The Wife He Left Behind novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Postcard

Camille's brother Stellan appears at Cassia's door with a postcard from Singapore that is postmarked Seattle.

There was a man sitting on my porch steps when I got home.

It was after ten, and my porch light was off, because the bulb had been dead since September and Tobias had said he'd fix it when he was back.

I stopped at the bottom of the walk with my keys in my fist.

The man stood up slowly, with both hands where I could see them.

He was tall, in a navy peacoat, with a steel thermos in one hand and an envelope in the other.

"Mrs. Reiner?"

"Who's asking?"

"My name is Stellan Fenn. I'm sorry about the hour." He took a careful step back. "My sister works for your husband."

I had a hand on my stomach before I knew it.

"Camille," I said.

"Yes."

"She's in Singapore."

"That's what I'd like to ask you about. Can I show you something? I'll stay out here, wherever you want me."

"Show me from there."

He held up a wallet-sized card, and I read it by the streetlight.

Washington State Ferries. Captain. His photo showed him sunburned and not smiling.

I let him come up to the porch, and I stayed on the second step so I was the taller one.

"How did you find this house?"

"Your wedding announcement is online. It says Wallingford, and the county has one Aldous on this street." He said it plainly. "I know how that sounds."

"It sounds like a stalker."

"It does. I'd like to leave if you tell me to."

I looked at him.

He didn't look like he wanted anything from me.

He looked tired, with grey starting at his temples and the kind of hands that had pulled a lot of rope.

"Five minutes," I said.

We sat on the steps, a foot apart, and he unscrewed the thermos and poured coffee into the lid and handed it to me without a word.

It was decaf, which I hadn't expected, and I was glad of it.

"My sister has never been out of the country," he said. "She's twenty-eight, and I raised her from the time she was fourteen, and she moved to Singapore in March for a job. She calls every Sunday. She called every Sunday for seven years."

"And she stopped."

"The first week of April. Since then I get a postcard once a month."

"From Singapore."

"From Singapore." He handed me the envelope. "I've kept every one."

I took out the cards.

There were seven.

Each showed the same stone lion spitting water into a harbor.

Each one said the same sort of thing, in careful round handwriting.

Settled in, work is great! Miss you. Love, C.

Weather is hot, hot, hot! Don't worry about me. C.

"Seven cards, and none of them have a question in them," Stellan said. "She always asks questions. She'll ask what you ate and who you talked to and whether the dog's okay. The cards don't ask me one thing."

"Why come to me?"

"Yesterday a friend of my mother's sent me a link to the company's page." He looked at the street. "I'm not stupid, Mrs. Reiner. I saw her hand on a married man's arm, and I saw four hundred people tell her she looked good there."

I didn't say anything.

"I don't know if it means what it looks like. I know she's stopped telling me anything. I thought maybe the wife would know more than I do."

"The wife doesn't know anything," I said.

It was the first time I had said it out loud.

It sat on the step between us.

"He hasn't turned his camera on since April," I went on. "Last night she texted me to say he's in calls till Sunday. I called him at six-forty, and he picked up, and he spoke to me for about two minutes. He never once asked how I was."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I."

He didn't say anything else, and I was grateful.

He just let me hold the cards.

I turned the last one over, the seventh, the one from October.

I was looking at the stamp, because I look at everything, and a court reporter's eyes go where the date is.

A circle of black ink sat over the corner of the stamp.

Most of it was smudged.

But the top half of the round mark had come through clean, and the letters curved around it in a clear arc.

SEATTLE WA.

I held it under the streetlight, and then I held it closer.

The date was October twenty-sixth, two days ago, and my hand started shaking so hard I had to set the card down on my knee.

"Stellan," I said. "Where does everyone say your sister is living?"

"Singapore. I told you."

"Then who mailed this from Seattle?"

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