Page 3 of The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie
Poppy’s voice comes from behind me, and I nearly jump out of my skin. I turn around to find her holding out a steaming mugof tea. I take it so as not to be rude, and now I have to stand here, holding this gross tea, pretending to drink it.
You would think that if Poppy is my closest friend, she would know I don’t enjoy drinking tea. There is, in fact, quite a lot she doesn’t know about me.
“Drink up while it’s hot,” she tells me.
Obligingly, I take a sip of the tea. Not surprisingly, it’s terrible. Because it’s tea.
Poppy sits beside me and idly picks up the paperback book I’ve got lying on the coffee table. She reads the description and flips through the pages. “The Boyfriend… Is this any good?”
“Oh, yes—I love it. But I’m on page two, and I’m pretty sure I already know what the twist is going to be.” I take another tentative sip of tea. “Have you ever heard of the author, Freida McFadden?”
“Nope.”
“She writes psychological thrillers. The kind with short chapters and lots of twists that are shocking but also kind of completely out of nowhere.”
“Still nope.” She hesitates. “Oh, wait. Did she writeFifty Shades of Grey?”
“Uh, no.”
“Harry Potter?”
“No.”
“Then no, never heard of her. What else did she write?”
“The Housemaid.”
“Housemaid? Is she British?” Poppy asks.
“Oh, I’m not sure. Yes, probably.”
Poppy tosses the paperback back on the table. I pretend to take another sip of tea while she gets up to study the photos on my mantel. She scrutinizes them one by one, a frown spreading across her lips. “You guys were so happy together. This must be so hard for you.”
You have no idea, Poppy,I want to tell her.It’s so hard that I’m seeing Grant while I’m buying shampoo.
“Yes,” I say instead.
“Sometimes I think we all just get a certain amount of happiness,” she muses. “And you and Grant had so much of it during your time together. Maybe you simply… used it all up.”
Great theory, Poppy. I force a smile. “I was certainly blessed.”
“And it might not have seemed like it at the time,” she says, “but it ended up being a good thing that you never got pregnant, even though I know you and Grant had been hoping for it.”
I close my eyes for a moment, thinking of all those extra bedrooms upstairs. Grant had a twinkle in his eyes when we talked about turning one of them into a nursery, but then every month, I would get my period, and there would be that unspoken disappointment.
I press the palm of my hand against my abdomen.
“I just want you to know,” Poppy says, “that you’re my best friend, and whatever you need, I am here for you.”
But I’m not listening to Poppy. I’m looking over her shoulder, at the window that overlooks the side of our house and the narrow and deserted path that runs between my house and Poppy’s. The two houses are divided by a picket fence that surrounds my entire property.
For a split second, I could swear there is a face staring at me through that window.
3
After Poppy goes home,I climb the spiraling staircase, which creaks and groans with each step, until I reach the second floor.
I never go higher than that—I haven’t ventured even once up to the attic, which contains a single room that locks from the outside. Grant says the room is used as storage for items that belonged to his late wife, Rebertha, who lived here before me and died in a tragic accident long before we met. I don’t even have the key.
