The Starter Wife

by Nina Laurin

  Forgetting caution, I advance onto the dock. A shabby little canoe lies upside down next to it. I crouch and then lie on my stomach and peer into the water. It’s clear enough that I can see the bottom, the stems of water lilies and mysterious lake grasses, tiny gray fish darting back and forth. I get so lost in the moment that I lower my hand, letting my fingertips skim the surface.

  The cold jolts me, taking me by surprise. I pull my hand away but the half second was enough to make my fingers go numb. My whole arm aches, and I sit up and then scramble to my feet, overwhelmed with the need to get away from the water.

  “It’s not really for swimming,” Byron says behind me. I jump and turn around. “There’s a cold underground spring that feeds it, or something like that. The website was honest about it. But hey, we always have that hot tub!”

  “I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” I point out.

  He winks. There’s something grotesque about him winking—it makes him look silly, and silliness doesn’t suit him. “It’s just us.”

  “I’m not getting into a rented hot tub naked,” I say with a small laugh. “I don’t want chlamydia, thank you.”

  “You can’t get chlamydia from a hot tub, you know.”

  “I thought you weren’t that kind of doctor.”

  He takes my hand—the one that’s still numb and cold from being dunked in the lake—and rubs it between his palms, working the heat gradually back into my fingers. Without letting go, he leads me back to the house.

  Once we’ve explored the surroundings, he rekindles the fire in the fireplace while I start dinner. We decided to keep it in the spirit of the thing: two venison steaks we bought at the butcher’s before we left, thick slabs of meat the color of black cherries. The gamey smell makes me a touch nauseous as I take them out of the fridge and unwrap the blood-soaked paper.

  It’s the meal I made for him the very first time I cooked for him, in the kitchen of our house. I’m surprised that I had forgotten. Venison steak with a port reduction. I take the bottle of port out of the cooler and measure half a cup, using a coffee mug since I left the measuring cups at home.

  Then I set about searing the steaks, and while they hiss in the pan, I go get my phone—to look up the recipe for the reduction, I tell myself. Only for that.

  Two bars of signal. Much better than I hoped. My optimism about the weekend renewed, I check something online, impatiently refreshing the browser window.

  Still there. Which means she might not have noticed anything yet. But she will, and soon. I let myself smile with only my lips, my back turned so Byron can’t see me, and put the phone down on the kitchen counter.

  Ding.

  It takes us both by surprise. Did it do this on purpose? I glare at it, at the email alert on the screen.

  “Claire,” Byron says, sighing. “Just put that thing away, please? Can’t we just enjoy ourselves?”

  “It’s my writing account,” I hear myself say. “I’ll just look at it real quick.”

  “Your rejection letter will still be there on Monday,” he mutters, but I’m beyond getting mad at him. I’m already picking up the phone. Somehow, I have a good feeling.

  Dear Claire,

  Thank you for letting me read your manuscript. While your writing style is beautiful and your prose is polished, I had some issues with the story that prevent me from offering representation. I found the portrayal of love excessively idealized, and the love interest a little too perfect. Characters in literary fiction must have flaws, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop because a character that perfect isn’t realistic. As for the protagonist, I found her too naïve for someone who’s been reborn every other decade for centuries. You have a great premise, but the characters need major work, so I’m regretfully passing.

  “Well?” Byron is asking, but he recedes into the background, along with the room, the stove, the crackling fire in the fireplace. All is replaced by a tinny ringing in my ears. I blink, surprised at the grittiness of my eyes. Then I blink again, and everything is restored into order. The steaks hiss alarmingly, begging to be flipped over. I do that, ten seconds too late: The seared side is closer to charred.

  Byron sighs, not having gotten an answer to his question, and goes to retrieve one of the wine bottles from the cooler. Absentmindedly, I listen to him huff and puff as he struggles with the cheap corkscrew we just bought.

