Page 44 of The Wife

I heard footsteps on the stairs and quickly marked the open message—from someone named Melanie Upton, who apparently was the senior associate director of human resources at NYU, sending her number to Jason so they could discuss his question about his retirement account directly—as unread. I was closing my laptop when Jason walked in.

“So that was Olivia. She met with the DA who’s handling the case.”

I prepared myself for the blow. “Are they going to let you turn yourself in, or do I have to keep sitting here day in and day out, wondering when they’re going to barge in with handcuffs?”

“You think you’re the one in limbo? How do you think I feel, Angela? My colleagues and students are calling me a rapist. Meanwhile, I keep showing up at school so the university doesn’t have an excuse to stop paying me and revoke my tenure. Zack is going to have to cover the podcast for now so we don’t lose advertisers, but that’s a temporary fix. Clients are calling, asking what’s going on. I’m numb. And I’m terrified.”

I didn’t bother reminding him that NYU had asked him to take a leave of absence—with pay—for the sake of reducing the “disruption” on campus. Jason’s response had been to threaten to sue if they made any changes to his status when he hadn’t even been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. He continued to insist that the only way to show he was innocent was to pretend as if everything were normal. Who was I to argue? I had spent the last twelve years putting one foot in front of another to prove that what happened in the past didn’t matter.

“Well, forgive me that I no longer have the luxury of doing what I do every day, which is to take care of our son and this family. Instead, I had to hide Spencer away at some bullshit hippie camp for rich kids, just so he wouldn’t be on the Internet reading the details of your secret life outside this house. So don’t say this isn’t about me. Now, are you going to tell me what the DA said or not?”

“Olivia laid out Kerry’s motive to lie.” I hated hearing that woman’s name come out of his mouth. “She said the ADA looked pretty overwhelmed when she started getting into the details of the problems at Oasis. My guess is the guy can’t find the countries we’re talking about on a map. She told us not to get our hopes up, though.”

“Oh, I don’t think I need that warning.”

He was tentative as he sat on the bed next to me, as if he were seeking permission. “You can bail if you want. I haven’t asked you to stay.”

I shook my head.

“And I really am sorry about Spencer going to camp.”

“I know.” I could feel myself starting to cry.

“You’re scared for yourself, too, aren’t you?”

I nodded. Everything was falling apart. Ever since his agent told him that his book was going to be #1 on the bestseller list, I had this terrible feeling that nothing would be the same again. All I wanted was to be Angela Powell, wife and mother, with my rules and routines and rituals. Good and boring. If I could have one wish, I would erase the entire world’s knowledge of my existence before I reappeared in East Hampton with Spencer.

“Every time the phone rings, I’m convinced it’s going to be someone asking me about him.” My shoulders were shaking between sobs. I didn’t need to tell Jason that the “him” was Charlie.

I let him hold my hand. “That’s not going to happen. And, even if it did, would that be so bad? I hate to say it, but this could wind up being a blessing in disguise—for you, obviously, not me. If it all came out, you’d be free. That cloud over your whole life would be gone.”

If this were the first time we’d had this conversation, it might have felt like he really did want what was best for me. But Jason had always known about Susanna’s open invitation to help me “go public,” as she called it, and had never questioned my rejection of it until he himself became a public figure. He talked about the cloud over my life, but it had become a cloud over his too. And maybe the freedom he cared about now was his and not mine.

When I didn’t respond, he knew to pivot the conversation again. “Oh, and Olivia wanted to talk to you. I told her you’d give her a call when you have a chance. I mean, if that’s okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll call her in a bit. I just want to chill out for a while after that drive.”

“No problem. I was about to order some wine from Astor Place. Any requests?”

I shook my head. As far as I was concerned, there were only two kinds: red and white, and I’d drink either with anything.

“By the way, did you call the dealer yet?” I asked.

“Jesus, Angela, seriously?”

“What? That wobble in the front end’s still there, and it’s still under warranty.” The last time he drove it, he said he could barely tell what I was talking about. I should have known that he wouldn’t make the service appointment.

“Excuse me for not keeping up with your to-do lists during all this.”

“You want your wife and son to get in a car accident because you’re too busy dealing with your mistress to make a phone call?” I knew I was being a bitch, but one of the rules when we bought that car was that he’d be the one to oversee the maintenance. One of our other splurges when Jason started making outside money was to upgrade our wagon from the Subaru to an Audi. The only improvement I cared about was the built-in GPS and satellite radio. I had no interest in taking care of a fancy German car with all the other bells and whistles.

His voice softened. “Fine, I’ll call the dealer.”

“And can you ask them to install the GPS update while they’re at it?”

I was almost daring him to say something. How many times had he told me to use my phone like everyone else? Both he and Spencer teased me mercilessly for my airplane-mode-in-the-car rule.It’s called airplane mode, not car mode, Mom!I didn’t care what everyone else did. I’d read an article two years earlier about people who crashed when their phones rang unexpectedly. I wasn’t going to risk Spencer’s life because I couldn’t go offline for a little while. I knew the two of them cheated by silencing their phones instead, but the rule stood.

Once again he pretended to defer to me. “No problem,” he said. “And please let me know once you’ve talked to Olivia. I appreciate your doing that.”

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