The Wives

SIXTEEN

When I get back from the restroom, Hannah is gone. I stare at the empty table, a sinking feeling in my stomach. Our server is ceremoniously clearing away the last of our glasses when he looks up and sees me. He grins sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders and stepping back.

“Thought you left,” he says. “She ran out in a hurry.”

As I step closer, I see that she’s paid the bill in cash and left a note on the back of my beverage napkin. I pick it up, frowning. Why would she leave so suddenly? Had our conversation spooked her that much? Maybe Seth called and summoned her home. The words are scribbled; her pen tore through the napkin at several spots. Had to run, felt sick. Rain check on movie.

That’s it? I turn it over in my hand, hoping for a more detailed explanation, but there’s only the pink lipstick residue I left earlier when I wiped my mouth.

“Did she look sick?” I ask the server. He’s waiting for me to leave so he can get his money and get the table ready for the next round of guests.

“Not really.” He shrugs.

I take out my phone to text.

What’s up? Why did you leave without saying goodbye?

Didn’t feel well. Had to run.

I consider asking her more, but then think better of it. I’ve already scared her enough with all of my questions. Things are probably better left alone. It could be the baby, I remind myself. She’s still in her first trimester. I was sick as a dog for the first five months of my pregnancy; the bathroom floor had become a hangout. I push the memories from my mind, their resurgence a cold knife against my thin control. If I thought on that too much, I’d—

I consider going to the movie by myself, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how tired I am—I realize that all I want is to drive back to the hotel instead.

As I’m waiting in the hotel valet for an attendant, tapping my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, something begins to nag at the back of my mind. Seth’s texts to me earlier had been strange—the tone of them. Was it possible that he’d seen me there with Hannah? I decide to take a quick spin past Hannah’s house. Just to see if her car is there. No harm in that. I wave off the attendant as he approaches my car and speed past, ignoring his look of disapproval. Twenty minutes. It would take me twenty minutes tops to spy on Hannah and my husband. Excitement whips through me as I rush through a yellow light, eager to reach their quaint home.

I can tell she’s not home even before I reach the house. The windows are dark and lifeless and her car is missing from its usual spot against the curb. I can’t see Seth’s anywhere, either. I consider creeping up to the house and taking a peek inside, but it’s still early enough that a neighbor could spot me.

Shit. Shit.

Could she have left the restaurant and gone straight to the hospital? There’s no finding out tonight. I head back to the hotel, feeling defeated. Something’s going on and I feel like I’m the only person in this marriage who doesn’t know what.

By the next morning, I’ve barely slept. My mind wouldn’t stop ticking and I had too many ugly thoughts. If I can’t find a way to sleep soon, I’ll have to see a doctor. It was torture lying awake half the night, being tired but not knowing how to shut off your brain. I fall into a fitful sleep around five and wake at seven to find a voice mail from Hannah on my phone. I roll onto my back, wondering why the phone didn’t ring, and remember that I’d put it on silent before we went into the restaurant. My two hours of sleep had been wrought with dreams—dark things about being chased and being caught. I don’t remember the details of the dreams, but the feelings they left behind linger in my mind. I listen to the message with half of my face hidden under the comforter, my eyes squinting against the light that sneaks in through a break in the curtains. Hannah’s voice shakes and I press the phone closer to my ear so I can make out what she’s saying.

“I’m really freaked out.” Her voice quavers, and it sounds like she’s blowing her nose. “We had a fight. I don’t feel safe. I just... I—” Her voice cuts off like she lost reception in the middle of the call.

I hold the phone away from my face and see that the voice mail is still playing. Pressing it back to my ear, I strain to hear, in case she’s said anything else.

“Leave...alone...he’s—” It cuts out for the final time. Damn my shitty reception.

I lie there frozen for a few minutes, her words ricocheting around in my head. Seth. She had a fight with Seth and now she is scared. What did he do to scare her? I throw my arm over my eyes. I was scared, too, wasn’t I? Ever since...his outburst, he’d seemed more unpredictable. If I said the wrong thing, would he do it again? If I call Hannah back I’ll be irrevocably involved in this...this thing. I wouldn’t be able to make any more excuses for him. I’d have to admit that what he’d done to me was deliberate. I’d been the one to seek Hannah out, to keep the truth about who I am from her. Perhaps it’s time to tell her that Seth is my husband, too. I roll back over onto my stomach and bury my face in the pillow. I call Anna.

