My Lovely Wife

When picking the kids up from school, I get there early enough for a front-row view of the doors. This is when I see the girl who is obviously driving my son crazy.

She is a tiny blonde with rosy lips, milky skin, and hair that falls straight to her chin. She pushes it back while they talk and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. The girl is as nervous as he is.

How long, I wonder. How long has he had this girlfriend, or this almost-girlfriend? If I had not caught him the other night, I would have missed it all together. Maybe I would have lived my whole life without knowing about this little blond girl that my son likes.

Have there been other girls—blondes or brunettes or redheads—who have made my son as crazy as this girl has? Did I miss the first, the second, and the third? At this point, I have no way of knowing. He would not tell me if I asked. He did not even tell me about the current one.

And I did not notice, didn’t have a clue, until I made the effort. Otherwise, it would have slipped right past me.

I wonder if this is what happened with my parents. They never made an effort, and I slipped right by them.

Forty-seven

During dinner, all of our phones are lined up on the counter behind Millicent. We are eating mushroom risotto, with leeks and baby carrots on the side, when my phone honks like a horn.

Breaking news.

Millicent reaches behind her and silences my phone.

“Sorry,” I say. “Sports app.”

She gives me a hard look. Phones are supposed to be silenced during dinner.

The breaking news could be anything, but I know it isn’t. My news app is filtered for Naomi’s name and Owen Oliver and the words body has been found. Technology is an amazing thing.

It is also a horrible thing, because now I have to sit through dinner until I can know more. This is worse than being completely ignorant for twenty minutes.

When we are finally done, I grab my phone as the kids clear the table.

BODY OF WOMAN FOUND

I look up at Millicent. She is standing in front of the sink, wearing an old sweatshirt and black leggings and a pair of my socks. I catch her eye, pointing at my phone.

She gives me a tiny nod with a smile.

* * *

• • •

I do not see the rest of the story until the dishes are done and the kids sit down to watch TV. At that point, I go upstairs, into the bathroom, and watch the news.

It is perfect.

Naomi’s body was found inside a Dumpster behind the Lancaster Hotel. She was last seen in that parking lot, not far from the same Dumpster, after she got off work on that Friday the 13th. The last image of Naomi was on a security camera as she walked across the lot to her car. The cameras only covered part of the lot. Naomi’s car and the Dumpster were both in blind spots.

Josh is standing across the street from the hotel, right where I used to park and watch Naomi. He looks buzzed on caffeine or adrenaline or both, and it’s good to see him like this again. The Jane Doe women, especially the second one, seemed to depress him.

Now, he is energetic, all full of innuendo and speculation, because not many real facts have been released. All we really know is that a dead woman who looks like the missing Naomi was found in the Dumpster when it was being emptied by a waste disposal company. The police were called, the whole area was blocked off, and a press conference may or may not happen tonight, but he thinks it will.

The one thing that does not come up is Naomi’s past. Now that she is dead instead of missing, it would be unkind to say bad things about her.

Josh does note that it has been weeks since he last heard from Owen Oliver Riley.

I smile.

The letter is addressed to the TV station, and it is marked Personal and Confidential for Josh. I imagine that when it arrives, the look on his face will be orgasmic, though he will not be happy to learn that this is his final letter from Owen. The letters have made Josh a star, at least locally, and there is a rumor he has been approached by a cable station. He would do well on a station like that. He is so serious and earnest it is hard not to believe him.

Josh is one of the few who will have a better life because of this.

Trista will not.

Poor, dead Trista will never even be recognized as victim. And she was, even if she did take her own life. I do feel bad about her, mainly because she felt so bad about the others. It is hard to dislike someone so empathetic.

The best we can do now is to prevent it from happening again.

I go downstairs, where the kids are arguing about what to watch next. Millicent threatens to send them upstairs to read if they don’t agree on something, and suddenly the room goes quiet. The opening music of a teenage drama starts; it’s Jenna’s favorite, and somehow Rory manages not to groan. I suspect this is also because of the little blonde. She probably watches the same shows as Jenna.

Millicent motions to me, and we walk through the kitchen, into the formal dining room that we use only for holidays and dinner parties.

“They found her?” she whispers.

I nod. “They did. Waiting for official confirmation.”

“Now you—”

“I’ll mail it tomorrow.”

“Perfect.”

I smile. She kisses me on the tip of my nose.

We go back into the family room and join the kids, but since we are watching live TV, we cannot help but hear about Naomi. The news is announced during a commercial break, and it is so quick there is no time to turn the channel.

Rory’s phone lights up. He picks it up and starts texting.

Jenna does not react. She stares at the TV as if she were still watching her show, not news about a dead woman.

“Who wants ice cream?” Millicent says.

Rory raises a finger. “Me.”

“Jenna?”

“Sure.”

“One scoop?”

“Three.”

“Sure, honey,” I say, getting up from the couch.

Millicent raises her eyebrow at me and follows me into the kitchen. I get four bowls, and everyone gets three scoops. She starts to say something, and I cut her off.

“Let’s not talk about sugar content tonight. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” And it’s true. Naomi will be on the news every night, and they will go over every detail of how she was found and how she was killed. It will get even worse when Josh receives my letter, because then they will spend hours debating if Owen is really gone or if he is just waiting for all of us to get complacent again.

Eventually, it will fade. Something else will take its place, and Owen will be gone for good.

But until then, three scoops of ice cream.

We go back into the family room, and the teenage drama has ended. Rory changes the channel, and we watch the end of one show in anticipation of the next. In between, there is a newsbreak. Before Millicent has a chance to grab the remote, Josh is on our TV. He repeats the same information we heard on the other channel.

When he is done talking about the discovery of Naomi’s body, Rory turns to his sister. “You think she was tortured?”

“Yeah.”

“More or less than the last one?”

“Hey,” I say. Because I do not know what else to say.

“More,” Jenna says.

“Wanna bet?”