But she has sensed a transition point looming ever since she told Wyatt she was done trying for kids, and this must be it, the moment where they both acknowledge they’ve had a good run but it’s time to get off this merry-go-round altogether. Nearly fifteen years together, ten of them married, is a respectable achievement. Especially in her family.
She sighs. “Okay. How should we go about this?”
He looks a little relieved as he unclasps his briefcase. “I’m glad you’re feeling open-minded. I just have a few papers here.”
Wow. He already has papers? While she’s feeling cooperative, she can’t deny being a little irked over how far ahead he’s planned. Shouldn’t there be a talking phase first?
Her heart stops when she sees the stack of colorful pamphlets he pulls out and places on the table. These aren’t divorce papers, not this glossy array of sheets featuring smiling children against a backdrop of sunshine, rainbows, and words like “hope” and “chance” and “family.” This is about adoption, the ace-in-the-hole for rich people with uncooperative wombs. Wyatt’s demeanor morphs from solemn to giddy while Phoebe’s stomach begins to burn. She was so convinced this door was not only closed but locked tight. But here he is telling her in very explicit terms that he never got past it and doesn’t intend to. How could they be so out of sync?
“This is perfect for us, babe. I already spoke with the woman who runs Heart Source, and she can’t wait to meet you. With our backgrounds, we could probably have a newborn by next week.” He notices Phoebe’s lack of expression and keeps going. “Or, you know, we can bypass the whole newborn thing and adopt an older child. Skip the diaper-and-midnight-feeding phase altogether. That sounds like a bonus, doesn’t it?”
Phoebe wants to darken the beaming glare of his smile permanently. “When you say our backgrounds, you mean my background. My name. They would practically sell a kid to someone from the Noble family. Isn’t that what you’re getting at?”
“Honey, these places are all legal and ethical. There would be no selling. But yes, let’s be honest, your name helps. I see no shame in that. We should use whatever works to our advantage.”
“Jesus! Have you not been paying attention to the news? The Noble name is in the trash right now.”
Wyatt eyes her patiently. “That doesn’t matter. The Noble name is more than your father. It’s also you, and whoever the next generation will be. If you think about it, this could actually be a way to take the wind out of that whole nasty business.”
Her anger is near boiling. He isn’t hearing her now, and clearly wasn’t hearing her before, when she told him she couldn’t do this anymore. Maybe she hadn’t been concise enough, which had left him room to believe this was a viable alternative. That there were any alternatives at all. She has to be brutal now. He needs to see there is no life down this path, that she’s already burned it and salted the earth.
“I don’t want this,” she says.
He doesn’t look fazed. It’s as if he anticipated this response during his rehearsal of this conversation, because of course he rehearsed, probably while picking out his pretty new tie. “Look, I know it’s a big step,” he argues. “We’ve been through a lot, over the last few years especially, and I know all this Daniel stuff has thrown you for a loop too. You’re afraid of another heartbreak, but our odds are excellent here. Far better than they were with in vitro. This is a chance for a new start, not only for us but for a child who needs a home too. I don’t know why we didn’t think of this first, but we should have.”
She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Enough with the goddamn sales pitch. I already told you my answer. I do not want this. I couldn’t love one of these children.”
Here come his pitiful lamb’s eyes, which only make her heart stonier, because they’re so condescending. They say he knows her feelings better than she does. Her father looked at her that way almost by default, even when Phoebe would say she wanted chicken for dinner instead of steak. “Of course you can, honey. Bonding is always a process, even for parents and their biological children, but you’ll do great. We’ll do great. We’re in this together.”
It’s hard to maintain eye contact as she prepares to nail her final words home. Despite her anger, she still cares for him enough that she doesn’t want to be cruel for the sake of it. But pain is all that works sometimes. It’s the only sensation that forces humans to focus on what’s right in front of them. She’s about to be that hot grease splatter, the hammer on the thumbnail, the slippery rung on the ladder. “Having kids was always more your dream than mine. I thought I could learn to want it like you did, but it never took, and . . .” Come on, Phoebe, get it out there. “I’m relieved it didn’t. I’m not one of those women who always dreamed of being a mother.”
