The Starter Wife

by Nina Laurin

  “You’re wrong,” I say, and it’s the truth, in a way. “Byron, you need to think about this. Carefully. No one will believe you. You know I’m right.”

  He storms past me. I don’t follow him. I sit on the couch, listening to him rummage around upstairs. He throws things. Crash, boom. It all takes only minutes, although it feels much longer. Then he’s thundering down the stairs. There’s an old duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. It looks like it’s about to burst at the seams.

  “I’m going away,” he snaps. “To Emily’s.”

  “There’s no need for that,” I say. I sound like I’m pleading. “Stay. We can talk about this. Work it out.”

  “I won’t stay for another second in the same house with you. You have two days to tell the truth,” he says. “Then I’m going to get the authorities involved.”

  “And what, they’re going to torture the confession out of me?” I give a little laugh. “Listen to yourself. You’re being absurd. Put the bag down.”

  Without another word, he grabs the ring off the table and heads for the door. In the doorway, he stops. He looks like he’s thinking. Then he turns around.

  “About the baby clothes,” he says. His voice is dripping with venom. “She wasn’t pregnant. She never wanted kids. I planted the clothes. I knew you’d go looking for the painting you keep trying to sell, and I wanted you to come across them. I knew you’d lose your shit.”

  That’s it. Enough is enough. Breathless, I leap off the couch but he’s already slamming the door behind him. Tears burst from my eyes. “Come back here!” I scream, my voice shrill and ugly. I’ve never used that voice with him. “Come back! You bastard!”

  I grab the closest object—an empty glass—and hurl it blindly. But he’s already gone, and it shatters against the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  To: m1970@yourmail.com

  From: widower@yourmail.com

  Em,

  I know the psychologist in you wouldn’t approve but I keep thinking about Colleen. How she was in that last year. All the little things that I didn’t notice at the time. I can’t believe I was such an idiot. I was so self-absorbed that it never occurred to me she might genuinely not have known what was happening to her. She kept denying it, saying she wasn’t high, and I could see it on her face—I thought it was a look of guilt. I thought she was lying. But now I realize she was telling the truth, and that look was fear.

  I should have understood what was going on after that party at our place. It’s messed up—there are so many happier times with her I could be remembering but they’re all foggy, and that horrible evening is clear, after all these years. Maybe it’s because that was the night everything really started to fall apart. Or maybe it’s because all the people from work were there, and I’m not stupid—I know someone must have overheard. She was so disoriented, and she was screaming at me in a rage. She thought it was all about the stupid ring she lost, that I was still mad. She kept repeating it wasn’t her fault she lost it. And looking back, I realize that of course it wasn’t her fault. But what’s worse is that I also realize that I did blame her.

  I have to wonder if a part of what happened was my fault. She was wild, and creative, and strange from the day we first met. She was so far beyond me that it thrilled and scared me a little, and I couldn’t believe a woman like that wanted to be with me.

  But time went by, and I began to realize the very things I loved about her had sharp edges, and those sharp edges refused to fit into the life I envisioned for myself. They kept poking through and cutting and bristling. So I started trying to shoehorn her into being something she wasn’t. I had my own ideas, you see, of what our ideal life should be. I loved her for what she was, yet at the same time, I kept trying to change her.

  I still ask myself: did she ever think I was the one trying to drive her insane? She must have. I was a bad husband. I had failed her.

  Because of this trailer-trash bitch, my wife killed herself, thinking I wanted her dead.

  Yours,

  B.

  Byron,

  I won’t lie—it’s going to be extremely difficult to prove that it was Claire—sorry, Tracy—who drove Colleen to suicide. Our best option is to get her to confess. For that, we must break her spirit. As the object of her obsession, you’re also in a singular position of power. She lives for your love, or whatever she perceives to be your love. That need was her motivation for everything she did, and it can also be her undoing.

  I have to remind you, once again, to be extremely careful.

  This Friday I’ll come over for dinner. I’ll try to get a picture of her mental state.

