Page 38 of Such a Good Wife

“Who is it?” Liz asks.

“Elaine Fitch.”

“Fattest Wonder Woman I have ever seen,” Tammy adds, saying what they were all thinking, and they cackle together. A kid dressed as a ghost walks over to us. A small voice comes from under his white sheet. He looks up at me. I see two blue eyes blink behind the jagged-cut eyeholes.

“Are you Melanie?” he asks. I assume he’s one of Ben’s friends.

“I am. Who are you?” I kneel down to him. But he doesn’t answer, he just hands me a little pumpkin-shaped felt candy bag.

“Why, thank you,” I say, but he turns and walks away, disappearing into the crowd of kids around the apple barrels in front of us. Gillian gives an animated “Oh, that’s so sweet” look and clasps her hand to her heart.

“Well, does someone have a tiny admirer?” Karen jokes.

“Probably a bribe from Ben to stay out longer.” I open it and pick a chocolate coin off the top. Then I see something else in the bag. There is something small and heavy at the bottom. My heart starts to pound. I scan the room, looking for the kid who gave it to me, wanting to go after him, but not wanting to look like a lunatic in front of the gossip squad. I peel the wrapper off the chocolate in my hand and put it in my mouth with a look to the other women like I’m being naughty for eating it. I’m trying to stay calm. We have a brief conversation about how many calories are in a martini, and after an acceptable amount of small talk time, I hurriedly excuse myself to the bathroom.

I go into one of the stalls and sit on the toilet. I’m sweating, trembling. I look inside the bag and pull out a cell phone. I don’t understand. It’s like the disposable phone Luke gave me, but I know it can’t be. That one is on the bottom of the bay. No, this one is a new one. The buttons are different. It’s not the one I had, but whose is it and what the hell is it doing in this bag? I flip it open and it has one text message, marked as unread. Who was that kid? Is this meant for me? Maybe it’s a mistake. I stare at it before I shakily click open the message. I look at the screen in utter disbelief as I read.

I know what you did, Melanie Hale.

I almost drop it, my hands are shaking so violently, but I don’t. I place it gingerly on top of the metal toilet paper holder and stare at it. I dab the sweat on my forehead and try to catch my breath. Does someone know about the affair, or did someone see me at his house the night he died? Does someone think I killed him? No, that can’t be. This can’t be happening. I text back, Who is this?

I wait, but there is no reply.

***

16

I SEARCH THE PARTY for the ghost child. Whoever sent this to me is here, but since everyone is in disguise, there is no way to know who sent that kid over. They could have paid a random child in treats to walk over to me anonymously like that—they just chose the most covered-up kid so I couldn’t find him later. And I can’t. Maybe whoever sent him simply placed a sheet over his head and told him it would be a fun Halloween prank. There are no kids dressed like ghosts. I can’t keep making circles around the place. I can’t behave strangely. Faking illness to leave early would also be out of the ordinary, so I stand near Collin, who is still in midconversation with the group of husbands near the bar. He slips an arm around my waist. I smile, pretending to listen, but I am thinking, going over and over in my mind how this happened. I was careful.

All the way home, Rachel silently cries with her earbuds in. Despite her giddy text exchanges with Katie, she’s still angry her friend has moved away and is making sure we know we didn’t do enough to change that fact and have assisted in ruining her life. Ben is listing every single name on each piece of candy in his stash, counting them and grouping them into favorites. By the time we pull into the drive, he’s finally sleeping. Collin carries him to bed, and Rachel slams her door, taking her adolescent pain out on everyone around her. I go up to the bathroom and run the shower so I have a minute to hide the phone. There is no text back from whoever sent the first text to me. I need to keep it and wait for an answer. I create a PIN so I can lock it. Then I put it in the bottom of a tampon box, a place Collin would never look, and then stack a box of soap and some washcloths on top of it.