“What’s up,” she says when she answers the phone. I’m not deterred by the briskness of her greeting; it’s Anna’s way.

“Hi,” I say. “I need moral guidance.”

“Are you facedown in a pillow?”

Anna knows my ways, too. I shift my head so she can hear me better.

“Not anymore,” I say.

“Oh, boy, are you sure I’m the one you should be asking for moral guidance?”

“No, but I don’t have anyone else, so moral-up and give the type of advice Melonie would give you.” Melonie is Anna’s mother, a psychologist who spent most of our teenage years observing us like we were science projects and then dissecting everything we did. As teens we thought it was terrifying and thrilling at the same time. At that age, most adults aren’t interested in the details of your thoughts, unless it’s to tell you those thought are wrong. But Melonie had been different. She’d validated us by saying we were on our own adventure, exploring the world. She made self-destruction seem normal and so we’d destructed without guilt. Nowadays, I wonder how healthy that had been: an adult egging us on. And here I am as an adult, seeking the same type of assurance, asking my best friend to validate me like her mother had.

“Okay,” Anna breathes. “Hit me with it, I’m in Melonie mode.”

“I have a new friend—I know her through someone else,” I add, because I know Anna will ask. “I’ve seen some bruises on her before but didn’t think much of it, but then today, she leaves a message on my phone, saying she got into a fight with her husband and she’s scared. Two things you should know—she’s pregnant, and I know her husband fairly well and he doesn’t seem like the type of guy who’d toss his wife around, you know?”

Anna sighs. I can picture her seated at her kitchen table, a cup of her nasty instant coffee cooling in front of her—she likes it lukewarm rather that hot. When she’s frustrated, the ankle of her crossed leg swishes from side to side, the ankle bracelet she wears glinting against her olive skin.

“First off,” she begins, “I don’t give a flying fuck how innocent a man appears, if a woman has the tits to come forward and say she’s scared, something is going the fuck on to make her scared. You don’t need to get too involved, but you can get involved enough to give her the push to leave. We’re all just waiting for someone to stand behind us, aren’t we? Even if it’s just one person, it gives you strength.”

I bite my lip. Anna is right. I sit up in bed, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. This is so fucked. I’m compartmentalizing without even realizing it.

“But what if she’s blowing things out of proportion? I mean, I know this guy. He’s a good man...”

“Don’t be dense. Parishioners think they know their priests, aunts think they know their husbands, and meanwhile they’re molesting little boys behind closed doors. Can we really know anyone?”

I think of myself and all of the things my best friend doesn’t know about me, and drop my head. Anna is spot-on, isn’t she? Maybe we’re all pretending everything is fine when it itsn’t. He pushed me, I think. I can try to rewrite that story, blame myself, excuse my husband, but he pushed me.

Anna and I chat for a few more minutes, and when there’s a break in the conversation, I thank her and say I have to go. She hesitates when she says goodbye, almost like she suspects I’m not telling her everything and she’s giving me the chance to ’fess up. She’s given me a lot to think about. I hang up quickly and head to the bathroom to take a shower.

I’m going to call Hannah back and tell her everything. Together we could... What? Leave Seth? Find Regina and ask if Seth had ever been aggressive with her? It doesn’t matter. We can approach the options together. Like a team. I plan what I’m going to say to her as I soap my hair and let the hot water ease some of the tension out of my shoulders.

Once I’m wrapped in my towel and sitting on the edge of the bed, I call her back. I’m nervous. I chew on my lip. It rings half a dozen times before I hear her voice. Hey, it’s Hannah. Leave a message!

“Hi, Hannah. It’s me. I’m worried about you so call me back as soon as you get this. I’ll be driving back to Seattle, so anytime in the next two hours and I can answer right away. Okay, bye.”

I move to get dressed and gather up my things, glancing at the phone every few minutes to see if I’ve missed her call, but my phone remains dark and silent. I call again and this time I’m sent straight to voice mail.

“Hannah, damn it! Call me back!” I make a noise of frustration as I pull the phone from my ear, and then realize I haven’t hung up the call yet. Great. I stuff my phone in my pocket and, snatching up my bag, I head for the lobby.