  Hang in there.

  Your sister.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  After Colleen was gone, I spent the next week or two in a kind of limbo. Every time someone looked at me, I was sure they could see it. An indelible mark, like Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot, out, I say! I was convinced everyone could magically know I was a murderer. But of course, if that were true, people wouldn’t get away with crimes every minute of every day, all over the world.

  Those were a tough two weeks. I will never forget them. I promised that, should I ever reach my goal, I wouldn’t take a single minute I spent in your company for granted. I missed you dreadfully in those two weeks. But of course, I had to stay away.

  It was the price to pay, and then the coast would be clear, at last. Except it wasn’t.

  I wasn’t ready for you, you see. And I realized it. I’m not completely delusional. Trailer-Trash Tracy—that’s what some people at school called me behind my back, even though it was unfair because we didn’t live in a trailer. It was a real house. Not much of a house, but a house nonetheless. As I was, I would never in a million years be good enough for someone like Byron Westcott, literature professor.

  So over the next few years, I set about killing Tracy Belfour. Little by little.

  I’d already improved my grades somewhat, and by the end of the year, I was squarely on the “average” end of mediocre. My English grades stood out: I paid special attention in that class because the materials reminded me of you. That, and I’d need to be well-read so I could keep up a conversation with you, when the time came. I ended up with an A-minus in English for the year and did well enough on my tests to get into college. Definitely not an Ivy, and definitely not on any scholarship, but it was worth a try.

  So I tried, and I failed. All my applications came back with rejections. And anyway, I had no way to pay for it, and my mom could certainly not be counted on to help. Her medical bills ate up all the welfare money.

  I spent a year waiting tables at the same restaurant. I still remember that one night, when I came home from work past midnight. My legs burned in agony after a twelve-hour shift, and my hair smelled like grease. I almost forgot to look in the mailbox, like I did every night. All I wanted was to take a shower and collapse onto my narrow bed. You could never understand these struggles, Byron. It’s not how you grew up. And I would never, ever dream of telling you. I don’t want you seeing me that way.

  But I took the time to look anyway. The mailbox was empty. I went inside to find Mom passed out on the couch with the TV still on, like she did more and more often lately. The bottle of cheap wine on the floor by the couch was empty. A syringe sat on the side table. At least she remembered her insulin, I thought.

  I threw down my bag and kicked off my shoes and then went to shower and wash my hair, like I did every night. I wasn’t blond yet but I already decided that I would be. I always pictured you with a blond. I’d lost weight—I didn’t even have to cut back on food; the endless waiting tables did the job. That, and I quit my soda habit. I pictured you with someone who drinks only Evian.

  When I got out of the shower, I saw that my mom was awake, sitting up on the couch, blinking at the TV with bleary eyes.

  I called out to her. She didn’t seem to hear. I called again.

  “What?” she grumbled. She barely turned her head.
r />   “Did we get any mail today?”

  “If we got mail, it would be in the mailbox, wouldn’t it?”

  I didn’t want to argue. I went to bed. It took forever to fall asleep because she didn’t feel the need to lower the volume of the TV. There was some kind of reality-show marathon. It seeped into my ears and into my dreams. I woke up with the alarm the next morning, puffy faced and barely rested.

  The house was silent. When I ventured out of the room I used to share with Chrissy, I saw my mother passed out in front of the TV, which was, mercifully, turned off.

  I went into the kitchen to make a cup of instant coffee but realized we were out. I threw the coffee jar into the trash, and that’s when I saw it.

  A small pile of ads and brochures: takeout, grocery store discounts of the week, the usual junk mail. I don’t know what made me reach in and lift it up. There, underneath a flyer for Premium Quality Doors and Windows, sat a thick white envelope.

  My heart stopped beating. I snatched it out of the trash with trembling hands and tore it open.