  Without another thought, I pick up the coffee mug with the port in it and drain it in one gulp. It’s so sweet that my teeth echo with a dull pain but it goes down as smooth as grape juice. I refill the mug and take another sip, no longer caring if Byron notices.

  He doesn’t. He comes up behind me and hugs me, slipping his hands around my waist. “There, there,” he says. “What does that woman know, anyway? You’re brilliant. Do you want a glass of wine?”

  I’m overcome with irrational anger at him. Fiery, searing anger that makes me want to spin around and hit him across the face with the heavy mug I’m holding—just smack it against his jaw, blindly, with all the strength I have. Of course he knew it was going to be a rejection. He never would have married me if he thought I might be threatening to his superiority in any way. No, he gets to play the dejected genius reduced to teaching teenage ingrates, and I’m just his wife, waiting for him with a steak dinner on the table every night. I must never do better than him.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’d love a glass of wine.”

  It’s that red he likes, way too dark, too bitter, brimming with tannins so strong it’s like biting into an unripe persimmon. But it will do.

  “Slow down, honey,” he says when I drain half the glass.

  I make myself smile.

  We end up eating slightly overdone steak with slightly runny port reduction. He makes sure to praise it far more than it deserves—if it’s a bid to make me feel better, it accomplishes the exact opposite. At least he’s topping off my wineglass without missing a beat, and without unnecessary remarks.

  “You should have let me read it,” he’s saying. I have trouble focusing on his words. His face, too, seems to blur around the edges. I’d chalk it up to the wine but the rest of my senses are still sharp as glass. My husband’s image shifts and changes before my eyes like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. He tilts his head, and suddenly, his strong jaw looks misshapen and grotesque, his nose long and pointy, his eyes small and too dark, glinting maliciously from beneath low brow bones. He makes the slightest movement, the light falls differently, and he’s back to normal again, as handsome as the day I first saw him, the day I met him, and the day I married him.

  “I offered, didn’t I? I used to critique ten of these in one week for my workshops. I could have—”

  My head hurts. Why does he keep blathering on? Can’t he see that I’m squeezing my temples without being subtle about it? He doesn’t seem to care. He never notices things that inconvenience him anyway.

  And I’d never, ever let him read it. I feel weird letting him read my work but especially this book, with the main character so blatantly inspired by him. By the person he used to be anyway.

  Dinner is thankfully finished, and we’re on the couch with the TV on, watching nothing in particular on a local channel. The couch is as uncomfortable as it looks. I finish the last dregs of wine in my glass and put it on the floor. Byron is eating ice cream out of the carton, and he offers me a spoon. I accept, more out of compliancy than because I really want any. It’s salted caramel, his favorite that I can’t stand. By now I’m drunk enough that I can’t taste much.

  The idea comes to me in that moment of drunken brilliance. I take the container and set it down next to the glass and then make a move right for my husband’s lips. To my surprise, I meet no resistance, and our mouths collide with a soft, wet smack.

  “Claire,” he murmurs. I can taste the salted caramel. “Stop. What are you doing?”

  I pull the hem of his shirt out of his waistband and find my way underneath. I still feel the solid wall of muscle but now there
’s a bit of softness overlaying it, just a tiny bit of flab. When did that happen? I wonder. When I plunge my hand under his waistband, what’s there is soft too. He used to get hard from the slightest touch. But now no amount of kneading seems to have any effect.

  He mutters my name under his breath, catches my wrist, and removes my hand from where it was.

  My lips shape the word why.

  “You’re drunk,” he mutters. “Totally shit-faced. You had a whole bottle to yourself. I should have watched you.”

  “I’m fine,” I protest, but when he gets up from the couch, I realize I can’t follow him. With a sigh, he leans over and picks me up like a child, under my armpits. My legs hit the floor.

  “Come on,” he’s saying in my ear. “To bed.”

  That’s not how I imagined it. I make protesting noises, which he ignores as he hauls me up the stairs. I can barely stand so he has to carry me, and by the time we’re on the mezzanine, he’s sweating. I catch a glimpse of his red face as he lets me drop onto the bed.

