My Lovely Wife

Millicent drove us out to the middle of nowhere, stopped, and pointed to the woods.

“Walk,” she said.

I did.

A couple hundred yards from the road, we came to a clearing. A tent was already set up, right next to a stone fire pit. A little picnic table was set with plastic plates, glasses, and thick candles.

Millicent took me camping. She is not the outdoorsy type, but, for one night, she pretended to be.

The bugs were a problem, because she forgot bug spray. The candles were covered, but they kept getting blown out, and she didn’t think to bring extra water for cleaning dishes or brushing teeth. None of that mattered. We sat in front of our fire pit and ate warmed-up soup, drank cheap beer, and had even cheaper sex. We talked about the future, which looked much different than before, because of the kids. Not bad different, just priority different.

We avoided talking about the things we used to want but could no longer have.

Sometime after midnight, we fell asleep. I hadn’t been up that late since Christmas Eve, when we had to stay up to put out Santa’s presents.

The next morning when I stepped out of the tent, Millicent was just standing there, hands clasped over her mouth. Our camp had been ransacked.

Everything was overturned, tossed around, cleaned out. The food had been taken or ripped open, and our extra clothes were strewn across the ground.

“Scavengers,” I said. “Probably raccoons.”

She didn’t answer. She was too pissed off to answer.

Millicent started gathering up what was left of our things.

“We still have some coffee,” I said, holding up a little jar of instant. “We could make some—”

“I don’t think those were raccoons.”

I stared at her as she collected what was left of a backpack. “Then what—”

“People destroyed our camp. Not animals.”

“What makes you say that?”

She pointed to where we had slept. “They didn’t touch the tent.”

“Maybe they just wanted the food. Maybe they didn’t care—”

“Or maybe they were people.”

I stopped arguing. We trudged out the woods and back to the car.

To this day, if that camping trip comes up, she talks about the horrible people who ransacked our things. I still think it was done by some animal, not people, but I don’t argue. Millicent sees a motive behind everything.

But what I remember most about that trip is different. The important thing was that Millicent planned the trip to impress me.

* * *

• • •

Annabelle Parson has never called in sick or late, she has never taken more than two vacation days in a row, and she always fills in when someone is sick. That means she does not have a boyfriend. Anyone who does will occasionally call in late. Couples also take real vacations, especially couples who don’t have kids, and Annabelle doesn’t. To top it all off, like the perfect cherry on a sundae, Annabelle has been named “Meter Maid of the Month” five times and is featured on the county website.

I show all of this to Millicent, who looks through everything and says, “You’re right. She’s perfect.”

“I’m also working on the next letter to Josh, but I’m not going to show you.”

“You’re not?”

“I want it to be a surprise.”

She smiles a little. “I trust you.”

This is the best news I have heard all week.

I start watching Annabelle the way I watched the others. Due diligence and all.

Today I take the train back out to where she works, just to switch things up in case she recognizes my car. It is impossible to follow her when she is working. Annabelle uses a county-issued ATV to drive around, looking for expired meters and illegal parkers. She stops and starts at random times.

For a while, I sit in a coffee shop on the main thoroughfare. Every twenty to thirty minutes, she passes by to check the meters. While waiting, I draft my next Owen Oliver letter. I work under the assumption that this one will be so convincing it will become public. Josh, and the station he works for, won’t be able to resist.

Just the mention of Owen’s return is getting everyone worked up. Local stations are replaying old news clips, retrospectives, and profiles. Owen has been on the cover of the paper for the past few days. Rory and his friends have already turned Owen’s name into a verb (“I’ll Owen Oliver your ass,”) and the local women’s group is lobbying for Lindsay’s murder to be declared a hate crime.

I try to imagine how it would escalate if the rumor was confirmed. Or even if people thought it was confirmed. That’s all we really need. Belief. If I can make the police believe it, they won’t be looking for anyone but Owen.

Millicent may have started this, but I can bring it home. She will be so impressed.

Eighteen

If it hadn’t been for Robin, none of this would have happened. We didn’t look for her; she hadn’t been chosen the way Lindsay was. Robin changed everything by knocking on our door.

It happened on a Tuesday. I had just walked into the house. It was lunchtime, no one was home, and I had a couple of hours before my next lesson. This was almost a year after Holly, and life had returned to normal. Her body was long gone, wasting away in a swamp. Millicent and I did not talk about her. I no longer waited for the police sirens. My heart had stopped thumping every time the phone or doorbell rang. I was not on guard when I opened the door.

The woman on the porch was young, early twenties, wearing tight jeans and a shirt with a ripped neck. Her nails were red, her lipstick was pink, and her long hair was the color of a roasted chestnut.

Behind her, a little red car was parked on the street. The car was an old one, close to a classic but not quite. Minutes before, I had seen it at a stop sign not far from the house. She had honked, but I’d had no idea she was honking at me.

“Can I help you?” I said.

She cocked her head, looking at me sideways, and smiled. “I thought it was you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re Holly’s friend.”

Her name made me jolt, like I had stuck my finger in a light socket. “Holly?”

“I saw you with her.”

“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

She had not, of course. Now I recognized her.

When the hospital released Holly, one of the doctors helped arrange for her to work at a grocery store. Holly stocked shelves part-time. That’s where I had gone to tell her to stay away from us, where I had confronted her about scaring our family.

I never meant for it to get out of hand.

I went on a Monday morning, when the store was slow and everything was being restocked. Holly was in one of the aisles, filling a shelf with boxes of granola bars, and she was alone. As I walked down the aisle toward her, she turned toward me. Her clear green eyes were startling.

Holly put her hands on her hips and stared at me until I stood right next to her.

“Yes?” she said.

“I don’t think we’ve formally met.” I stuck out my hand and waited for her to shake it. Eventually, she did.

I told her I was sorry we had to meet his way—that in another place, at another time, perhaps we would be like family. But right now, it wasn’t possible, because her behavior was scaring my wife and kids. My kids had never done anything to her. They did not deserve this. “I’m asking you,” I said. “Can you please leave my family alone?”