Page 49 of Such a Good Wife

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AFTER I HELP CLAIRE into her bed to nap, I pace the kitchen floor and try to steady my breath. My eyes land on a picture on the fridge, one that Ben drew. It’s our family in periwinkle-blue stick figures. We stand in a line across the bottom of the page, holding hands. One straight vertical line for each of our bodies, with a horizontal line for our arms, a few more strokes at the end of our stick arms to represent four disproportionate fingers on each of us. I’m the only one he drew hair on. Just a butter-yellow swipe, curved up at the end. A red crayon paints a smile on each of our circle faces. Our house, a messy square, stands behind us. And little Ralph is a brown, scratchy circle, curled up next to it. I told him that he was going to be a famous artist one day and he squealed with delight. He drew this just before I met Luke. I pull the paper from underneath the magnet holding it to the side of the fridge. The last months have been so dense with chaos, I scarcely remember what the comfort of prosaic, routine life feels like. I long to go back to that.

Am I causing more damage by concealing my relationship with Luke? If there are no suspects, and it comes out that I was having an affair with him and lied to the police about knowing him, about being at his house, if there is evidence that I found him, if the person texting me saw me there, I could be a prime suspect for murder. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t do it. Circumstantially, I fit the bill, and if no one else does, if I’m the only one who lied and covered up evidence, it’s very possible that I could be found guilty.

What would they say my motive is? That he threatened to leave me and if I couldn’t have him, no one could, so I snapped? That he was going to tell my husband about us and so I had to silence him? It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to come up with something that fit if all the evidence pointed to me. But now...it’s too late. I already threw away evidence and covered up lies with more deceit and evasion. I thought it was the only way to protect my family, but now I wonder if I’ve made this so much worse. I’ve been telling myself that it’s not possible for them to arrest or convict an innocent person, but now I am not so sure. I need to find out who would want to hurt him. I can’t just sit here and wait for my deception to catch up with me.

Who knows how many lovers he’s had over the years, who knows if other failed writers think he stole their ideas, or if he had enemies for any other myriad of reasons. There are so many possibilities to explain his death.

Suddenly, in one crystalizing instant, it hits me. My stomach tightens at the thought: Joe knew him; or, at least, he’d met him more than once, and Lacy was briefly seeing Luke. When she’d talked about Luke to me, she’d spoken as if she’d met “the one.” Maybe she flaunted that to Joe, too, on one of the many occasions he stopped by for a quickie, and she thought she had leverage—a way to say no to him. No matter how dismissive and cruel Joe Brooks is with her on the surface, I know he treats her like his property in private. He would not accept rejection in any form. That, I am certain of.

He seems to feel that he can use his badge to get away with anything he wants. What if he found out about them together? If he’s capable of rape and physical abuse, is he capable of more? Maybe in a drunken state or jealous rage, or probably both? I need to see Lacy and mine her for information—find out if Joe knew about her relationship with Luke, if she knew where Joe was the night Luke was killed.

It’s only 10 a.m., but I remember that Lacy works at the strip club again and may have been up all night. But I can’t afford to wait; I need her to meet me, to help clarify things.

“Hello?” she says in a groggy and somewhat annoyed voice.

“Lacy, hi. It’s Mel.”

“Yeah I know. Cell phones show the person’s name these days,” she says, which I find unexpectedly witty coming from her.

“Sorry, were you asleep?” I hear a baby in the background.

“We were just napping a little.” She says this more to the baby, I think, than me, considering the suddenly light tone.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“I just wanted to ask you to lunch, if you’re free.”

“Today?” I hear her rustling around, a grunting noise as if she picked up the baby, then a faucet turns on.

“If you can.”

“I have Ronny Lee,” she says, and I’m not sure what she means at first...but then I remember it’s her son’s name.

“Oh, well, bring...Ronny Lee. It’s my treat,” I add, knowing that she would be hard-pressed to give up a free meal. I guess that’s underhanded in a way, but I need her to be an ally. We need to work together, and she needs to feel like there is no danger of me reporting any of the abuse. She has no idea that it’s the last thing I could do in my position. It would look like retaliation for Joe’s inquest into my life, especially without proof. And proof is what I need to find.

“Really?” I hear a smile in her tired voice. We decide on Love’s Café because she needs good coffee, so I rush to shower and make up a plate for Claire before I leave for a couple of hours. I don’t have any clue if Joe’s involvement is just fiction I’m creating in my mind, but adrenaline is pumping through my veins, and it’s at least a place to start. At least I’m doing something.

Ronny Lee sits in a high chair at the table, cooing and gumming on a saltine cracker with fat little clenched fists. Lacy is hunched over the menu, leaning on one palm, when I arrive. I reiterate that she should get whatever she wants, and I see her carefully making her decision for the most amount of bang for my buck. I wish they served booze, but I settle for the soup of the day and Lacy orders a double cheeseburger and fries with a kids’ mac and cheese for Ronny Lee and a Coke. I force myself not to calculate the calories in horror while she speaks to the waiter. I patiently wade my way through small talk about the weather and the Frank Sinatra–themed decor on the walls.

I need to get right to it. It’s not like she’s going to report the things I’m asking back to Joe. If anything, maybe it will make Lacy more fearful of him and it could actually do some good. It doesn’t implicate me in any way, it just plants a seed, so I take the risk.

“I need to ask you something,” I say, with determination. Lacy instinctively looks to her child, protectively, thinking it may be about Joe’s abuse, no doubt. “It’s okay, it’s not about that—not really.”

“Not really?” she asks, still looking at Ronny Lee, fussing with the wet crumbs on his place mat. Of course he is too little to understand, but I admire that she knows that kids absorb more than we think, even when they’re small, and that she wants to protect him. “It’s not about what happened...to you...with him, I mean. Something else.”

“Okay.” She looks like she regrets coming now, and I try to steer the conversation quickly.

“Look, I promised I wouldn’t say anything and I won’t, okay. It’s not that. I actually...I need your help. With something.” At this she turns away from Ronny Lee, holding a milk-filled sippy cup, which he’s reaching for. She waits for me to continue.

“Did he know about you and Luke Ellison?” I ask, and her eyes fill. She behaves as if they were war-torn lovers over many years and that she’d suffered a great loss.

“Why?” she asks, defensively.

“I know it’s none of my business, okay. I just—it would...” I trail off. I don’t know how to frame it without telling her exactly what I’m getting at. She interrupts me though, looking down at the table, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger.

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