Page 62 of The Wives

“You fucking bitch,” I say, walking toward her. I don’t know what I intend to do, but then she’s in front of me and my hands are around her neck. It was a mistake; Seth is on me in a flash, grabbing my wrists and pulling me away. I struggle against him, kicking out, and feel my foot catch him in the knee. He grunts in pain and falls toward me, pushing me to the ground. I reach for the gun, the one I tucked into my waistband just in case. My hand is trapped, my fingers touching the cold metal; Seth’s weight is on my upper body. I hear Hannah screaming, Regina is yelling my name. I can’t let him hurt Hannah’s baby. I struggle to pull the gun free, yanking it from the confines of my jeans. My finger finds the trigger. As Seth’s knee comes down hard on my stomach I pull the trigger. I hear a loud pop and then Regina screaming out, telling Hannah to call 911. The air whooshes out of me at the same time I feel blood on my hands. Seth collapses on top of me, the gun trapped between us. His blood pools warm on my belly. I can barely breathe. And it’s in that loss of breath that I remember. Seth approaching me at the coffee shop, him telling me that he was married, my initial anger, and then our affair, getting pregnant...and his wife, Regina, leaving him. I remember thinking he’d marry me now that Regina was out of the picture, that we’d be a family. But then I lost the baby... Oh God, oh God. Waking up in the hospital and the doctor telling me that I’d never be able to have another child. The look on Seth’s face...

And then he’d left me. For Hannah. Some slut he met who was young enough and fertile enough to have his babies. They were both from Utah; she was ten years his junior. But I’d begged him to come back to me; I’d told him that I didn’t care if he married Hannah, that I still wanted him. And so began our second affair.

THIRTY-SIX

It’s different this time; I am more relaxed, less anxious. The staff knows me by name and I no longer feel like a faceless victim. Dr. Steinbridge sees me three times a week. He says we are making progress.

I wander the long, stale-smelling corridors, thinking about my choices, itemizing my weaknesses. There are so many moments in my life when I should have been awake and instead was in a sleepy, emotional trance. I allowed things to happen to me.

I take all of the classes and groups: my favorite is holistic yoga, where we all gather in a windowless room and perch fluidly on purple mats, breathing deeply and emptying our minds of our troubles. So many troubles we have, so many disorders. Lauren brings me dinner twice a week from my favorite take-out places, and my mother visits, wearing a guilty expression and bearing huge plastic containers of homemade cookies.

“Enough for everyone,” she says.

I’ve never asked her what she thinks of the situation with Seth, or if she’s in contact with him. I don’t think I want to know. Once, when I said his name, a sour expression appeared on her face before it was quickly replaced by what I call her everything is all right! smile.

Anna has flown in twice to see me. The first time she came, she marched into Queen County with plenty to say about Seth, and loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. Bless her. My father has not come. I don’t expect him to. I am his broken child, an embarrassment. I lied to my parents about Seth and now they know the truth: I am a mistress, not worthy of marriage.

During my last week in Queen County, I sit alone at dinner near the window, my tray of shepherd’s pie congealing in front of me. Jell-O, too, of course—always Jell-O. The water here tastes metallic and dirty, but I sip it slowly, staring out at the grassy lawn below. The window fogs from my breath and I breathe harder just to watch the patch of condensation grow and retract, grow and retract.

The therapy has been a breeze, really—helpful, even. After the police came to Hannah and Seth’s temporary home and found Seth bleeding on top of me, I was taken to the hospital. I spent three days there recovering from minor wounds before they transferred me to jail to await my arraignment.

Regina had set me up, of course, getting me to believe and accuse Seth of causing both of our miscarriages. But this turned out to help my case. My lawyer got me off on insanity and they sent me back to Queen County, this time for a much longer stay. I was relieved actually, afraid they’d send me somewhere new.

During my first meeting with Dr. Steinbridge, just a day after I arrived, he told me that I’d been stalking Seth and his new wife for quite some time. He also told me that Seth’s ex-wife, Regina, had corroborated the story by saying that I’d shown up at her work and her home, forcing myself inside and demanding information about them. Regina produced the voice mail I’d left her right before I’d charged into Seth and Hannah’s condo. The doctor played it for me as I sat in the leather armchair across from him. I didn’t move a limb as I listened, my body tense with anticipation. Even to my own ears, I sounded crazy. It was then that Dr. Steinbridge paused the voice mail, waiting for me to either deny or own these claims. I did neither. No point in denying the stalking part—that was true, regardless of how Regina had played me. I sat in silence, listening to him, the excuses dying on my tongue.

“You do not bear full responsibility for what happened,” Dr. Steinbridge told me. “Seth is a troubled individual, the way he grew up, the abuse he claims he suffered. He cheated on both of his wives and emotionally manipulated you. He used you and played into your denial. But we aren’t here to deal with Seth’s issues, we’re here to deal with yours. When you realized what was happening in your relationship with him, your mind created an alternate reality to deal with both the death of your unborn baby and the fact that Seth was moving on with someone else.”

“But he never tried to end things with me,” I said.

And then the good doctor produced half a dozen emails between Seth and me, all of which came directly from my email account. He let me read them. Seth, always logical, pleading with me to accept the fact that we were over and that he was sorry for cheating on Hannah. I had no memory of reading those emails, no memory of answering them. Dr. Steinbridge said that I deleted them in my desperation to pretend it wasn’t happening.

“The police also found the account you created under the name Will Moffit, the one you used to get access to Regina...”

“Yes, but I only did that because I thought she was cheating on him...”

He’d looked at me sympathetically.

“What about Seth’s parents? They sent me cards... I have them.”

“The cards were part of your case. Your attorney presented them to the jury as evidence when you pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. You wrote them. They brought in a handwriting analyst to prove it.”

I saw myself in line at the grocery store, a stack of cards on the conveyor belt. I’d whimpered, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes.

“It’s right there, Thursday, right in front of you,” he’d said, tapping the papers with a finger. His fingers were gloriously bent, like knobby tree branches. I watched them poke at the printed pages in fascination. “You and Seth were never married. He had an affair with you when he was married to his first wife, Regina. Regina left him when she found out that he got you pregnant.” He’d paused to let that sink in. “But you lost the baby, and that caused you to enter a psychotic episode.”

Seth had not caused our miscarriages, but Regina made me believe that he had. Why? Regina had lost a baby—that all came out in the trial—but much earlier than mine, at eight weeks. She testified that she caught Seth tampering with her birth control. I’d looked back at Regina at that very moment, as she sat on the other side of the courtroom, remembering her confession in the diner that day, and I’d seen her face pale.

Once I made Seth the enemy in my mind, it was so easy to believe what Regina fed me. My baby had been healthy one day, moving and kicking, and then he’d just stopped. There was no medical reason found. Sometimes those things just happen, babies stop living.

“Dr. Steinbridge,” I say during one session. “Isn’t it funny that Seth never mentioned any of this the last time I was here?”

“He never claimed to be your husband, Thursday. When you came in last time it’s because Seth tried to end things with you. He admitted as much to me when I spoke to him privately, that he was married to someone else, and that you were his mistress. His wife, Hannah, figured out who you were on the last night you saw her. Do you remember?”

I remember having dinner with her, going to the bathroom and coming out to find her gone. I tell the doctor this.

“Seth figured out where you were and texted her. He told her to leave right away.”

“But when I got back to my apartment, he was there. His hand was beat up...”

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