  Dear Ms. Belfour, I read. On behalf of the Creative Writing Department at Ohio State University, we are pleased to welcome you—

  I couldn’t keep reading. The letter slipped from my hands, and I barely caught it before it hit the dirty floor.

  I did it. It was happening. Another sign from above that I was on the right track.

  And my mother threw it in the trash. She didn’t even look. Told me there was no mail. She was so out of it, the fucking alkie. She couldn’t even be bothered to remember that I was waiting for this letter, waiting for months and months and months.

  Unless she did remember. Unless she told me there was no mail because…

  “Mom?” I bellowed. No answer came. She must have been passed out cold. I set the letter carefully down on the kitchen counter and stormed into the living room.

  Sure enough, she slept peacefully on the couch. Hadn’t even stirred.

  Standing there, by her head lolling on the armrest, I remembered the tantrum she threw when Chrissy left. A frightful alcoholic rage. You’re abandoning your mother, you ungrateful little slut. How dare you. I gave my health to have you. And so on and so forth, spittle flying from her lips in a haze of boozy breath.

  Chrissy packed her bags and walked right out the door, leaving me to bear the brunt of most of it.

  She doesn’t want me to leave, I realized. Doesn’t want me to move on, go to college, have a better life. She wants me to stay here forever and take care of her, make liquor store runs and pick up her insulin at the pharmacy until finally, one day, her kidneys or heart or brain gives out.

  She found the letter and threw it away on purpose.

  I felt an intense rush of hatred.

  Enough. I’d had enough of her, of this house, of Trailer-Trash Tracy. The ticket to my new life—the ticket to being one step closer to you, Byron, the meaning of my existence, the reason for everything I’ve ever done—sat on the kitchen counter, ready to spirit me away and out of here.

  She wasn’t going to tie me down.

  I picked up the syringe from the end table, went to the bathroom, and then found the insulin in the cabinet. I filled the syringe. I felt no anxiety. My hands were steady and calm. I’d done this before, a number of times. She wasn’t that good at managing her illness.

  Looks like she finally made the last, fatal slipup.

  And now my good-for-nothing mother would free me—and finance my future in the same stroke.

  You—and our beautiful life together—waited for me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  What matters is that I’m in control of the situation again. I sweep up the shards of glass like I would have done any other time, diligently, leaving nothing behind.

  Byron will come around. We are stronger than that; we are meant to be. Surely, he will see that.

  In the meantime, I can nudge him in the right direction.

  I record the video with my phone. I prop it up against a coffee mug and turn on the video function. With a tap of my fingertip on the big red button, the seconds begin to tick away.

  I wipe the tears from my lower lashes with my fingertips and then press the heels of my hands over my eyes and take a deep, shuddering sigh of resolve. Making sure it’s all recorded. This isn’t easy for me, Byron. You’ll never know.

  “My name is Claire Greene Westcott. I’m married to Byron Westcott, literature professor at Mansfield Liberal Arts College in Mansfield, Ohio. Claire Greene wasn’t always my name.”

  I take a short breathing break. I’d put on some mascara, and now it’s artfully smudged under my lower lashes. I look like a woman crushed by guilt, worn thin with remorse.

  “I first met Byron Westcott more than ten years ago, when I was a junior at Peake Falls High School in Ohio. He came to give a lecture at my school. Afterward, I stayed behind to ask him questions. That’s when our relationship began.”

  With another artful sigh, I lower my eyes, the very picture of shame.

  “Over the next year, I met Byron Westcott in secret. He was in his late thirties; I was sixteen. We met…” I let my voice tremble just the right amount. “We met at his house when his wife was away. Several times we met at my mother’s house, when no one was home. I lost my virginity to Byron Westcott a week before my seventeenth birthday.”

  I take another pause, letting the words sink in.

  “He told me he wasn’t happy in his marriage anymore. That his wife was distant, that they were going to get a divorce soon. I listened to him. I wanted us to have a future together, and he told me we could. Just as soon as he got Colleen to give him a divorce. But it was hard, he said, because she would take the house, and his savings, and make his life a living hell. He didn’t use those exact words, but it was the meaning. That’s why we had to keep our relationship secret. If Colleen suspected anything, she could use it against Byron in the divorce.