  He pulls off my socks and then my jeans. I go still and quiet but my hopes are in vain. There’s nothing sexual about any of it; he might as well be undressing a doll or a child. He tucks the cover under my chin; it smells too strongly of bleach and detergent, and I picture all the other strangers that used it in the past days, weeks, months. The thought brings an unexpected tide of nausea. Closing my eyes, I groan.

  “I’ll get you a glass of water,” he says, and I listen to his steps growing farther away and then down the stairs. The floorboards creak as he paces.

  I never notice whether he brought me the water. Next thing I know, I’m waking up but it’s not morning. Everything around me is dark, so dark I might as well have gone blind. My head pounds, and my mouth is dry and foul tasting. I attempt to sit up but the slightest effort makes me feel like I’m about to throw up.

  I hear something familiar through the thrum of my headache: a series of creaks coming from downstairs. He’s pacing again, I realize. Why isn’t he asleep?

  “I don’t know what else to do,” comes his hissed whisper.

  Then I realize there’s a second sequence of creaks, entirely separate from the first. I freeze, incomprehension and disbelief warring with caution. He’s not alone.

  “Well, this isn’t it.” The voice is lowered to the point where I can barely hear the words but I’m pretty sure it’s a woman. “Make her believe you love her again. It can’t be that hard. She’s obsessed with you—”

  “It’s not that easy,” he snaps. “What do you think it’s like for me?”

  “Just do it. Be nice. Be a loving husband. You have no choice. She’s starting to suspect something, don’t you see?”

  “Good,” he spits. A stunned silence follows. I hold my breath.

  “No. Not good. We talked about this. As far as she’s concerned, you’re head over heels in love with her, and you have to convince her. Fuck her if you have to.”

  The word is like a gunshot, nearly tearing a gasp from me. I clasp my hand over my mouth.

  “You should leave,” Byron says coldly.

  “No way.”

  “Leave,” he repeats. “Now, before she wakes up and sees you.”

  “Okay,” she whispers. “But I won’t be far.”

  More floorboards creak beneath soft, feminine steps, and then the door closes softly, followed by the click of the lock.

  Then everything goes quiet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  For the first time in what feels like forever, I wake up with my husband by my side.

  Sunlight pours into the cabin. In its brilliant rays, everything looks different, dustier and shabbier. I sit up, disoriented, trying to untangle the dreams from the memories.

  There’s a glass sitting by the side of the bed with a couple of gulps of water still left at the bottom. I pick it up and finish it greedily but it’s like a drop of rain in the Sahara.

  I turn to look at Byron, peacefully asleep in spite of the bright sunshine. Confusion stirs in the back of my mind. Was it real? The eternal question. I pull my knees up and rest my forehead against them, closing my eyes. Red pulses behind my shut eyelids. When I look up again, he’s still there. He winces slightly, his mouth twitches, and as I lean closer, he murmurs something too faint for me to make out.

  Still, my mind makes its own interpretations. Somewhere deep down I’m certain he whispered, Colleen.

  Byron opens his eyes.

  “Curtains,” he says. “Close them. Claire?”

  I just blink, as if I’ve forgotten how to move.

  He sighs and sits up. “Good morning,” he says with resignation. “It’s only seven a.m. We don’t have to get up. But someone has to close the curtains.”

  “Was there someone else here?” I ask.

  He looks utterly confused. He rubs his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Last night.” I already feel foolish, and it only gets worse as I watch his expression shift from confusion to annoyance.

  “No. I went to sleep less than an hour after you. Slept like a rock, for once; it must be this air…What do you mean someone was here? Did you hear something?”

  “Did you lock the door?”

  “Of course I locked the door. And turned the latch too. No one could have come in.”

  “Someone else does have the key. The owner?”

  “Yeah, but…listen to yourself. Why would the owner come here while we’re sleeping?”

