The Other Mrs. Miller

by Allison Dickson

  With a resigned sigh, she begins to swipe the idea away. But then . . . isn’t that something her father would have said? She can hear it perfectly in his deep register, curved into the sarcastic scythe he’d always cut people off at the knees with if they stood too tall. Especially the women in his life. Her rebellion against all things Daniel flares anew, and she swipes him away instead. Daniel doesn’t deserve a say, not now or ever, given his role in bringing her to this point.

  And besides, is it really such a terrible idea? Escape. The word is like ice cream on a burning tongue. Escape from all this muck that’s heaped in her life and is now piling up on her doorstep, turning her home into a prison. Escape from the prying eyes and whispered gossip of the people in this town who know who she is only because of her disgraced father. Escape from the Napiers and their drama. Escape from her own scandalous, hypocritical acts. Escape from Wyatt’s perpetually wounded gaze and her resentment of him that’s waxing more into loathing by the day.

  Phoebe takes a long gulp of her lukewarm coffee and starts turning her idea around in her mind, like an archaeologist who might have stumbled on a rare artifact that initially looked like petrified garbage.

  On a strictly technical level, she can do this. She has the economic freedom, and no employer to answer to. She has no family who would miss her. Wyatt would likely be relieved to avoid another unpleasantly revealing conversation like the one they’d had about adopting a child.

  There are a few downsides she can’t ignore, though. Leaving won’t solve the problem of her blackmailer, who might decide to drop a bomb out of spite if she runs away without responding to any demands. That said, the bomb would be falling onto an old, discarded life. If pictures or gossip about the now infamous Daniel Noble’s daughter hit the internet while she was kicked up on a beach somewhere out west, would she even notice? What about if she were on another continent entirely? Her passport is gathering dust, but it still has some years left.

  God, will you listen to yourself? You’re really considering this? Have you even thought about what it would do to Jake?

  Yes, she can’t ignore that this would hurt him. But with her gone, he would have no excuse to ditch Stanford. And if the blackmailer let the secret loose and Vicki or Ron learned of the illicit affair between their son and the woman next door, Phoebe’s self-imposed exile could at least make it easier for them to weather the shock. Wyatt too, for that matter. Everyone would be better off in the long run.

  She tries to drum up more rebuttals urging her to stay put. Your problems will only follow you. You’ve lived on the North Shore your whole life. It’s all you know. You’re overreacting. Only cowards cut and run. But none of them can match the volume of the voice shouting at her to go. Running away only seems irrational to people without the full context, and those people don’t matter. She doesn’t have to answer to them. She doesn’t have to answer to anybody. She’s had the freedom to do this all along, and now she has the motivation.

  But Jake won’t leave her mind, his declaration of love still so fresh. It’s callous to think that because he’s young, he’ll get over the heartbreak quicker. He’s an older soul than most, and sensitive; it’s what attracted her to him in the first place. She would kill that part of him. After the initial grieving passed, he would be left bitter and distrustful.

  It doesn’t have to be this way. She has an opportunity to end things on a good note, to give him a proper good-bye. And if she’s really being honest with herself, she needs it too. She’s prepared to burn every bridge she has connecting her to this place, but she won’t burn him.

  She checks the time and is shocked to find it’s only two thirty. A lot has happened in only a few hours. Almost too much. But she can’t remember the last time she felt this level of clarity and optimism about something.

  Now she only needs to decide where to go. California, maybe? Or maybe not. It’s too close to home, at least emotionally. Too easy to get lost in daydreams of crossing paths with Jake someday. New York is a good place to get lost, but the flavor is similar enough to Chicago that it wouldn’t feel like much of a change. She’s always loved London, though. And if she’s looking to clean the slate, why not drag it through an entire ocean? At the very least, it would be a place to start. She’d stay for a couple weeks, a month tops, and then move on from there. It’s an enormous world. What’s stopping her from seeing it all?