The bathroom has filled with steam, so I quickly undress and step into the shower just before Collin comes in. He’s telling me about Ben’s sugar crash as he carefully takes off his clothes, hanging his dress shirt in the adjacent closet and binding his socks together before he tosses them into the hamper. I can’t really hear him over the pounding water. Then I feel the cool draft as he opens the shower door and presses his body against mine from behind. I hold his arms and pull them tightly around me. I need him. I wish I could tell him that I’m in trouble. I wish I hadn’t ruined our lives. The steam masks the well of tears in my eyes, and we kiss, slipping into easy, familiar lovemaking before bed.

I lie awake as Collin snores lightly beside me. The windows in the bedroom are open and I relish the sweet, earthy smell the breeze carries in. Our room is decorated with carefully chosen whites and grays, a puffy down comforter and good linens. I wanted it to feel light and airy, soft—a sanctuary. My peaceful surroundings are doing nothing to curb my nauseating anxiety. I don’t know him well enough to know who’d want to hurt him, and I suppose, if I’m honest with myself, I wasn’t careful. I was too seduced by the white-hot lust and the thrill of it to be as vigilant as I thought I was. Because someone knows.

Suddenly, I remember something. The thought makes me sit straight up in bed with my eyes wide. Jonathan Wilderman. He said it the very first day: he can’t stand Luke. That doesn’t make a person a murderer, of course, but he thinks Luke stole his story—and therefore his success and potential fortune. Those are high stakes. People kill for much less. All of a sudden he leaves the group right after all this and has a nervous breakdown? Only something very traumatic, I imagine, would give someone a nervous breakdown. Oh my God.

The police are keeping the cause of death quiet. I don’t know if there was a gunshot or stab wound that I didn’t see. It just looked like the fall had smashed his skull, but I can’t be sure. I wonder why they haven’t released that part. I need to see Jonathan. Just a friendly visit. I should bring a card and make sure he’s feeling better. That’s innocuous enough. Anyone would do the same. I’ll go tomorrow.

The next morning, I text Mia to see which hospital he’s in and she replies telling me he’s been discharged. I ask for his address, say I want to send a card. On the way, I stop at a coffee shop and spend some time trying to see what I can find out about Jonathan online. He looks like he stepped out of a Lord of the Rings film with his long beard and cape-like coats he wears even in the heat of the summer, so I can’t imagine he’s that social media savvy. He likely hosts basement gatherings to engage in role-playing games or Dungeons and Dragons tournaments. Jonathan Wilderman. A few come up, but can be eliminated immediately. I narrow the search by adding our county after his name. I don’t see much: no Instagram, no images when you google him. I do see a nerdy Twitter account. That’s him. A close-up of his face taken from a very low and unflattering angle. I scroll through his tweets. All of them are literary quotes. Nothing telling.

On a drizzly late Saturday morning, I walk up a long dirt drive carrying a plastic cone of grocery store flowers. Jonathan’s house is in a rural area on the edge of town, and I don’t expect what I see when I reach the end of the winding drive. It resembles a shack more than a house. The outside of it looks like somebody emptied a dumpster on top of it. Hub caps decorate the side of the house in massive piles. There’s a rusted push mower, a seat that looks like it was pulled from a van and a couple of old oscillating fans with metal blades, all piled on top of one another in front of the house, among many other piles of junk. A few garden gnomes, kind of terrifying with missing noses and fingers, sticking out of a stained twin mattress. This is beyond eclectic. He’s a hoarder. I step over the skeletons of discarded furniture that have been invaded with years of damp, and before I reach the front door, I hear a voice.

“Can I help you?”

I jump. There is a bony woman in a housecoat who blends into the clutter, and I didn’t see her. She’s looking right at me. Her wisp of white hair disappears into the milky gray backdrop on this hazy day, so she appears bald at first. She doesn’t get up from her ancient metal deck chair when she calls to me, a long cigarette hanging from her lips.

“Oh. Yes. Hi. I’m—uh, I heard Jonathan was ill.”

“Yep.”

“So, I—I’m sorry. I’m Mel. From his writing group at Classics Bookstore.”

“Oh, you’re a writing friend. Come on up.” She pushes a wooden chair with the back broken off in my direction, and I sit.

“Thanks. The others said they were gonna stop by when he got back home.”

“Yep. They did.” Great, I think, this will seem less strange, then.

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