Page 107 of What the Wife Knew

Finally, a tiny bit of conversation movement. “I get it. You hated her.”

“We lived in the same town though we were miles apart in more than distance. She considered me garbage.” Mom channeled her anger and frustration into the words, hitting the last one with force. “You should have seen her with Richmond. She’d hang on him and flirt with his friends to make him jealous.”

That didn’t make sense. “You said she never came into the country club. Where would you have seen this?”

“I studied her. I studied him.”

“Wait, do you mean Cooper or Richmond?” My confusion kept building. Cooper should be the center of this conversation, not her teenaged jealousy over Kathryn, or whatever the hell this was.

“Richmond.” Mom waved her hand in the air as if she could brush away her memories of him. “This is all your fault, you know. This... what you’re doing right now. I tried to save you from this moment but you had to push and threaten. You opened this door.”

My fault. Of course. Always, except this time I had no idea what I was being blamed for. She was talking in riddles and my patience expired. “What are you saying exactly?”

“Be very certain you want to know this before I give you the particulars.”

More drivel. She was exhausting.

“Just say it, Mom.” Whatever this juicy piece of information was it couldn’t be worse than anything else that I’d heard over the last few months.

“Fine. I didn’t get the evidence about the shooting and the school from Cooper. I barely knew Cooper.” Her small smile came and went.

“Who... wait. How is that possible?” My mental and emotional connection to Cooper never passed the superficial level because all these years—right up until her admission in the diner—I viewed him as a minor player in this drama.

“I didn’t have many options back then. I had the drive and determination. I had the will. I had certain assets.” She never doubted the power of those. “I tried flirting with Cooper. He was pretty shy. He’d joke with friends and act all tough but then blush if I went near him.”

I could imagine a younger version of her making a move. She’d wanted out of her house and into a different life. Nothing wrong with that... except for the deceptive method she used to get there.

“What’s your point, Mom?”

“Cooper wasn’t interested and there was no way he’d be able to handle confronting his parents with a pregnant girlfriend. He was too weak.” Her words came out fast but clear. “But Richmond liked to fool around. He laughed about how squeamish Kathryn got when she touched him. She played hard to get. I didn’t.”

An invasive darkness washed over me, filling every pore. Dread seeped into my thoughts and my movements. It crushed down like a weight against my chest.

Was she saying... no, she couldn’t be saying this. Even she wouldn’t...

My thoughts stumbled over each other until they piled up in my mind. “Cooper was my father. You told me that bit of news recently. Remember me barfing in the diner?”

“I wasn’t entirely truthful there either.” Her expression lacked any emotion. “Richmond was your father.”

Chapter Seventy

Her

Present Day

This had to be a joke. A vile, too-awful-to-contemplate joke. A new way for her to torture and control me. A game where the rules kept changing.

She droned on as if she hadn’t dropped the ultimate bombshell. “We’d head out of town to get something to eat. I couldn’t go back to his house because his parents knew Kathryn and what her role in Richmond’s life was supposed to be. We’d use his car. We’d go to the movies. I’m not sure when he actually took Kathryn out because he’d come to me after practice.”

No, no, no. Bile rushed up the back of my throat. “You said—”

“Richmond was going off to college. He had something to lose. He was the right Dougherty brother. I don’t regret my pick in that sense.”

My fingers fumbled with the car door handle. After a few tries I got it open and stumbled into the fresh air. A whooshing sound filled my ears until Mom’s voice became a faint but persistent buzzing in my head. I heard a slam and realized she’d gotten out of her side and faced me over the hood.

“I figured he’d do the right thing but then the last time weweretogetherhe said Kathryn’s name instead of mine. Actually whispered it twice during sex.”

The ground fell out from under me. My knees actually buckled as the realization of what she was saying hit. Mom and Richmond. Not Zach. Not even Cooper.

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