  Taking a deep breath, she picks up her phone and texts Jake: Can you come back over? We need to talk. There she goes, making an appointment for a difficult in-person conversation. Hopefully it will end well.

  Not even ten seconds later, he replies: Be right there.

  Pacing while she waits, butterflies swirling in her stomach, she rehearses various takes on good-bye, all of them too melodramatic for her liking. It would have been easier to write him a letter instead, same as she plans to do with Wyatt. Avoid the sticky stuff. It isn’t too late to consider that.

  “Coward,” she mutters to herself, just as the patio door opens. Jake comes in, smiling.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,” he says, leaning down to kiss her.

  Before their lips touch, she blurts out, “I’m leaving town.” If she hesitated even for a moment and let him kiss her, she would have given herself over to the ether they create together.

  He pauses and stands up straight, the smile replaced with a bemused frown. “Are you for real?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long?”

  This is where it gets hard. “For good.”

  “Okay. Wow.” He runs his hands through his hair and begins to pace for a few seconds before he stops, probably realizing how much he resembles his father when he does that.

  Phoebe fumbles for something to say that doesn’t sound lame. It’s for the best. Groan. I’ll never forget you. Gag. She finally settles on, “I’m sorry. I know this hurts.” Not much better.

  “Why are you doing this all of a sudden? It’s something to do with my dad, isn’t it? He comes over here, and now you’re just . . . leaving?” His voice rises as he speaks, his brow deepening with furrows.

  She could elaborate on her reasons, but Jake needs to be able to return home without any doubt and paranoia in his head, otherwise he’ll never move on with his life. “I had an epiphany after you left. All this talk about you going away to school and living your life forced me to look at my own and see all the ways it’s gone wrong. I should have considered this a long time ago, really. Even before my father died, things had stopped moving, and I’ve realized it’s not going to get any better unless I do something about it.”

  He’s standing with his arms folded, eyes fixed on the ground, silent. But Phoebe can see the wheels turning. He’s listening. At least she hopes so.

  She places her hand on his shoulder. “If anything, I would say my decision has everything to do with you, Jake. During our time together, you’ve made me feel like I can do more. And you need to remember that too, because I can tell you, in another fifteen years, you’re probably going to find yourself feeling stuck too, and I want you to know you really aren’t.”

  “I don’t think I would ever feel stuck if I was with you.”

  She closes her eyes and lets out a sigh. Why do the young always have to be so idealistic? “Jake, please stop. This isn’t making things any easier.”

  “I’m serious, Phoebe. Let me come with you.”

  She stares at him, her mouth hanging open. He says he’s serious, but is he really? And is her inability to utter an immediate, firm rejection of this terrible idea indicative of something? Oh God, Phoebe, no. You built yourself a solid enough case for leaving. Absconding with Jake would completely defeat the purpose of starting over. Yes. It would fan the flames of her burning bridges into a nuclear mushroom cloud.

  She finally musters the will to shake her head, hoping it will be enough to let the light of good sens
e through. “I’d never forgive myself, and something tells me it would eat at you too.”

  “It wouldn’t eat at me, trust me. Being anywhere with you is the only thing that would make me happy. And you’d be happy too.”

  “What did I tell you the other day about happiness?”

  “Okay, I get what you were saying about that. I know it’s not a permanent state. And I’m willing to accept the possibility that at some point down the line, you and I will see we’re too different and we’ll go our separate ways. But that doesn’t mean I should give up on what I’m feeling right now because we don’t know the future. I want you to believe in the now. We’ll cross whatever bridges we have to when we get to them.”

  “Your mother . . .” The memory of Vicki sobbing in the bakery floats up. Phoebe closes her eyes against it, as if that will help.

  “My mother will have to stop depending so much on other people to make her life better. That’s been her problem all along. And I’ll tell you something: you probably care a whole lot more about her feelings than she cares about yours. Or mine.”

  “She cares a lot about your future. You worked really hard to get into Stanford.”

