The Wife Isn't Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Trish's Couch

Beth hides at her best friend's house, tells Oscar she saw the worksheet, and he answers that it's already done.

"Because my father has a key," Philippa said again, quieter, as if I hadn't heard.

"To my apartment?"

"He owns the building."

Behind her, the hospital doors opened and Oscar came out with a quilted handbag over his arm.

He was scanning the lawn for his wife.

I didn't wait to see his face find mine.

I walked out through the gate, waved down a cab on Roland Avenue, and gave the driver the first address that came into my head.

Trish's.

Trish Holbrook had a rowhouse in Hampden with a crooked porch and a plastic dinosaur on every step.

She opened the door in cartoon-print scrubs, a travel mug in her hand that said DON'T.

She looked at my face.

She looked at my belly.

"Who do I kill?"

"Nobody yet."

"Yet is a good word. Get in here."

We'd met at nineteen, in the same nursing program, both broke, both failing chemistry.

I dropped out and found paperwork.

She stayed, passed, and became a midwife who could talk a screaming father down from a ceiling.

She put me on her couch with my feet up and a blanket that smelled like fabric softener and crayons.

Her son came down the stairs in dinosaur pajamas.

He was seven and took his job as man of the house very seriously.

"Why is Aunt Beth crying?"

"I'm not crying," I said. "My eyes are sweating."

He considered that.

"Because the baby's hot?"

"Exactly. The baby's very hot."

He went to the freezer and came back with a bag of frozen peas.

He laid it carefully across the top of my belly.

"There," he said. "Now it's cold."

Trish had to turn around and face the wall for a second.

When he'd gone back up to bed, I told her everything.

The brass plate. The cream sheets. The knuckles.

Then I showed her the photo on my phone.

Trish was a midwife. She'd seen a thousand of those worksheets.

She zoomed in on the sticky note with two fingers.

"'Use whichever delivers healthy,'" she read out.

"Yeah."

"Beth. That's not a typo. That's a plan."

"I know what it is."

"Who's E.L.?"

"Edward Lowther, I think. Her father. He's the chairman of the board."

Trish set her DON'T mug down very carefully.

My phone buzzed on the coffee table.

Oscar.

It buzzed again. Then again.

By nine o'clock he'd called twenty times.

I watched each one light up and go dark.

Trish watched me watch them.

"You're not answering," she said.

"I'm not answering."

"Good girl."

At nine thirty the calls stopped and the texts started.

Beth, where are you? They said you had a panic attack.

Then: Baby, please. The fire alarm thing, the nurses are worried. You're not in trouble.

Then: I can explain everything. It's not what it looks like.

I read that one out loud.

Trish laughed so hard she snorted.

"Not what it looks like," she said. "What does it look like? Because to me it looks like a wife."

The next one came in at ten.

Philippa is a business arrangement. You know I love you. Let me come get you.

I put my hand on my belly.

The baby was awake, doing slow rolls under my palm, the way she always did when I lay still.

Two years of Sunday mornings.

Him bringing me lemon water when I couldn't keep anything down.

Him saying the word "ours" every time he touched me here.

I'd believed every word.

I didn't believe one now.

"I'm going to answer him," I said.

Trish sat up. "Babe. No."

"Once. In writing."

"What are you going to say?"

I didn't call. I didn't cry. I didn't write a paragraph.

I typed my reply and pressed send.

I saw the worksheet.

The little dots appeared right away.

They stopped.

They appeared again.

They stopped again.

Trish crawled over and put her chin on my shoulder to watch the screen with me.

"Oh, he's sweating," she said. "He's sweating through that nice shirt."

The dots came back.

They stayed for a long time.

I could picture him in the big kitchen I'd never seen, in the house I didn't know he had, deciding which version of himself to send.

The phone buzzed.

Trish read it before I could.

All the laughter went out of her face.

I turned the screen toward me.

Then you know it's already done. Come back and nobody has to be unpleasant.

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