I folded my napkin in half, then in half again. Underneath the table, my socked foot jiggled against the wood floor. I was itching to get into the office, to finish the outstanding obituaries on my docket. This afternoon, two new orders had come in, both with tight turnarounds.
But jumping straight into work would break one of my husband’s unwritten rules. Postdinner, he expected the dishes to be washed immediately, then loaded into the dishwasher for an extra sanitary cycle. The leftovers would be transferred into the Pyrex cubes that neatly stacked our fridge. Scraps would go into the food disposal, recycling into the bag, trash into the compactor. It would be an hour before I could escape to the more exciting life of someone else. Someone whose spouse had probably been loyal.
“Dinner was delicious.” Mike took a long sip, finishing off his glass. He would restrict himself to one, while I . . . I would quietly finish off the bottle during the cleanup. “Thanks for cooking.”
I could see the next line coming, like a closed-captioned reel that was ahead on its timing.
“I’ve got to head to the office. Better push off, before it gets too late.”
At times, with certain phrases, there was a hint of the British accent that Mike had carried when we first met. He’d been born in London and moved to the United States with his mother when he was thirteen. The posh accent had slowly faded, diluting into the bland Californian sound that Jacob and I carried—but it popped its head up at times, nurtured strongly by Mike, who I suspected preferred and missed the more haughty slant.
Now I warred between wanting him out of my hair and wondering where he was really going. “Why don’t you just log in from here?” He used to do that. We’d even set up my office so he could work remotely during the months that traffic was hell or there were blackouts downtown.
“No, the file that I need is at the office. This client is in Hong Kong, so I’m dealing with that time zone.” He quickly tapped his fork tines across his plate, piercing and collecting a mixture of carrots, mushrooms, and onions.
He wasn’t looking at me, and this was the husband I’d been dealing with for the past year. Stiff posture, no eye contact, and a flimsy excuse that would take him away for hours at a time. The man in complete control still had minute tells, and I’d learned most of them.
Swallowing his final bite, he folded his napkin in half and placed it beside his plate, then rose. Collecting his plate and silverware, he passed Jacob’s empty chair and paused by my seat. I lifted my chin and he bent down, skipping my expectant lips and pressing a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t wait up.”
Don’t wait up. The three most telling words in a marriage.
I stayed in my seat as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink. In standard Mike fashion, the practice took a solid minute, followed by the selection of a fresh hand towel from the stack. His dress boots clicked across the tile, and he lifted his key fob off the hook by the interior garage door.
“Night,” he called out.
“Night,” I said dully, lifting the bottle and refilling my wineglass.
Maybe I should have gotten in my car and tried to follow him. I considered the idea, but the thought of it sounded exhausting, especially given the dinner cleanup, plus my writing, which were all waiting for me.
So instead I was a good little wife. I stayed in our three-bedroom house with the white picket fence. I cleaned the kitchen and put away the food, and sat in my office and wrote until I finished my assignments and sent them in.
And then, sticking to my role, I took a sleeping pill, washed it down with the remainder of a second bottle of wine, and went to bed.
CHAPTER 5
MIKE
My wife was beginning to suspect something. I could see the sharp pinch of her stare, the way she repeated my words back at times, as if she were tasting the flavor of truth versus lie.
Unfortunately for her, she wouldn’t find anything. It was cute, really, how easily I manipulated and deceived her. It gave me a sense of reassurance, knowing that I was able to protect her, to guide her choices and opinions and make her life easier. If only she knew how many of her “decisions” were ones that I orchestrated with simple A plus B equals C manipulations.
I would find a place for her suspicions to land. A mistake “accidentally” made, one that revealed my supposed secret, and she’d fume and she’d accuse and I’d roll over and show my stomach. She’d think she had won and that I was defeated, and our marriage would go on to live another day. This house was my castle and she and Jacob my sheep, and everything would happen as it should because intelligence was the gravity that pinned all the pieces onto the board. While I might not be the handsomest or most athletic man in the room, I’d always been the smartest and would, as always, win.
CHAPTER 6
LILLIAN
I woke up with Mike behind me, one of his hands on my hip, his mouth half-open in a snore. Curling around, I burrowed into his chest and inhaled deeply, suspicious even while foggy with sleep. He smelled like his dandruff shampoo and soap, and I pushed off him, frustrated at the blank slate.
Closing my eyes, I listened to the clicking hum of the fan and the unsteady drone of his snores. His sleep apnea was back, and I was supposed to wake him up when too long of a pause occurred between snores, but I listened to the pauses and buzzes and imagined, in the moment before I fell back asleep, what would happen if he just suffocated and died.
We had cushy insurance policies on us both. I would pay off the house and Jacob would attend whatever college he wanted, and I could move out of Los Angeles—God, I was over this city—and to a small town (maybe Montana?) where traffic stalled behind Amish wagons and strangers waved hello, and I could jog alone at night without fear of being raped or killed. I reached over and poked Mike hard in his ribs, and he grunted and rolled to his left side.
The snores stopped.
When I woke up the second time, the room was filled with morning light, and the house was quiet. I checked my phone for emails, then flipped on my police scanner and started a fresh pot of coffee. As the coffee dripped and the scent of ground beans filled the room, I opened my new e-book and started reading where I had left off in chapter 2.
The book was called How to Catch a Cheating Spouse, and the second chapter was focused on paranoia versus justified suspicion. It seemed that I had a heavy amount of both. Which was all fine and good, but not worth the $12.99 I’d paid. I skimmed the next few pages, then rose when the pot chimed.
As I added cream and sugar, a familiar code came across the scanner.
A dead body, found. Setting down the Garfield cup, I turned the radio up, then grabbed my pen and my work notebook. Writing down the details, I glanced at the sunshine clock above the family organization board that hung by the pantry. I pulled out my travel mug and poured my coffee into the stainless-steel vessel and screwed the lid onto the top.
I tried not to be excited by a death, but this moment, before I found out the details, before I knew all the answers—it was like a shot of adrenaline. I loved it.
@themysteryofdeath: Monday morning in a high-rise office building. A group rides the elevator up to the top floor. Among them: a maintenance man, a business exec, an admin, and a new middle manager. One of them won’t live until lunchtime . . . Who will die?