white shirt, I laugh, shaking my head.

  “You fit in anywhere,” I tell him, and he looks up, eyebrows raised.

  “Is that a compliment?” he asks, and I’d meant it as one, definitely. But not for the first time, I wonder about Eddie’s past. He rarely talks about it, like he just sprang into the world, fully formed when he met Bea.

  “No, if I wanted to compliment you, I’d tell you how hot you look with barbecue sauce on the corner of your mouth.”

  He smiles and winks. “You think I’m hot, huh?”

  Shrugging, I poke at the lemon in my sweet tea with my straw. “Most days you’re just passable, but right now, yes.”

  That makes him laugh, and he tosses a balled-up napkin at me. “This is why I love you, Jane,” he says. “You won’t let my head get too big.” Even though it’s dumb as hell, I almost want to tell him my real name then. Just to hear him say it.