My Lovely Wife

A few drops of blood hit the mat, and everyone lost their minds.

“What the—”

“How did—”

“Is that a rock?”

A mom in a turquoise jumper pointed to Jenna. “She did it. She hit him with a rock.”

Pandemonium followed, along with a lot more screaming and big accusations.

It took a few hours to sort out, in part because the boy’s mother arrived and started yelling about why no one had called an ambulance. That made someone call an ambulance. And the police.

Two uniformed officers showed up and asked what happened. The boy’s mother pointed at Jenna and said, “She hit my son.”

Understandably, the officers were confused, because we were in a Krav Maga studio where people get hit on a regular basis. They also thought it was a little funny that the boy was hit by a girl. The man who owned the studio did not think it was funny at all.

In the end, the boy was fine. The blood had come from a small cut on his lip and really was just a few drops. No one went to the hospital and no one got arrested, but Jenna and I were disinvited from the Krav Maga studio.

Throughout the course of the afternoon, the boy’s mother vowed more than once that she would sue. And on top of everything else, I was forced to cancel several tennis lessons, and pissed off at least one client.

Once we were in the car, alone, I asked. “Why?”

Jenna stared out the window.

“You must have had a reason,” I said.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe to see if I could.”

“Could hit that kid with a rock?”

“Could knock him out.”

I do not point out the obvious. She did not knock him out. All she did was split his lip.

“Are you going to tell Mom?” Jenna said.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Actually, I had no idea. At that moment, I could not even look at Jenna.

She has never reminded me of Millicent. When Rory was born, he already had little tufts of red hair. Jenna was born bald. When her hair finally started growing in, it was the same color as mine: dark brown without a hint of red. Her eyes were the same as mine, too.

I was so disappointed.

It was not personal. It was not anything Jenna had done or hadn’t done. I just wanted a little red-haired girl to match my boy and my wife with the flame-colored hair. This was the picture in my mind, the image I had when I thought about my family. The real Jenna did not fit, because she looked like my mother instead of her own.

The first time she ever reminded me of Millicent was when she hit that boy with a rock. She looked just like Millicent did when she hit Robin in our kitchen.

What I found sexy in my wife was horrifying in my daughter.

Forty-four

It is late at night. Millicent and I are in her office. She works for Abbott Realty, a small pond of a business where she has been the big fish for years. The office is in a strip mall, sandwiched between a gym and a Chinese restaurant. Inside, it is empty and private, because no one is looking for real estate at this hour. The downside is the glass front, which means anyone can see inside. The open layout of the desks provides no cover, so we leave the lights out and sit in the back. If the circumstances were different, it might be romantic.

Millicent knows about Jenna. A friend told her before I could, sending her into a rage. She called and yelled loud enough to make my eardrum vibrate, because she said I should have called her when we were still at the studio. She is right.

Now, Jenna is safe at home, asleep in her bed and not throwing rocks. Not throwing up. Not cutting off what’s left of her hair. Millicent is calm. She even brought dessert, a single chocolate éclair. She cuts it in two, and the halves are perfectly even. I take a bite of mine and she takes a bite of hers, and I wipe chocolate off her top lip.

“She’s not okay,” Millicent says.

“No.”

“We need to talk to her doctor. I can call—”

“Is she like Holly?” I say.

Millicent sets down her éclair as if it’s about to explode. “Like Holly?”

“Maybe it’s the same thing. The same illness.”

“No.”

“But—”

“No. Holly started torturing bugs when she was two. Jenna is nothing like her.”

By that comparison, she is right. Jenna screams whenever she sees a bug. She can’t even kill a spider, let alone torture one. “Then it’s our fault,” I say. “We have to get rid of Owen.”

“We’ve been trying to.”

“I think the hunt for Naomi should end,” I say. “We should let her be found.”

“How will that help—”

“So we can get rid of Owen for good.” When Millicent starts to point out the obvious, I hold up my hand. “I know, I know. Hard to get rid of someone that isn’t even around, right?”

“That would be one way to put it.”

“He was a great idea—I’m not denying it. But we’ve caused so many problems.”

“So many?”

“Jenna. The people in this town. Women are really afraid.” I am careful to omit what she doesn’t know, like Trista.

Millicent nods. “I never meant to hurt Jenna.”

“I know you didn’t.” I lean forward in my chair, closer to Millicent, so that she won’t miss what I’m saying. “It would be difficult, if not impossible, to fake his death without a body. Really, the only way is if he drowns in the ocean or a lake and is never found. But there would be doubt. And to make it halfway plausible, we would need someone credible to tell the story.”

“Like Naomi,” Millicent says.

“And what are the chances of letting Naomi do that?”

“In the negative.”

“Then maybe Owen doesn’t die. Maybe he just leaves.” I pause here, waiting for a reaction. When she doesn’t say anything, I keep talking. “Owen has such a big ego he wrote to a reporter so everyone knew he was back and knew exactly when he would grab his next victim. So why wouldn’t he tell everyone he is going to leave? He’s the type that would brag about what he did. He would say, ‘I told you exactly what I was going to do and when I was going to do it, and you still couldn’t catch me. Now you’ll never find me.’ ”

Millicent nods a little, like she’s thinking about it.

“I know it’s not ideal,” I say. “But if Owen’s gone, everyone will stop talking about him and maybe Jenna won’t be scared anymore.”

“The timing has to be right,” she says. “They need to find Naomi before you send another letter.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“I’ll take care of that first.”

“Maybe we should do it together.”

She looks at me, her head tilted to one side. For a moment, I think she is going to smile, but she doesn’t. This is too serious now. We have moved beyond using this as foreplay.

“I can take care of Naomi,” she says. “You concentrate on the letter. You have to make everyone believe Owen has left.”

I want to argue and go with my idea, but instead I nod. Her idea makes sense.

She sighs a little. “I hope this works.”