  He shakes his head. “She worked me hard to get into Stanford. There’s a difference.”

  Phoebe cocks an eyebrow. “I seem to remember you telling me the first day we met you were going to be a criminal prosecutor.”

  He manages a small grin. “Actually, it was criminal defense. But there are more ways to get there than Stanford, if I decide that’s something I still want to do after I’ve lived my life a little and seen the world. With you.”

  She needs to stop this, but she’s putting all of her strength into keeping the whole idea alive. Besides, shouldn’t Jake have the opportunity to make his decisions and learn from his mistakes? Right now, their secret little tryst feels sexy specifically because it’s a secret. The allure of stealing away to a far-off location with a forbidden lover is difficult for anyone to resist. But when it’s no longer their sexy secret, when the truth has been dragged into the light upon their departure, they will see it for the selfish, distasteful betrayal it was all along, and the glue holding them together right now will likely dissolve. He’ll come home, and Vicki will take her boy back with open arms. Life will go on.

  Something else occurs to her. Taking Jake with her would essentially neutralize her blackmailer, who’s banking on Phoebe being willing to pay any price to keep her affair locked up tight. Well, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore once they’re gone. Some might call that a pyrrhic victory, but she’s in no position to be picky. “Do you have a passport?” she asks, feeling simultaneously filthy and exhilarated.

  “I do.” His face breaks open into the sunniest smile she’s ever seen and he pulls her into a long kiss. When they finally part, he says, “You’ve made me so happy. You have no idea.”

  She wishes she felt as excited as she did before; a new discordant thread is twisting through her gut now, but she supposes it’s just nerves. They’ll fade once they’re up in the air, and by the time they’re wheels-down at Heathrow, she’ll be glad he’s there. “I have a lot of packing and planning to do, so you should head back and get your things ready too. I’ll text you when the coast is clear in the morning, so you can come over here. I want to be gone as early as possible.”

  A frown creases his brow. “You want to leave tomorrow? That’s fast.”

  She’s never felt more like a fugitive. “I know. But I’m pretty sure if I don’t leap now, I probably never will. I don’t expect it to make sense.”

  He kisses her forehead. “I get it. And I’m ready to jump with you.”

  She breathes a small sigh of relief. “Okay. Good. I hope.”

  “No, it is good. So where are we going?”

  “Hope you like fish and chips.”

  His face lights up. “London?”

  She nods. Her smile feels natural enough. “Righto, old chap. Now get going. I’ll text you when the reservations are booked.”

  They hug again before he leaves. “I love you, Phoebe.”

  Her skin prickles at the words, but it’s mostly nerves she feels. “I love you too,” she says. Maybe she even means it.

  She heads upstairs to her underwear drawer, where she keeps her passport as well as an envelope filled with a few thousand dollars that she used to jokingly call Apocalypse Cash. It doesn’t feel so much like a joke now, at least on a personal level. She contemplates getting even more cash out of the bank, or better yet, traveler’s checks. It’s even more old-school than her leather checkbook with its princess kittens, but it’s easier to disappear when you don’t have a digital trail. That’s a criminal’s way of thinking, and she hates having to view it that way, but she can’t discount the possibility that Vicki or Ron might go to the trouble of tracking them down to try to bring their son home.

  From her closet, she pulls out a small bag. It seems sensible to pack only what she can fit in a carry-on. She can buy whatever she needs once they get settled. Looking at the vast amount of clothes she’s collected over the years, most of them expensive enough to pay someone’s rent for several months, she realizes she won’t miss any of it.

  CHAPTER 11

  SHE POURS A bowl of cereal and taps her foot to the steady, predictable beat of a day that is set to be anything but steady and predictable. No room for any new riffs this morning. Wyatt needs to walk in here at ten minutes to eight, pour coffee into his favorite travel mug, and leave without discussion. She has a few things left to do, but at least her bag is packed and waiting in her bedroom closet. Once he’s on his way to work, she’ll text Jake and they’ll drive to the airport. She considered ordering a ride service, but she doesn’t want to chance Vicki’s spying them both climbing into the backseat of a strange car. The last thing she wants is a scene. Now, if only Wyatt would get going already.

