Page 5 of The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie
“Thank you, Willie,” I say. “It smells absolutely delicious.”
“I hope you like it, Mrs. Lockwood.”
I meet Willie’s eyes across the dining table. Willie is in his late twenties, with a shock of jet-black hair, and there’s something incredibly alluring about him. I’m not sure exactly what it is. Maybe it’s his dark, dark eyes or his broad, muscular shoulders. Maybe it’s the fact that he always cleans our house with his shirt off. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but Grant never entirely trusted him.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Mrs. Lockwood?” he asks me. “Anything at all?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ll get back to work, then.”
Willie grabs a bottle of lemon-scented spray and strides over to the living room to clean our coffee table. I settle down before my plate of food, making sure I have a view of Willie as he bends over to clean the table.
In the weeks before Grant’s death, he urged me to fire Willie and find a new houseman. “There’s something off about him,”Grant used to say.
He would have trusted him even less if he’d known the truth about our houseman’s dark past.
5
While I’mat the grocery store that afternoon, I discover there are almost as many varieties of prenatal vitamins as there are of shampoo. For example, do I buy the one that has eighteen different vitamins and minerals, including folic acid and DHA? Or do I buy the one that specifically mentions choline? Not that I know what choline is, but if they mention it, it’s important, right? Or should I just buy the one that is raspberry lemonade flavored, because I’m always a sucker for raspberry lemonade?
Finally, I grab the vitamins that advertiseadvanced brain support. Because whatever else, I would like my baby’s brain to have adequate support.
As I toss the bottle of prenatal vitamins into my shopping cart, I press my palm against my abdomen, which is still flat as a board. It’s hard to imagine that there is an actual baby growing inside there. I wouldn’t believe it, but pregnancy tests don’t lie. It wasn’t meant to be this way, but the wild part is now that it happened, I love her more than anything.
I have made mistakes in my life, but I swear, I will make it up to you, baby.
I decided to shop at the grocery store this time, because the drugstore apparently triggers hallucinations of my dead husband. Thankfully, I have been at the supermarket for ten minutes, and there have been zero dead husbands during that time.
Of course, I can’tjustbuy prenatal vitamins. That would be like holding up a huge flag for everyone to see that says “I am pregnant.” I need to buffer my purchase with other items so as not to call attention to the entire reason I came to the grocery store. I toss several other things into the cart, including a loaf of bread, some cheese, another bottle of shampoo, and—just toreallythrow off the cashier—a package of maxi pads.
I push my shopping cart to the checkout line. Unfortunately, I arrived at the supermarket at the worst possible time, because all the lines have at least four or five people in them. The ten-items-or-less register seems the most promising, so I get in line behind a man who has not followed my buffer rule and is simply clutching a box of ribbed condoms in his right hand with a very singular purpose in mind. He keeps checking his watch.
“Alice! Alice Lockwood! Is that you?”
I curse under my breath at the familiar voice. It’s Eliza Bradley, who used to work as Grant’s secretary. She’s pushing a cart containing nothing but cans of gourmet cat food, and she’s wearing a puffy coat that is far too warm for the weather we’re having.
“Hello,” I mumble, hoping that if I don’t look at her, she might get the message that I’m not in the mood for chitchat.
But Eliza is not to be deterred. She pushes her cart so close to mine that they are practically kissing and peers up at me. Her face is wrinkled, and her lips nearly vanish into her mouth. “My dear, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the funeral. I am so terribly sorry.”
Of all the people I could have run into today at the supermarket, she is the last one I wanted to see. “Uh-huh” is all I can manage.
“Grant was such a wonderful man,” she continues. “He was a great boss. He was so thoughtful. And charming. Andyoung. What a terrible shame.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I told Grant that Mercedes of his wasn’t safe,” she says. “American cars are the safest ones on the market. The only ones that I trust, you know? That’s why I’ve driven a Ford for the last forty years.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“By the way, Alice,” Eliza says. “I hate to be that person, but youdorealize this is the ten items or less line, don’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well…” She points accusingly at the contents of my cart. “You actually haveelevenitems in your cart. I know it’s only one over, but ten is the cutoff for a reason. I mean, if we’re going to allow eleven, do we say twelve is fine? How about thirteen? Where do we draw the line, Alice?”
“Okay, I get it,” I say through my teeth. “I… I’ll get rid of one of the items.”
