My Lovely Wife

• • •

A few months after we started dating, Millicent and I had what we called Trivia Night. We bought pizza and wine and brought it to her tiny apartment. The living room was so small she just had a love seat and a coffee table, so we sat on the floor. She lit some candles, arranged the pepperoni slices on real dishes, and poured the wine into champagne glasses, because that was all she had.

We spent the whole night asking questions. No boundaries, nothing was off-limits—we’d planned it that way. The first questions were pretty tame; we were still too sober to talk about sex, so we talked about everything else. Movies, music, favorite foods, favorite colors. I even asked if she had any allergies. She does. Eye drops.

“Eye drops?” I said.

She nodded, taking another sip of wine. “The kind that get rid of the redness. They make my eyes swell up until I can hardly see.”

“Like Rocky.”

“Exactly like Rocky. I figured it out when I was sixteen and got stoned. Tried to hide it from my parents and ended up at the hospital.”

“Aha,” I said. “So you were a bad girl?”

She shrugged. “What about you? Any allergies?”

“Only to women not named Millicent.”

I winked to show her I was kidding. She kicked my foot and rolled her eyes. Eventually, we became intoxicated enough to ask the good questions. Most revolved around sex and old relationships.

I grew tired of hearing about her ex-boyfriend, so I asked about her family. I knew where she was from and that her parents were still married, but that was about it. She had never mentioned siblings.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

We were pretty intoxicated by then, or at least I was, and I kept playing with the wax that had dripped off the candle in front of us. It had pooled onto the little dish below, and I squished it between my fingers, rolling it into a ball and then flattening it out again. Millicent watched me instead of answering my question.

“Hello?” I said.

She took a sip of wine. “A sister. Holly.”

“Older or younger?”

“She was older. Now she’s gone.”

I dropped the wax and reached over, placing my hand on hers, clasping it against her champagne glass. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay.”

I waited to see if she would say anything else. When she didn’t, I asked. “How did it happen?”

She leaned back against the wall behind her. The alcohol and candlelight made everything flicker, including her red hair. For a split second, it looked like hot embers were falling away from it.

She turned away as she spoke. “She was fifteen, two years older than me. Holly wanted to drive more than anything else in the world. Couldn’t wait to get her license. Then one day our parents were out. They had used Dad’s car and left Mom’s. Holly said we should take it out. Just around the block—she said she’d go real slow.” Millicent turned to me and shrugged. “She didn’t. And she died.”

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. Holly was my sister, but she was … not a nice person. She never was.”

I wanted to ask more, and I could have, because it was Trivia Night, but I didn’t. Instead, I asked about the first time she got drunk.

Holly didn’t come up again until I went to dinner at their parents’ house. I had met them once before, at a restaurant when they were in town, but this time we drove the three hours to their house. Millicent’s parents lived in a large house up north, near the Georgia border, in the middle of nothing. Her father, Stan, had invented a fishing lure, had it patented, and then sold it to a sporting goods company. They weren’t rich, but they also didn’t have to work. Stan now spent his time bird-watching, fly-fishing, and carving wooden birdhouses. Millicent’s mother, Abby, used to be a teacher, and when she wasn’t tending to the herb garden, she wrote an educational blog. They were a bit like hippies except they grew cilantro instead of weed.

Millicent looked like her father, right down to the multihued eyes, but her personality was like her mother’s. Abby was even more organized than Millicent.

I didn’t see the picture until dinner was over. I helped clear the table and carried my dishes into the kitchen. The picture was on the windowsill above the sink; it was just a tiny thing half-hidden behind a plant. The red hair in the photo caught my eye. When I picked it up to look at it, I realized it was Millicent and her sister, Holly. Up until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the lack of photos throughout the house. There were pictures of Millicent’s parents, and of Millicent, but this was the only one of Holly.

“Don’t let her see that.”

I looked up. Millicent’s mother stood in front of me. Her warm brown eyes almost looked as if they were pleading.

“Do you know what happened to Holly?”

“Yes. Millicent told me.”

“Then you know it upsets her.” She took the picture out of my hand and put it back behind the plant. “We take the pictures down when she comes over. Millicent doesn’t like to be reminded of her.”

“The accident upsets her. Losing Holly like that must have been difficult.”

She gave me an odd look.

I didn’t understand that look until the day the phone rang and Millicent screamed.

Ten

The box for Bloody Hell VII is so graphic it is covered with a big yellow warning sticker. On the back, there is a red warning sticker about the game itself.

I am not sure this is something that should be in my house.

I buy it anyway.

Rory, still on his three-day suspension from school, is at home. His mother took Rory’s computer, changed the Internet password, and tried to disconnect the cable TV but gave up halfway through. Rory is on the couch in the living room, channel surfing.

I throw the game on the couch next to him.

“Thanks,” he says. “But your attitude could use an adjustment.”

“Don’t.”

He smirks and grabs the game, peeling the yellow warning sticker off the front. The picture underneath shows dozens of bodies piled up on top of one another. An ugly horned creature, presumably the devil, stands on top of them.

Rory looks up at me, his green eyes lit up. He asks where the game system is. I hesitate, then point to the glass hutch in the dining room. “Behind the silver tray. Don’t break anything.”

“I won’t.”

“And put it back.”

“I will.”

“You aren’t going to cheat again, are you?” I say.

He rolls his eyes. “Like father, like son.”

We are interrupted by the TV. A breaking-news announcement interrupts a daytime talk show.

The local news logo appears. It is followed by that young, earnest reporter following Lindsay’s story. His name is Josh, and I have been watching him every day since Lindsay’s body was found. Today, he looks a little tired, but his eyes are wild.

The police department has finally revealed how Lindsay was killed.

“We’re here tonight with Dr. Johannes Rollins, the former medical examiner of DeKalb County, Georgia,” Josh says. “Thanks for joining us, Dr. Rollins.”