He’s trying so hard to be stoic, but the color has drained from his face, and he doesn’t appear to be breathing. Nevertheless, she’s glad the truth she’s been nursing in secret all these years, like an abomination no one else could love, is finally out.
“What about Xavier?” he asks. The words are clipped into shards, and they’re the only ones capable of getting through her bubble.
She swallows, tamping down those memories and covering them with a thick layer of stone for good measure. “He’s dead, Wyatt. What else is there to say?”
“That’s enough. I’m not letting you dismiss him like that.” He haphazardly gathers the pamphlets and stands up. Then he stops and looks at her with a deep frown. “What did you think we were going to talk about when we first came out here?”
She looks at her lap now. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You thought I was going to ask for a divorce, didn’t you?”
She shrugs, her capacity for brutal honesty exhausted. It’s answer enough, anyway.
He walks off without another word. But instead of going for the door to the house, he goes down the steps leading to the pool. After a moment’s contemplation, he throws the sheaf of papers into it.
CHAPTER 2
PHOEBE REMAINS IN her spot on the porch long after Wyatt’s departure, examining the pile of smoldering shrapnel that is now her marriage. Why couldn’t he have brought home information on dog breeders? She would have been more open-minded about a puppy, though she probably would have tried talking him into a cat instead, a far less needy option. But Phoebe is pretty sure this wreck couldn’t be mended with even a hundred puppies and kittens, let alone a baby, even if she called him back right now to say she’s changed her mind. It’s tempting to at least try, just to bring back the tiny sparks of hope she extinguished in Wyatt’s eyes this morning. She’s worried about what she might see in their place when he comes home tonight. Anger? Sadness? Or worse, nothing at all?
But she won’t call him, and she won’t change her mind. She’s done the right thing by being honest for a change. Hasn’t she? If her mother were here, she would quietly shake her head and tell Phoebe this is not what a Good Wife would have done.
The phrase “Good Wife” always felt like a proper noun when Carol spoke it. Phoebe spent most of her formative years listening to her mother espouse dubious nuggets of wisdom about love and marriage rather than ever question them, but they all boiled down to a simple philosophy. To be a Good Wife, a woman must nurture and love her husband more than she nurtures and loves herself.
This, of course, does not mean neglecting her physical appearance. There is a very long list of beauty rituals required to keep a Good Wife up to her husband’s high standards. Perfect hair, makeup, and wardrobe are a must. In Carol’s case, this also included daily laxatives and strict portion control to maintain her trim figure. If she could see the extra ten pounds on Phoebe’s petite frame, her daily wardrobe of yoga pants and T-shirts, the lack of makeup on her face, and the length of her roots, her scream would rival that of a B-movie horror queen.
The Good Wife always knows her place in the family hierarchy. It’
s at the very bottom, the perfect spot from which to hoist her husband and requisite offspring high over her head without ever showing a hint of strain. If she finds herself sinking into the muck beneath her feet, she celebrates the warmth and protection it provides from the dangerous world above. A Good Wife wouldn’t have dreamed of rebuffing her husband’s wishes to adopt a child after their attempts to conceive one of their own failed. She would have sought out those adoption pamphlets herself first and surprised him with them instead. She wouldn’t engage in enough navel-gazing to conclude she isn’t mother material. First of all, Good Wives never navel-gaze. Second, Good Wives are always Good Mothers.
Phoebe considers how this Good Wife business ended up working out for Carol. The woman was always impeccable, both in style and in the way she ran the house. Nothing was ever out of place. Neither Phoebe nor her father had to think about any desire for more than a second before Carol took care of it.
