Page 55 of Such a Good Wife

“You’re his wife,” I stutter.

“Who exactly were you expecting?” She sits at an ugly round table with a wood-paneled top and green vinyl chairs straight out of the 1970s. She motions me to sit. I shake the rainwater out of my hair and reluctantly slide into the chair, holding the drink she gave me with both hands, keeping my purse, and its contents, safe between my legs.

“I didn’t know he was married. I swear, I really didn’t.” I sound more desperate than I wanted to.

“Separated, actually. Soon to be divorced.”

When she says this, I feel a little surge of relief. He had said he was newly on the market, so he hadn’t really lied. I don’t know why any of it matters now, but somehow, it still does.

“I made it hell for him. He’s been trying to get rid of me for a long time, so just a little advice—if your husband finds out what you did and kicks your ass to the curb, don’t go down easy until you get what’s yours.”

Up close, she doesn’t appear like the grieving wife I saw on TV. Was she putting on an act? She looks like a once-beautiful woman who has been hardened by grief or anger. She wears no makeup and her hair is unkempt. On TV she wore a tight, pained expression, but still had a softer look about her, in her neat blouse, pencil skirt and glossy lips.

“So is that why you have his truck? You got what’s yours?” I ask, beginning to feel a bit more relaxed, even though the reason she can spill this much information to me is because she has me completely by the balls in this situation. However, she’s actively blackmailing me, so she has plenty to lose herself. Why not answer my questions?

“My name was still on it too, don’t get cute,” she snaps.

“So if you’re his wife, you must be worth a lot of money after he died. What do you want with my piddly fifty K?” I ask, and she gives me a pointed look.

“I thought you’d be mousier. He usually likes the quiet, unassertive chicks...or so I have come to find out.”

“How did you find out about me?” I ask, quietly, silently adding that I used to be that mousy, innocent person she just described, but I’m far from that now.

“Easy. I watched the idiot’s house. He thinks he can just dismiss me? He’s been trying to for a couple of years, but I wouldn’t let him just write me off. Fuck him. Then you start sneaking around, and I was like, great. Two idiots. I followed you to your house...”

“You what?” I demand, thinking of her stalking my house with my kids there. That night Collin heard a noise outside and scared me to death with the gun—was it this lunatic lurking around?

“It was pretty easy to learn everything about you after getting your name off your mailbox. Social media, all that crap.”

“Why? I didn’t know about you. Why are you punishing me?”

“Jesus, you think it has anything to do with you? That jackass went behind my back and drew up all this paperwork with his lawyer, making sure that I wouldn’t get a cent of his money if we divorced. He opened a foreign bank account in Italy, moved some money into his brother’s name, all kinds of bullshit, just to screw me.” She takes a large swallow of her drink.

I can’t help but think that that must be why she had to kill him. If she wouldn’t get it in the divorce, she would probably get some, at least insurance, upon his death. Louisiana is a community property state. He would have had to work pretty hard to make sure she got nothing. What the hell did she do to him? I wonder. I don’t ask this.

“But you didn’t get divorced, he died.”

“Yeah. And I’m the idiot who signed a pre-nup and now it seems he made sure I’d be screwed completely. He could have left me something,” she scoffs, stands up and goes to grab the bottle of bourbon from where it sits on top of a filthy microwave. I think about the truck she’s driving, but don’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, not really knowing what else I can possibly say.

“You’re not the only home-wrecker the police questioned. You’re just the only one who lied,” she says, and I see now how that made me her perfect target.

“Home-wrecker? You said you were in the middle of a divorce.”

“I said separated. That’s not divorced yet,” she snaps.

I won’t let myself get in my head about the other women she’s referring to. She wants me to ask, but frankly, over two years of her stalking him while he was trying to divorce her, I’m sure there were other women. It’s none of my business, and I’m not going to play into her trap on this.

“Where’s my money? I gotta get back to the city.”

So she lives in New Orleans. Explains why I haven’t seen her before. I guess she just rolls into town to exploit people.

“I could only get eight.” I take the envelope of money out of my purse, maneuvering it around the gun under the table so she doesn’t see, and I place it in front of her.

“Let me get this straight. I tell you to get fifty K, and you say you can only get ten today, and then you bring me this shit.” She seems like someone who is trying to be hard even though it’s not really in her nature. Like me, this whole situation has changed her into a character she hasn’t figured out how to play just yet.

“That’s what I could get. I’ll get the rest soon.” I try to sound confident.

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