I drive past their house one more time, but neither of their cars are there. Not knowing what to do, I decide to head for home. I can turn around and come back if she needs me. But four hours later, I’m pulling into the garage under my building not having heard from her. Traffic was backed up for miles. Hungry and needing to use the restroom, I waited it out instead of losing my place in the never-ending line of brake lights. I drag my things up the elevator and into my condo, kicking the door shut behind me. I drop my purse near the door and race for the half bathroom.

I emerge hungry and thirsty, about to raid the fridge, when I see movement through the door to the bedroom. My heart seizes in a panic and I freeze. Where is my phone? In the foyer where I’d dropped my handbag?

I look around for signs of my mother, who usually leaves her things on the kitchen counter when she comes over, a pile of designer leather. But everything is just as I left it, right down to the scattering of bagel crumbs near the toaster. I hear movement, feet shuffling against carpet, and then suddenly Seth is standing in the kitchen doorway. I grab at my heart, which is pounding painfully in my chest, bending over slightly at the waist and laughing at myself.

“I thought someone broke in,” I say. “You scared me.”

It takes a minute for a few things to sink in: the first that today is not Thursday; the second, Seth is not smiling; and third—there is a bandage on the knuckles of his right hand. I lick my lips, my brain working frantically. He knows! I think. That’s why he must be here, to sort me out. I’m not the type to lie. Omissions, yes, but if he asks me point-blank about Hannah I’ll tell the truth.

My eyes travel to his face, and for a moment, neither of us say a thing. It’s a staring match, one I’d rather not be in.

“What are you doing here?” I finally say.

His eyes look tired and dull, not the normally mischievous sparkle that is my Seth. My Seth! I almost laugh. I don’t know who that is anymore. Suddenly, I feel frightened.

He answers my question with another question. “Where have you been?”

Ah, a standoff. Who wants to answer first? I think.

I turn to the fridge, remembering my thirst, and grab a bottle of water from the shelf. I offer Seth one before closing the door, holding it out to him. He nods, that stony look still on his face. I toss him the bottle and lean back against the counter while I screw off the lid and drink.

“I saw a friend. I told you.”

“I know what you’re doing,” he says.

I notice his clothes for the first time, a pair of jeans and crewneck sweater that I’d laundered last week. Things that belong here at the condo.

“Have you been here since last night?” That thought hadn’t crossed my mind until I saw the clothes. Had he come here after his fight with Hannah only to find me gone?

“Yes,” he says.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know or I would have come home. Why didn’t you call?”

Seth glares at me and my stomach turns. He has strong squared shoulders, like a Lego man. Women get swoony over his shoulders, but right now they just scare me. How much would it hurt if he hit me? How hard had he hit Hannah? I picture her lithe body and milk skin—one hit, and she’d be bloody and mottled. The baby! I think in a panic. His eyes are searching my face but not in an imploring way; there’s a hardness to them that makes me shiver. This is his way: he prods without actually asking. It’s beneath him to ask questions. We are here for his pleasure.

I raise my chin at how bitter this makes me feel. Something has changed in me. Did it take days...? Weeks...? I cannot pinpoint when or how, but if the shift is noticeable to me, it’s definitely noticeable to my husband, who’s staring at me like I have Egyptian hieroglyphics tattooed on my face. That is male folly; they expect you to always be the same, reliable cow, but women spend their lives changing. Our change can swing for you or against you depending on how fairly we’ve been treated. I swing against, though I can feel the gravity of my love for him trying to pull me back down. He’s a good guy. There has to be an explanation for all of this...

“What have you done?” he says. His eyes, I notice, aren’t a sharp white. They are dingy pink, the shade you get after a long night of drinking.

I try to hide the trembling in my voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“Yes, you do.”

I’m breathing through my mouth now. I don’t want him to see how scared I am. I don’t want him to have the upper hand.

The sink drips—it’s the only noise in the room. I hear myself swallow as the seconds tick by, my eyes still on his face.

“What happened to your hand?” I ask.

We both look at his hand. Seth registers the bandage like he’s seeing it for the first time. He splays his fingers, twisting his wrist from side to side, as he blinks at it. A piece of hair falls onto his forehead and it’s the first time I notice that his hair is wet from a shower. What are you trying to wash off?

If his knuckles look like that, what does Hannah look like?

“I hit something.” That’s all he says, like it’s a good enough explanation.

“Doing what?” My question seems to throw him off balance. He opens and closes his mouth.

“Seth,” I say. “What have you done?”