So Carol was on it when it came to looking after her family, no doubt about it, and Phoebe never felt a lack of motherly love and attention. But she also remembers the woman’s fragility, the faintest tremor in her hands that only seemed to crop up when she didn’t think anyone was watching, how she smoked almost endlessly, probably as another effort to keep herself away from extra calories. She did her fair share of drinking too. And despite all her best efforts, she was only able to produce one child before heart disease, probably from all the cigarettes, the crash diets, and the stress she kept locked tight inside her, dug her an early grave. So no. Being a Good Wife didn’t pay off for Carol. If anything, it killed her. And she wasn’t the only one.
Her father married three more times after Carol. Not an evil stepmother in the bunch. They were all kind and pretty, respectful of Phoebe, and eager to make her father happy, at least in the beginning. Unfortunately, the first post-Carol wife, Helena, died within six months. Daniel told her it was a stroke, but he’d wrongly assumed Phoebe was in the dark about Helena’s tendency to pop amphetamines and chase them with vodka. Ava came along a year later, and she died in a car crash right before their second anniversary. Kirstin, the final wife, didn’t die, but she did get an annulment after three months, never to be heard from again, though when Phoebe plugged the name into Facebook a few years ago, she found her working as a tour guide in Italy and looking absolutely radiant. Phoebe had liked Kirstin best. Her spunk made her immune to the deadly lullaby of the Good Wife. Phoebe wonders what she must have thought about her ex-husband’s posthumous scandal, whether she felt the latent breeze of a bullet dodged years before.
Phoebe was determined when she got married to do things differently, refusing to believe that if she sacrificed pieces of herself to a big, powerful man, she would somehow gain the world. They made independence a priority, both financial and personal. Thanks to Wyatt’s humbler upbringing, he was accustomed to working for his bread, and he was good at managing his small therapy practice, never coming to her once for a bailout. Phoebe was happy to pay for all the fun stuff with her money. Vacations, cars, shopping sprees, the house, nice clothes. It was a marriage, after all, not a business arrangement. Her father had never thought it would last, especially after they lost Xavier, but she’d been thrilled to find another way to defy the old man’s expectations.
Wyatt had made it easy, though. It was his core of sweetness that set him apart from all the other alpha males in her social circles, and even Phoebe had been surprised to find that this was enough to tame her. His sweetness, but also enough confidence that he never seemed desperate to prove himself to her, either. It made his companionship comfortable, like a pair of beloved, well-worn slippers. Unfortunately, that sweetness also made her too docile to heed her inner voice when the question of kids started cropping back up. It made her like Carol.
She goes into the kitchen for a bottle of wine and carries it, along with a glass, back outside. It’s far earlier than her usual cork-popping time, but the circumstances warrant the bending of an already arbitrary rule. The papers are still floating in the pool, a mess he obviously expects her to clean up. She will, only because she wants to swim later. From a backyard on another block, she can hear kids splashing around in their own watering hole, playing Marco Polo. The monotony of their little voices repeating the same words ad nauseam reinforces her sense of righteousness.
She doesn’t get up and go inside to escape the racket. It’s freeing enough just to know she can escape it whenever she wants. Unlike the person who has to mind the little tax deductions over there, she’s able to move at will. She could go right now and get a pedicure, or a full-body massage. She could take herself to the movies and see something R-rated, hogging the popcorn and armrests for herself. She could even pack her bags and take an impromptu monthlong trip to any destination in the world without having to do anything more than put a hold on her mail.
Of course, she won’t do any of those things. Freedom is as much choosing not to do something as it is choosing to do it. All her necessary comforts are right here. Besides, if she leaves for any extended period, the person in the blue car might do something, like break in and steal something or maybe plant a bunch of cameras and microphones around the place.
Phoebe lingers on that thought and its implications about her freedom before taking a long drink of her wine.
