Page 2 of Such a Good Wife

“He’s in the living room,” she says defensively, glancing in the screen door to make sure Ben is truly out of earshot. She sits in the patio chair and twirls while I talk to Collin.

“Hi, honey. Honey? Hello? Collin?” There is no response. My eyes prick with tears. It’s totally irrational, but suddenly, I imagine he knows what I’ve done and he’s too angry to speak. Someone’s seen us and told him. I sit, weak-kneed, and strain to hear. “Collin?”

“Sorry, hon. I was in an elevator for a sec,” he says, upbeat. The ding of an elevator and muffled voices can be heard in the background.

“Oh. Why are you calling on Rachel’s phone?” I ask.

“I tried you a few times. I wanted to see if you needed me to pick up dinner. I’m on my way home.”

“Oh, I must have left mine inside. I was in the yard with Ben. Um...no that’s okay, I’ve already got things prepped, but thanks.” I wonder if my voice sounds guilty or different somehow. I never leave my phone, not with Bennett’s condition and Collin’s ill mother living with us. So, that seems out of character. He’s too kind to say anything, but I’m sure it struck him as odd. It’s a pact between us as we juggle all the health issues and crisis calls from school. Both of us will stay available. As a high-profile real estate agent, it doesn’t bode well for Collin to have his phone ping during a showing or a big meeting, but he won’t let me carry all the weight of this myself. It’s his gesture of solidarity, I suppose. The same way he stopped drinking beer when I was pregnant, both times. If I couldn’t have my wine, he would suffer with me. That’s just the way he is.

My face is flushed with shame. I can feel it. I turn away from Rachel slightly.

“Roast chicken and potatoes. Ben helped,” I say with a forced smile in my voice.

“Sounds great. See you in a bit, then.”

When we hang up, Rachel snatches her phone back. She crosses her long legs and hooks a foot inside the opposite ankle. It looks like they could wrap around each other endlessly. She’s always been thin. Her kneecaps practically bulge compared to the rest of her threadlike legs, which seem to dangle loosely inside her too-short shorts. I don’t say anything about them, choosing my battles today.

On my way inside, I stop to smooth her hair and kiss the top of her head. As if each good, motherly thing I do is a tiny bit of atonement for my sins. She smells like sickly sweet Taylor Swift body spray, and doesn’t look up at me, just scrolls on her phone.

Dinner is quiet, but when Collin tells Rachel “no phones at the table,” she fires back.

“You haven’t looked up from yours since we sat down.”

“That’s different. It’s work and it’s urgent.” He gives her a twirly gesture with his hand to put her phone away. It’s true, Collin almost never uses his phone during dinner, but I know he’s working on a huge commercial sale and lately all he can talk about is how a train track is too close to a hospital they invested in and it’s causing the building to vibrate. I pour a little more wine into my glass than I usually would, but take advantage of his distraction. He wouldn’t say anything if I drank the whole bottle, but sometimes that’s worse—wondering if someone harbors quiet disappointment in you, but is too kind to ever point it out.

“How’s Mom?” he asks.

Jesus Christ. I can’t believe I forgot Claire.

“I poked my head in before dinner, but she was asleep. Should I bring her a plate?” he asks.

I never brought her her 4 p.m. medicine. Shit. I’m so distracted. I leave my phone, I forget important medication. I try to cover quickly.

“I told her I’d bring her something later. She wanted to sleep awhile,” I lie.

“You’re a saint.” He smiles and kisses me.

“Barf. Can I go now?” Rachel doesn’t wait for an answer; she gets up, scrapes her plate in the sink, and leaves, too much homework being her staple excuse for getting out of dish duty, which is fine. I usually revel in the quiet kitchen after Collin is parked in front of the TV, and the kids are in homework mode.

“Why don’t you let me get this?” Collin playfully hip-checks me and takes the plates from my hands.

Recently, he feels like he’s burdened me beyond reason by asking to have his ailing mother come to live in the guest room last month. Of course I said yes to her staying. Not just because of how much I love and would do anything for Collin, but because I cannot imagine myself in her position. She’s suffered years with atrial fibrillation, and now lung cancer and dementia. Isn’t that what we should do, take her in? Isn’t that what makes us shudder—the thought of being old, sitting alone at a care facility that smells of stale urine and casserole. Spending your days staring out at an Arby’s parking lot outside the small window of an institutional room, or sitting in a floral housecoat in the common area, watching reruns of The Price Is Right while putting together a jigsaw puzzle of the Eiffel Tower.

Maybe it’s human nature to care because it’s a reflection of ourselves—what we can’t let happen to someone else for fear of it happening to us someday—or maybe it’s compassion, but I could never let Claire be cast off and feel alone in a place like that. Even though having her dying in the back bedroom is breath stealing and unsettling, and very hard to explain to your children.

I let Collin take the dishes so I can bring Claire a plate and her pills. I pad down the long hall to her room, carrying a drab-looking tray with chicken cut up so fine it looks like baby food. I tap lightly on her door even though I know she won’t answer. When I enter, I resist the urge to cover my nose so I don’t hurt her feelings, but the air is stagnant and the odor is hard to describe. It’s vinegary and acrid, like soured milk and decay.

“Evening, darlin’, I have some dinner for you.”

The light is dim, but I don’t switch on the overhead because she complains of the headaches it gives her. My heart speeds up when I don’t see her shape under the blankets.

“Claire?” The room is hot and a box fan hums at the end of her bed, propped on a chair. The smell and humidity make me lose my breath a moment, and I notice she’s opened a window. No wonder it’s so unbearably hot. August in Louisiana and she opens a window. Shit. I should have checked on her at four. I close the window and cover my nose with my arm. When I turn back around, I can see Rachel down the hall, and her expression is enough to betray Claire’s whereabouts. Rachel stares, frozen with tears in her eyes, looking at Grandma Claire standing, exposed, in an unbuttoned robe without her wig. She’s been sick on the bathroom floor, and stands in the hallway, hairless and breasts bared, disoriented, looking for her room.

“Honey,” I try to say to Rachel before I help Claire back to her bed, but she’s run off, crying, traumatized by what she saw. I should have fucking checked on Claire at four. What I’ve done—my distraction—now it’s hurting my kids and poor Claire. I need to pull it together.

I help Claire to bed and switch on a rerun of Frasier, her favorite. I leave her a tray and give her her pills, then I clean up the vomit on the bathroom floor without telling Collin about what’s happened. He’d worry and he’d want to help, but this is my negligence, so I’m glad he has a work disaster of some sort and is drinking a beer out on the patio, making calls.

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