Page 1 of Such a Good Wife

Prologue

THE DOOR WAS OPEN when I arrived. I didn’t think it was strange. I thought maybe he’d left it that way to let in the breezy night air. Perhaps he was enjoying a glass of wine on the porch and had run in for a refill. I didn’t know what it would mean that the door was ajar, and I shouldn’t have shut it. I shouldn’t have touched anything.

I called his name, setting my purse on the counter and cocking my head to listen for maybe a shower running or footsteps upstairs. No answer. No sounds. That’s when I noticed his phone on the floor of the kitchen. The glass screen was smashed, but it worked. That gave me pause. Why would he leave it there like that if he’d dropped it? When I looked through into the living room, I saw the couch cushions tossed on the ground. It was so quiet. What the hell was going on?

I called his name again; my heart sped up as I yelled for him and threw open doors to find him. Had there been a robbery? I raced up the stairs and started to panic a bit. He should be home. The television in the upstairs family room was on, but no one was watching it. When I turned it off, the silence rang in my ears. I saw that the French doors to the balcony off of the bedroom, which overlooked the pool, were open. When I walked out onto the balcony, I felt a tremor of unease even before I saw it.

The backyard was canopied with Spanish moss dripping from the trees and it hummed with the sound of cicadas, invisible in the branches. The humidity was palpable in the thick night air. I thought of calling him, but remembered I’d just seen his phone downstairs. All of a sudden, I wished, desperately, that I could take back every decision I had made over the last couple months that landed me here, witnessing what I could never unsee.

He was there. I saw him in the shadowy blue light that the swimming pool cast across the patio. He was lying on the concrete slab next to the pool with ribbons of blood making a river from the back of his head down to the pool-deck drain. I could tell from the eerie, lifeless stare and gloss over his eyes that he was dead.

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1

Before

THE AUGUST HEAT HANGS heavy in the wet air. I try to keep Bennett occupied in a way that doesn’t involve a screen, so we sit barefoot on the back steps behind the deck, peeling muddy red potatoes and snipping green bean ends, discarding them into the rusty buckets we hold between our knees. He loves this. The ritual of plucking off each knotted end soothes him. Inside, I see Rachel and her friend from school eating strawberries over the sink, throwing the green tops into a soggy pile in the drain; she rolls her eyes when I call in to tell her to run the disposal and pull the chicken out to defrost. It’s only a few weeks until school starts back up, and I’m using the advent calendar leftover from Christmas to count down the days. Bennett helped me tape cutout images of book bags and rulers over the old Santas and stuffed stockings.

He starts a new school in September, one he’s been on a waiting list to attend because his doctor says it’s the best for kids on the spectrum. He should have started in kindergarten, and now, as he goes into the second grade, I try to curb my resentment at the bougie place for keeping us waiting that long, even after a hefty donation we made two years ago. But I’m hopeful the new school might be a better fit for him because it specifically caters to neurodivergent kids. He can be rigid and set in his ways. He can also be easily agitated and this school is the best in the area. I’ve read every book, I’ve gone to every specialist, and still feel like I’m failing him when I struggle to understand what he’s feeling.

Ben gets the little chocolate Santa out of the pocket taped over with a cutout of colored pencils, and we cheer in anticipation of the exciting first big day (only eighteen days left), and I get a secret reward of my own. I’m a day closer to a few minutes of peace and quiet. I swell with love for him as he opens the foil around the chocolate with the care and precision of a surgeon. He is my joy, but I’m so very tired these last weeks.

The heat is getting to him—making him irritable. I can tell because he loses interest in counting each green bean end, and stares off.

“There’s a firefly!” He begins chasing it along the bushes near the fence. “Did you know they’re bioluminescent?”

“Pretty cool,” I say.

“And they eat each other. Does that make them cannonballs?”

“Cannibals,” I correct him.

“What’s the difference?” He has come back over to the deck after losing the insect, now genuinely interested in the answer.

“Well, a cannonball is when you jump in the pool and splash everyone, and cannibal is the thing you said.” I decide on this explanation rather than going into descriptions of weaponry.

“They eat each other!”

“Yes.”

“Cool, can I see if they like ice cream? I can leave some out for them.”

“Mom!” Rachel yells from inside the sliding glass door she’s cracked open, “I don’t see any chicken!” All I have to do is give her a warning look and she shuts the door and goes back inside, muttering “whatever” under her breath. She knows yelling will almost always set Ben into a panic. As recent as last year, she’d be immediately remorseful if she did anything to upset him, but now that she’s headed into junior high, the arm crossing and annoyed sighing is a constant. The unkindness of puberty has changed her. Now, when we drive past the Davises’ house down the street, and their boys are out front playing in the drive (or “hanging” in the drive because, as she points out, kids don’t “play” anymore), one of them will shoot a basket or tackle another boy at that very moment—like birds of paradise, putting on a show—a primitive mating ritual. Rachel always giggles and avoids eye contact with me. It’s maddening. She’s just thirteen.

“Bennett,” I say, smiling, “I think there’s some mint chip I hid in the back of the freezer.” I pat his back gently and his eyes light up. He bolts inside before I can change my mind.

I pile the buckets of beans and potatoes on the patio table and step my feet into the pool. I sit on the edge and close my eyes, letting the cool water caress my feet and whisper around my ankles. It’s momentarily quiet, so I allow myself to think of him for just a few minutes—just a small indulgence before bringing Claire her medication and starting to make dinner.

He’s practically a stranger. It’s so shameful. I think about the way we tumbled in his door and didn’t even make it to the couch. He pushed me, gently, against the entryway wall and pulled my shirt over my head. The flutter in my stomach is quickly extinguished by the crushing guilt I feel, and I try to push away the thoughts.

“Mom!” Rachel calls from the kitchen.

“Dad’s on the phone!” She walks out holding her phone, and hands it to me with an annoyed sigh. My hands tremble a little. It feels as if he overheard my thoughts and interrupted them on purpose. Rachel notices my hands.

“What’s up with you?” she asks, standing with a hand on a hip, waiting for her phone back.

“You just startled me. I’m fine. And stop yelling.”

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