  Yesterday, she reserved two first-class seats on a nonstop flight to London departing at one. By the time Wyatt gets home this evening, she and Jake will be over the north Atlantic with chaos at their backs and the unknown stretching out before them. Overnight, the dread in her gut eased into a more friendly sort of anticipation. She hasn’t been to London since she was a teenager. Jake hasn’t been at all. It will be fun to watch him gaze in wonder at the stunning architecture and the double-decker buses, to walk the streets holding hands, even if they do look a bit mismatched age-wise.

  Late last night, she began an email to Wyatt that she hopes to finish in a few minutes. She plans to keep it brief. He would only find an apology hollow or patronizing, and she doesn’t particularly want his forgiveness. She just wants the separation to be quick and clean.

  She’s considering composing something to Vicki as well, but her mind keeps shooting blanks as far as what to say. No words from Phoebe could ease the woman’s pain. Only time can do that, and even then, it’s only fair to expect Vicki to hate her for life. She can’t envision any friendly reunions or Christmas gatherings. It’s best not to think of the elder Napiers at all from this point forward, not if she wants to maintain the steely nerve she needs to get through this. She checks the time again.

  It’s now ten past eight. But Wyatt is still sitting out by the pool, a non-travel coffee mug in hand, taking in the morning like he has the day off, which she knows isn’t true. He has appointments. She checked his calendar. What gives?

  She suspects she knows the answer. He’s ruminating on last night. This is what she gets for cooking him dinner, for making a nice parting gesture, even if he didn’t know that was what it was. But an evening of chicken marsala and civil conversation wasn’t enough for him. He had to get drunk and try for a little dessert too. She indulged him for a brief, clumsy kiss, and then told him it was late and she wanted to get some sleep. I have a long day tomorrow, she nearly said, and stopped just short of it. But the bourbon had made him cavalier enough to try again. He nuzzled h
er neck, nibbled on her ear. There was a time when the gestures used to give her the most delicious tingles, but now they only reinforced how removed she felt from Wyatt’s orbit. After she pushed him away again, firmly, he pleaded, “Come on, Phoeb. I miss you. Don’t you miss this?” His hand wandered down to the curve of one of her breasts and began to squeeze. She slapped it away, unable to hide her distaste.

  “Go to bed, Wyatt. You’re drunk.”

  He glared at her. “So are you half the time. Why did you even bother with any of this?”

  “I’m asking myself the same question,” she said. He trudged off to his room and spent the rest of the night nursing his rancor with the remainder of his bourbon and his precious jazz. She didn’t see him again until this morning. Likely he’s hungover. Any other morning, she would let it pass, but there isn’t any time for drama today.

  She’s considering ways she can nudge him out the door when he comes back in. His face is a little pale, and he didn’t bother shaving today. The alcohol has been rough on him, all right. In many ways, he looks a lot like Ron did yesterday. At least he’s dressed for work, and only has to read minds rather than cut into brains and spinal cords. “I expected you would have left fifteen minutes ago,” she says.

  He turns to stare at her. “Our marriage is finished. Just say it.”

  She slumps. Of course he wants to have this conversation now, of all mornings. It’s almost like he knows he has to stall her for some reason. “I’m really not in the mood for this right now.”

  “Too bad. You can’t keep dictating the terms.”

  She can’t help but flinch a little. Hadn’t Jake said something similar to her the day of their big fight? “Fine. Our marriage is finished. I said it. Happy?”

  He blinks and then shakes his head. “So that’s it, then? Ten years of marriage and you’re going to end it by mocking me. That’s all I’m worth to you?”

  “God, Wyatt! What more do you want me to say?”