The Wife Before

“I see.”

Yadira’s gaze lifted to meet mine. “He is very happy with you. It’s nice to see him like this.”

“Yeah.” I smiled, and then turned away to slide the door open. I thought it strange the way she tensed about the shed . . . but then I figured maybe talking about Melanie was a touchy subject for her too. She was here when Melanie was. Surely all of this change must have been a little weird for her—serving one wife and now another.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I separated all of the clothes by category. Dresses in one pile, blouses in another. Jewelry in one box, and scarves in an empty bin. I figured I’d take all of the clothes to town, sell what I could and donate the rest. The jewelry looked expensive and I was tempted to keep some of it, but it was enough taking her shed. I didn’t want to take anything else, let alone walk around in her hand-me-downs for Roland to remember her by.

As I cleared everything and revealed more and more of the built-in desk, my eyes kept wandering to the bin of photos. I had no idea what I was going to do with those. Throw them away, perhaps? Burn them? If Roland knew about them, he would have kept them, right? They seemed very private. Also, if Yadira and his mother were here and had organized things for him, they had to have come across the photos too. Did his mother ask her son about them? Or did they both do what I did and pretend they never saw them?

I brushed all of the thoughts away, sliding the boxes to one side of the room and then going to the bookshelf to take down books I most likely wouldn’t read and could donate. A room without books was a room without a soul, so yes, I’d keep some of them on the shelf. No point in hauling them all away.

When I reached the fourth shelf, I noticed there was a collection of black books, all neatly lined up. They probably wouldn’t have caught my attention if they’d had words on the spine, but none of them did. They only had numbers on the bottom of the spine, ranging from one to six.

I placed the books I was holding down on the floor and pulled out the book with the number “1” engraved on the spine in gold. The journals were thick, with hard covers, and on the front was the word Confessions embedded in a threadlike gold font. I opened it to the first page and there was a note.

This journal belongs to Melanie Raine.

Oh, shit.

I flipped through the pages quickly and each one was filled with words, all seemingly handwritten by her.

Something in the back of my mind screamed for me to close it and throw it away, burn it along with the photos, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I read the first line—When did everything between me and Roland go wrong?—and then the next line, and then I sat in the dusty green chair, and kept reading.

Before I knew it, I was completely riveted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

When did everything between me and Roland go wrong? I’ve been asking myself this a lot lately. I used to be so in love, so happy. But now my marriage is in shambles and I cry every night. I miss the old me—the old us. But then I think . . . maybe there was never really an old me. Maybe I’ve always been this way, and so has he.

Funny enough, I still remember the moment I fell in love with him. It was May 12th, 2015, and I was working the front counter at Bailor Golf Club. I’d gotten the job by luck, courtesy of an ex-boyfriend of mine, and I couldn’t stand it, only because my manager was an overbearing asshole and the polyester uniform was itchy. But it paid well, and I didn’t have anywhere else to work, so this was fine for now.

It was the weekend of an all-star golfing tournament. The hotel was busy and full of guests, and all staff were on duty. I’d been checking people in all day and eventually they’d all become a blur of features—big eyes, little eyes, bulbous noses, thin noses, dry lips, glossy lips—but then he showed up. Roland Graham. And of course, if he’d caught my eye, he had to have stood out amongst the crowd.

The first thing I noticed about him were his looks. What woman wouldn’t have? He was extremely handsome—one of those rare people with a rather proportionate face—but I could tell he was very modest about his looks. He didn’t walk around with a boastful air like some men did. He exuded confidence, yes, but there was a slight dip in his chin, and his eyes wandered. He kept his head down but his eyes vigilant.