My Lovely Wife

I wait until her breathing slows, then get up and check on Jenna again.

The second time I get up, I do not bother going back to bed. Throughout the night, I check on her three more times. During the hours in between, I watch TV. Around two in the morning, I doze off while watching an old movie. When I wake up, I see Owen’s face. A documentary about him is on TV.

Several of these shows have been made with varying levels of detail about Owen’s crimes. I have managed to avoid them, just as I avoided reading about what Owen did to his victims. This time, I cannot, because I wake up at exactly the wrong time. Just as I see Owen’s face on the screen, the show cuts away. The next thing I see is the room where he kept each one of his victims.

The video had been made for Owen’s trial, which never happened. It is fifteen years old and filmed with a handheld camera that shakes too much. Owen had gutted an abandoned rest stop, knocking down the wall between the men’s and women’s restrooms. The tiled floors might have been white but now were a greyish brown. One toilet remained, along with a sink, a mattress, and a table. Pipes ran up and down the cutout walls; they started deep in the ground and ran across the ceiling, down the other side, and back into the cement floor. They were the perfect size for handcuffs. A pair is still attached to one of the pipes.

The video jerks and zooms in on the floor. The blood was not visible in the wider angle. Now, I see a smattering of blood here, a few drops there. The red spots are everywhere, as if someone had flung a brush of red paint at the floor. The camera moves across the floor, into a corner. A larger amount of blood is smeared on the wall. It is down low, inches from the ground, as if whoever was bleeding had been crouched down.

The angle moves again, toward the mattress. I imagine Naomi lying on it.

I change the channel.

Thirty-six

Two days pass before I hear about Trista. Millicent is the one who tells me.

It is Saturday evening. Rory is upstairs, and Jenna is staying over at a friend’s house. As soon as they are out of sight, I flop down on the couch and put my feet on the table. This is not allowed—not for me or the kids—but when Millicent sits down next to me, she does not mention it.

This makes me remove my feet without being asked. It is that weird. “What’s wrong?” I say.

She puts her hand on mine, and now I’m worried. Panicked, even. “Millicent, just—”

“It’s Trista,” she says.

“Trista?”

“Her sister called me earlier. Andy is too upset to talk to anyone.”

“Her sister? Why would her—”

“She committed suicide.”

I shake my head as if my ears aren’t working. As if she didn’t just say Trista killed herself.

“I’m so sorry,” Millicent says.

I realize this is real, and it knocks the wind out of me. “I don’t understand.”

“From what she said, neither does anyone else. Especially Andy.”

“How?” I say.

“She hung herself on the shower rod.”

“Oh god.”

“I knew they were having problems, but I had no idea she was so upset.”

Millicent has no idea what the real reason is, because I never told her about Trista, never mentioned she had dated Owen. And was still in love with him.

My dinner feels like it is burning a hole in my stomach. I run to the bathroom and throw it all up. Millicent is at the door, asking if I am okay. I say yes even as the dry heaving starts.

Too much food, I tell her.

She reaches down and checks my forehead; it is not warm. I sit down on the floor against the wall and wave my hand, letting her know I am fine.

She walks away. I close my eyes, listening to her in the kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator. Hunting for whatever made me sick.

I want to tell her it is us. We have a daughter who brought a knife to school and has cut off all her hair. Now a woman is dead. Not Naomi, a different woman.

Because of Owen. Because of me. I wrote those letters to Josh.

Millicent runs back into the bathroom with a bottle of the pink medicine.

I chug it down and get sick all over again.

* * *

• • •

The funeral service is held at Alton’s Funeral Parlor, the same place Lindsay’s was held. I did not attend hers but read about it. Lindsay had a closed casket, because of what Millicent had done to her. Trista has an open casket.

Andy is still her husband, and he arranged everything. The room is large, and every chair is filled. I think Trista would have been pleased to know her funeral is standing room only. Everyone is here, dressed in their finest black clothing, either to pay their respects or to gawk. I am here because I am responsible.

Millicent is with me, though she still has no idea why Trista killed herself. Neither does anyone else. For days, people at the club have talked about the breakup of her marriage, depression, money problems. At any given moment, she could be a drug addict, an alcoholic, a nymphomaniac. She was pregnant, or had been, but lost the baby. Maybe she was dying anyway, a terminal disease or a brain tumor.

No one seemed to remember, or even know, she had dated Owen Oliver Riley some twenty years ago.

Her sister is at the service. She is a heavier, brunette version of Trista. She says Trista used to take care of her while their parents worked; she fixed dinner and did their laundry.

“We grew up on the other side of town. She didn’t always live in Hidden Oaks.”

It sounds like an insult. Trista’s younger sister still lives on the other side of town.

She does not mention Andy.

Next is one of Trista’s more recent friends. She is as thin and blond as Trista was, and she tells a long story about how Trista was always willing to listen, help, and pitch in whenever she could.

The last one to speak is Andy. He has cut his hair since the last time I saw him, and he is wearing a dark suit instead of sweatpants. He talks about how he met Trista. She was an unpaid intern at a museum, still looking for a job that used her art history degree. He was there attending a benefit, and their paths crossed in front of a sculpture. She told him all about it.

“I was enchanted. By her, by the way she spoke and what she said, and even the tone of her voice. I can’t think of a better word. Trista was simply enchanting.”

Andy breaks down as he says this. First tears, then sobs.

No one moves.

I look away. This makes me feel sick all over again.

Andy’s brother walks up to him and whispers in his ear. Andy takes a deep breath and collects himself. He keeps talking. I do not listen. I am thinking about that word.

Enchanting.

When he is done, we have a chance to walk by the coffin, to say our final goodbyes to Trista. Just about everyone does. Only a few hang back. Millicent and I do not.

The coffin is made of wood so dark it is almost black, and the interior is pale peach. It is not as bad as it sounds. The color complements Trista’s blond hair and that apricot lipstick. She looked good in that color, and I am glad someone knew to put it on her.

But her outfit is the opposite. It is a solid dark blue with long sleeves. A single strand of pearls hangs from her neck, and she has pearl studs in her ears. None of this looks like Trista. It looks like someone bought the outfit yesterday, because they thought she should be buried in something dignified instead of something she would have liked.