  I shake my head, trying in vain to get rid of the nausea and headache. “Never mind. I’m going to make coffee.”

  * * *

  Byron ends up making coffee while I make breakfast. He opened all the curtains, and all the windows that have screens, and I can’t help but feel exposed, like a zoo animal. We dance politely around each other in the kitchen, and I keep glancing sideways at him for cues. But he acts perfectly normal, and no matter how hard I listen for anything strange, any steps or creaks that seem out of place, there’s nothing but the normal noises of the forest.

  Byron eats with enviable appetite while I push my scrambled eggs around my plate. He hardly looks surprised. He doesn’t seem to notice at all.

  “Was I very drunk last night?” I finally ask.

  He shrugs, barely pausing between mouthfuls. “Drunk? You had too much wine. Mixed with the fresh air, it goes to your head faster.”

  “Did I make a fool of myself?”

  Another shrug, but he glances away this time. I lower my gaze to my plate. Maybe I did get drunker than I thought. Maybe I dreamed the whole thing.

  I pour myself more coffee and drink it too fast, scalding my palate.

  “Careful,” my husband says. I look at him and realize he’s been watching me, intently, this whole time.

  The day passes by lazily. We take the boat out in the afternoon, with me perched on the bench at the front and Byron in the back, rowing. The mosquito repellent hardly works, and I keep slapping at my arms and legs in exasperation. Even the thick wool of the knit jacket I’d borrowed from Byron doesn’t seem to be much of an obstacle for the vile creatures. On the other hand, Byron doesn’t look bothered at all; it’s as if they don’t notice him.

  The lake is breathtaking, mirror-still, reflecting the sky and the treetops that have begun to yellow, but I can’t focus on any of it. I just want the torture to be over, to be on solid ground again, hopefully indoors where the mosquitoes can’t get to me.

  Byron keeps talking about how lucky we are to have gotten the place at such short notice, and it’s too bad it was at the last minute because he would have loved to have borrowed some fishing rods to see if there were any trout in the lake. “I bet they’re as big as a dog,” he says. “Have you ever been fishing?”

  I shake my head and slap my hand down on the mosquito that just landed on the side of my neck. When I take my hand away, there’s a tiny smear of blood. Itchy welts are already developing on the backs of my hands and under my sleeves. Great.

  “Ever gutted
a fresh fish before?”

  “Ew,” I say with a small laugh.

  “No worries—I’ll show you.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “It’s really simple. I just wish I had something to catch them. Maybe I can improvise.” His eyes are glittering.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Wait. Let me check.” He reaches into the pocket of his windbreaker, the ugly old thing I keep insisting he throw out. “Hang on. Hold this for a second.”

  I hold out my hand, and an object lands in it. I grow still. It’s a flat, rectangular velvet box.

  “Well?” he prompts.

  Holding my breath, I open it to reveal a pair of gorgeous drop earrings. The gems catch the sunlight and light up from within, with a neon-green fire too intense to have come from a lab. Emeralds. To go with my ring.

  “Byron,” I say. A smile blooms on my lips, uncertain and shaky, but still.

  “You really think I forgot what day it was?”

  To be honest, I didn’t think he cared anymore.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you,” I say. “I hadn’t realized we were exchanging gifts.” And the truth is I had a gift planned for him for months—but thanks to Rea and Dr. Hassan, with her bureaucratic bullshit, that gift is off the table until I figure something out.

  “I don’t need anything,” he says. “And that’s the point of a surprise. I wanted to surprise you.”

  He certainly has.

  “Why don’t you put them on?”

  I’ll look ridiculous, dressed in Byron’s oversize sweater and my big rubber boots, my hair flat and face plain, but with emerald earrings that skim my jawline. I murmur something to that effect.

  “Nonsense,” Byron says. “Put them on!”

  “I’ll drop them in the water.”

  He doesn’t look pleased but lets it go. I look for a place to put the box where it’ll be safe from the damp and finally put it in the pocket of the giant, shapeless sweater.