■■■
INTERLUDE
EVERY MORNING, NOT long before your husband leaves for work, I wait for the blinds beside your front door to twitch as you peek through them. You never disappoint. It’s like Morse code, communicating the start of our daily dance, telling me you know I’m not really a delivery driver, that you’re curious, but maybe not so curious you’re ready to come out here and talk to me, or send a cop over to check my credentials instead. If you’re wondering whether the other people on this street have looked in on me, the answer is no. Not only is my little disguise probably doing its job, but they’re likely all assuming someone else checked me out by now. What’s that called again? That thing where you can basically murder someone in front of a bunch of witnesses, and no one calls the cops? Bystander apathy, I think. This isn’t quite as extreme as a murder in the park, but you get my point.
Something tells me you aren’t apathetic at all. I think you might actually be enjoying this. Of course, considering the news about the recently departed Daniel Noble, you probably have good reason to think someone might be watching you. Who would have guessed that over a career spanning forty years, with interests in real estate, venture capital, and exotic cars, he would have also had his greedy hands up the skirts of countless non-consenting women, all of whom are now eager to share the gritty details? With that kind of bombshell, you’re lucky you don’t have reporters camping on the front lawn. Maybe they only do that with the entertainment moguls. At any rate, I’m glad it’s quiet around here. It serves my purposes better.
As much as I enjoy that ritual of communication between us every morning, I’ve noticed our little tango doesn’t really begin until after your husband is gone. Then I watch those blinds twitch sporadically throughout the morning as you go about whatever routine you have for the day, a routine that rarely takes you outside where I can see you, though I know for a fact you get out once or twice a week. Even a shut-in has to get her groceries, I guess. You could just have them delivered, but maybe you’re old-school. Maybe getting out of the house a few times a week to buy that cookie dough ice cream and cab sav you love so much is your one opportunity to feel normal. Yes, I know what you buy. How I know isn’t as alarming as you think. What is alarming is your level of consumption. You may need to tone it down a bit, actually. I’ve seen older pictures of you online, and you’re looking a bit puffier these days. Not judging. Just concerned. Watching your back.
CHAPTER 3
PHOEBE IS WOKEN by the sound of the doorbell. She fell asleep sitting up with a full wineglass, judging by the purple puddle soaking into her lap and the reek of cabernet wafting up from it. She’s in no con
dition to answer the door, but it could be a package delivery, or maybe even a florist. It wouldn’t be the first time Wyatt sent flowers after a spat. She grabs one of the bathing suit wraps draped over a nearby chair and covers the stain on her shorts, but there isn’t much she can do for the smell.
One thought chills her spine as she approaches the door. What if it’s the person from the blue car? The prospect nearly stops her in her tracks, but she shoves it away. She may be gradually sacrificing herself to the hermit life, but the day she stops answering her door like a functional member of society is the day she asks Wyatt for a referral to one of his colleagues.
She looks through the peephole and sees not a woman in a blue Executive Courier Services shirt—in fact, the car appears to be gone for the morning—but a young man in a green tank top and board shorts. When she opens the door and sees him fully, her first reaction is to gape. He’s the sort of hot that’s cliché. Shaggy hair the color of dark sand, blue eyes, lean body, tan skin, light stubble on his face that looks almost airbrushed on. Considering the flip-flops on his feet and the paracord bracelet on his wrist, the only thing he’s missing is an acoustic guitar and a beach bonfire where he can serenade her with Jack Johnson cover tunes. She feels a bit breathless, like she’s dashed too quickly up a flight of stairs. The only thing dampening this instant infatuation is the certainty she’s twice his age. And that she currently smells like a wino.
“Yes?” she asks.
“Hi. Um . . .” He gestures to the house across the cul-de-sac. A small moving truck is parked out front, and attached to the back of the truck is a trailer holding a small SUV. A dark-haired man is pacing back and forth beside it, barking into his phone. Phoebe can’t make out the words, but she wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that call. “We’re moving in across the street, but my dad can’t find the house keys he swears he’s had with him the whole time. You wouldn’t, like, happen to have an extra key on hand, would you?”
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