  “Shortly after my eighteenth birthday, when I was in my senior year of high school, he broke up with me. Briefly. I was devastated but he contacted me again a week later. We met at an empty house that he later told me was his sister’s. She and her family were away for the weekend. There, he told me he couldn’t live without me, and I’m ashamed to say, I felt the same way. And I told him so. He asked me if I was ready to do anything to have a future with him. I said yes.”

  The lies come so easily that I hardly need the brief outline I jotted on a napkin to help me keep track of stuff. As far as I’m concerned, it might as well all be true.

  “We devised a plan to get rid of Colleen. He never said the word murder; we were getting rid of her, getting her out of the way. He would need an alibi so I had to do the work. No one would ever suspect me, he said. No one knows we’re seeing each other, do they? he asked me. I told him no one knew. I was proud of myself”—I heave a tiny sob—“proud of never letting him down. He kissed me and said I was the only person in the entire world he could count on. He could put his life in my hands.

  “He devised the plan and told me he needed me to pull it off, so no one would suspect anything. Not just Colleen. He said no one would believe it was a suicide if it came out of nowhere. So we set it up, over several months. He drugged her food, made her look unstable in front of their friends. Whenever I told him about my reservations, he changed, became violent. Then he told me he loved me over and over, until I stopped objecting.

  “He told Colleen to come to the pier in Cleveland that night. Said it was a surprise. Instead, I was waiting for her there. I pushed Colleen May into the water.

  “Byron Westcott composed the suicide note and made it sound real enough to convince everyone she did write it.

  “We continued seeing each other for more than five years afterward. All in secret. He told me it was necessary, to avoid arousing suspicion. He would act normal, he said. He would date here and there, after enough time had passed since Colleen’s death. But it was all a front, he told me. He only ever loved me, and one day,
we’d be together.”

  I make another shuddering sigh and look straight into the camera. My lips tremble.

  “But a few weeks ago, he hit me. And I threatened to tell the truth. Then he said he’d kill me if I ever tried. He said, Do you think I’ll hesitate when I killed my wife—the only woman I ever loved—for the pathetic, whiny mess that you are? He is insane, and he wants me dead. And I am so, so sorry for everything I’ve done. I was just a teenager, and I was naïve, and Byron…Byron took advantage. In case anything happens to me, consider this my confession.”

  I’m full-on sobbing now. Real, genuine tears run down my face, tinged with mascara—a beautifully grotesque display. Maybe I should have gone into acting instead of writing. “I’m so sorry,” I repeat, my voice breaking, “and I wish to God I could undo what I did—may God have mercy on my—”

  I raise my hand and deliberately knock the phone over, screen-down, before pressing the button to stop recording. Then I wipe the tears and the mascara.

  This is the last time I cry because of Byron Westcott. My faithless husband. My beloved traitor.

  I pick up the phone and send the video to Emily’s email. It’s a risky step but I feel safe enough. She, of all people, will never send it to the police. She loves her brother far too much to implicate him.

  For the time being, let it be a warning.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It wasn’t easy, all that time between. Again, I found myself in a limbo, and the end seemed so far away that it might as well never have come. So many variables, so many obstacles, and the whole time I had to keep track of you so I wouldn’t lose you again. But I endured it—endured it all without a word of complaint—all out of love for you. I wish you could understand.

  In the meantime, I received my mother’s life insurance payout, just in time to pay for my first semester in college. I put the house on the market. Sure, it was little more than a hut but any amount of money was better than nothing. I had to think about it, hard, to wonder if it was worth the risk. On one hand, unloading that house severed my last ties with the past, with Tracy Belfour, with what happened inside these walls. On the other, who knows what the new owners might accidentally discover? People are so nosy. In the end, I decided to chance it. I needed the money.