Page 1 of My Wife

OCTOBER 29

IN THE OCTOBER 29TH EDITION OF THE GULLHAVEN GAZETTE:

GULLHAVEN FOOTBALL STAR GONE:

CLAYTON RIVERS, AWARD-WINNING

KICKER FOR GHS, IS MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD AFTER CAR FOUND ABANDONED.

Gullhaven mourns one of its own today as Clayton Rivers, 22, has been reported missing in Little Falls, New Jersey, and presumed dead based on the evidence discovered at the scene.

Mr. Rivers is known to our community as the star kicker that helped lead Gullhaven High School to its first championship season five years ago. After graduating, he moved across the country because of his scholarship to Rutgers University, where he attended for four semesters before leaving to marry his high school sweetheart, Cynthia Preston. He went into securities, and used the Rivers’ family wealth to create his own venture capitalism start-up, Whitewater Securities.

He was predeceased by both his father, Calvin Rivers, and his mother, Jeannie Rivers, who perished in a private plane crash in the Cascades last summer. He is survived by his wife of two years, Cynthia Preston-Rivers. At this time, the Little Falls Police Department are treating the circumstances of his disappearance as suspicious. There are also no plans for any funeral arrangements currently, though well-wishers are invited to gather at Gullhaven High School’s next home game against the Avalon Lancers where the PTA will host a moment of silence for Mr. Rivers.

ONE

GHOSTS

ONE MONTH LATER

I’m burying an empty casket.

My therapist says this could be my way of gaining some kind of closure. Even though my husband isn’t in the mahogany box being lowered into the hole in the ground, in order to move on, I need to go through the motions of mourning Clay.

He’s dead. Those two words have been repeating on an endless loop in my brain since the cops showed up at our house. At first, he was only missing—and I clung to the hope that they would find him. But his car was abandoned. So were his wallet and his phone. And just to make sure that my hopes were smashed into a million pieces, I learned that there was so much blood splashed and spilled all over the driver’s side of his Audi, it would have been impossible for him to survive if it was his.

I needed to believe that he did. Clay was all I had… heneededto be alive. But last week the CSIs confirmed my worst suspicions: DNA results were in and thatwasClay’s blood all over the car.

I already knew he was gone. We started dating at seventeen, and from the moment I agreed to be his girlfriend, we were never apart. We got married at twenty. If Clay was alive, even bleeding out, I absolutely believe he’d claw his way back to me.

He didn’t, and now I’m a widow at fucking twenty-two.

I’m not a stranger to tragedy. This isn’t the first time that I’ve stood at a graveside, dressed all in black, watching my whole world disappear into the ground. Five years ago, I did the same thing, burying my mother. Only shewasin the box, and I’m not sure what’s worse: not knowing what happened to Clay but ‘burying’ him anyway, or knowing how my mother died and not being able to change it.

At Caroline Preston’s funeral, I was one among hundreds. Nearly all of Gullhaven came out to mourn her. Her fiancé, Rick. Our neighbors. Her boss at the clinic, plus her fellow nurses. Most of my high school class were there, too, but I wasn’t naive enough to believe they gave a shit.

Oh, no. They came to gawk. To point. To stare. To whisper, too, and murmur to each other about what they were doing that fateful night when she died.

Everyone knew what happened on Halo Island. Every single Gullhaven High senior was on the island, celebrating our upcoming graduation. It was a beautiful weekend in mid-May, with our teachers and a handful of parent chaperones on site to keep us from getting up to no good on the small island about fifteen miles off of the coast of California. We booked every cabin and campground the island boasted for our class of one-fifty, but we all knew that the lake in the center of the island was off-limits once the sun went down.

No one was supposed to go there, but when my mom didn’t return to the cabin I shared with a handful of my friends, I went searching for her. Unlike Clay, she was easy to find, bobbing face-down on the surface of Halo Lake.

They said my mother drowned herself. That she wanted to die. Why? She’d only just gotten engaged to Rick Tallows. My dad died when I was three and, until Rick came along, it was only the two of us. I was getting ready to graduate GHS, my mom looking forward to spending the rest of her life with her new fiancé. She wouldn’t have committed suicide, but shediddrown.

As for Clay…

I don’t know what happened to him. I don’t think I ever will.

Oh, the cops say the case is open, but when I arranged for this farce of a funeral, accepting my husband was gone… I got the idea that they’d only solve the mystery of his death if the answer fell right into their laps.

My mom’s funeral was crowded. Today, I’m the only mourner.

If I had Clay’s body returned to me, I’d bury him in California with the rest of our families. Since I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone who knew him back home that I’d given up hoping he’d turn up alive again, I threw enough money at a funeral home to go through this so I could say it was done next time I met with Dr. Lucas.

I’d rather tell my therapist that than discuss the unsettling feeling I’ve been struggling with lately. Ever since the cops showed up at my door, I just… I just can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched.

It hits me now. It’s November in New Jersey, and though I’ve lived on the east coast for almost five years, I was a Cali girl for most of my life. I’m dressed warmly in a black sweater, black jeans, and a long black peacoat. That should be enough to chase away the chill, but as the coffin reaches the bottom of the grave, I shiver—and it’s not because of the weather.

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