Page 20 of Such a Good Wife

He counts on me, he joked, leaping back into bed, and rolling me on top of him to make love again that first night. I knew his love for animals. He showed me the locket he always keeps on him, in a pocket somewhere, handed down from his grandmother, which holds a photo of his beloved, deceased dog, Henry.

I knew his body—the body of a man who doesn’t work twelve-hour days and come home to kids, who can spend countless hours at the gym between writing chapters at cafés. But then again, I don’t really know him at all.

The cut on my left shoulder is almost healed. It’s just a wisp of a papery scab now. Collin smiles at me, kisses his finger, then touches it to the cut. I’m pulled out of my fantasy. I put my hand on top of his and kiss it. Because that’s what he expects me to do, and I need to act normal. And because I want to. I love him. I don’t know why I’ve done what I’ve done. He glances in the rearview mirror and then nods for me to look at Ben in back. Ben’s face is plastered to the window, asleep, and Rachel has nodded off sitting up, her head bobbing. I’m so grateful for them, and I feel a twinge of pain behind my eyes. Guilt, maybe. I’m angry at myself for letting my thoughts of him take me away from these moments with them.

When we pull into Biff’s boiled peanut and crawfish stand, everyone uses the restroom, and I sit on a picnic table in the shade while the kids get their peanuts. After I call the home health aide who is looking after Claire to check in, I decide to look up Lacy Dupre. There are a few with that name on Facebook, but I see her photo right away. I click on her profile. To my surprise, much of it is public. Her occupation says “Cashier at Lucky’s Truck Stop.” Her cover photo is her in a slicked-back ponytail and hoop earrings with a toddler on her hip. Her son, I guess. I study him to see if he looks like Joe Brooks. I scroll through dozens of photos, but no trace of Joe in any of them. I get the feeling she’s the sort of girlfriend he calls “just some chick he messes around with now and then” when he talks to his friends.

Probably not even that. He’s slippery. I bet he doesn’t claim her at all. I bet he doesn’t take her anywhere in public. She’s just a quick lay to him, in and out, and she waits for him anyway, pretending it’s more. If he wanted a fuck the other night, he probably worked it out for himself to meet her later, convince her to ditch the other guy. Maybe she embarrassed him in front of his good-ole-boy friends with the audacity to show affection or act like a couple, and he flipped. I know she said she’d finally broken up with him, but I also know she often goes back to him.

I didn’t report what I’d seen, but I can’t just do nothing. I know what I saw, but it seems like the smoky ends of a dream you try to keep in your mind as you wake up, the details blurry, evaporating. There has to be a way to expose Joe Brooks. I quickly send her a friend request and put my phone in my purse so I don’t keep checking to see if she’s accepted.

When evening falls, we sit around a firepit by the water’s edge. Collin boils red potatoes and some crawfish the kids collected. The flames dance and pop and silvery ash soars, then falls like summer snow. Mosquitoes force Rachel and Ben into their tent early to watch a movie on Ben’s iPad, so Collin and I retrieve bottles of beer from the icy water in the bottom of the cooler and walk down to the dock to put our feet in the water.

There is a hint of a breeze in the air and the glow of fireflies in the trees looks like strings of blinking lights. We kick off our flip-flops before we walk barefoot down the wooden slats to the end of the dock. Collin takes my hand and puts his other hand behind his ear playfully, listening.

“What are you doing?” I laugh. He points up and smiles.

“They’re playing our song.” He pulls me in to dance to the song of croaking frogs and rustling tree leaves. I play along, and we sway together for a few minutes. Then he picks up our beer to toast “desperately needed away time” and we sit, dangling our toes off the end of the dock.

“Ben asked how fireflies light up like that, and I didn’t know how to answer him, so now he thinks they take double-A batteries,” Collin says, wiping the light film of sweat from his brow. The humidity is miserable as usual. I laugh.

“You did not tell him that.”

“I have no idea how they light up. He asked me how the toaster works once. No idea. It just works when you plug it in. Bam. Superdad.” He makes a “mic drop” gesture.

“They’re bioluminescent,” I say.

“What are?”

“Fireflies. That’s how they talk to each other.”

“You’re so smart. See, you’re clearly the superior parent, that’s what I love about you so much,” he jokes, kissing me, then putting down his drink to kiss me some more. It feels strange kissing him. My husband of fifteen years and it feels so different, new, almost. We haven’t made love since...Luke. Things just got busy with school, his late hours, Claire’s health. It happens to the best of us. There may have been some avoidance on my part as well, if I’m honest.

“Well, you’re good at other things.” I pat him, laughing. We both pick up our beers and stare into the bayou.

“Are you okay?” he asks, out of the blue, and I feel a wave of nausea rise in my stomach.

“What do you mean? Of course.” I watch the low moon appear now and then between patches of vaporous clouds.

“You just seem...maybe a little distracted. Lately. I know you’ve taken on a lot, but I just want to make sure...everything is...okay, I guess.”

He looks at me with those adoring, hazel eyes and forces a smile. I have no choice. I need to tell him at least one secret so it can all make sense to him—so anything he’s sensed from me can be cleared up right now.

“There is something that I want to tell you,” I say, crossing my legs and turning to him to highlight the importance of what I’m about to say. The color drains from his face.

“What is it?”

“The only reason I haven’t said anything is because I promised someone I wouldn’t tell anyone, but if you’re feeling like I’m distracted or distant, then it’s affecting us and I feel like it’s important to just tell you.”

“God, Mel. What is it? Is it something with one of the kids?”

“No. No, sorry, I just...I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.”

“What do you mean? What?”

“We all went for a drink after writing group.” I have to add that this was a few weeks ago so it can explain away any strange behavior he’s seen in me this whole time. I don’t give him time to question why we’d go all the way out there. I don’t feel good about adding these details, but I have to. “Mia, from the group, she wanted to go for karaoke, and in the parking lot, I saw a guy assault a woman.”

“You saw it.”

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