1
THE WIFE
There is blood again.
Olivia forces away the threatening tears.
She will not collapse. She will not cry. She will stand up, square her
shoulders and flush the toilet, whispering small words of benediction toward
the life that was, that wasn’t, that could have been.
She will not linger; she will not
acknowledge the sudden sense of emptiness consuming her body. She will not give
this moment more than it deserves. It’s happened before, too many times now. It
will happen again, her mind unhelpfully provides.
There is relief in this pain, some sort of
primitive biological response to help ease her heavy heart. Olivia has never
lied to herself about her feelings about having a child. She wants this, she’s
sure of it. Wants the experience, wants to be able to speak the same language as
her sisters in the fertility arts, her friends who’ve already birthed their
own. And she loves the idea of being pregnant. Loves the feelings of that early
flush of success—the soreness and tingling in her breasts, the spotty nausea,
the excitement, the fatigue. Loves remembering that moment when she realized
she was pregnant the first time.
She’d known even before she took the test.
She could feel the life growing inside her. Feel the quickening pulse. A secret
she held in her heart, managing several hours with just the two of them, alone
in their nascent lives. Every room of the house looked new, fresh, dangerous.
Sharp corners and glass coffee tables, no, no, those would have to be tempered,
replaced. The sun glancing off the breakfast table—too bright here, the spot on
the opposite side would be best for a high chair. The cat, snoozing in the
window seat—how was she going to take an interloper? The plans. The plans.
After a carefully arranged lunch, fresh
fruit and no soft cheeses, she’d driven to the bookstore for a copy of What to
Expect When You’re Expecting, accepted the sweet congratulations of the
bookseller—think, a complete stranger knew more than her family, her husband.
She tied the plastic stick with its beautiful double pink lines inside two elaborate
bows—one pink, one blue—and gave it to Park after an elegant dinner.
The look on his face—pride and fear and
terror and joy, all mingled with desire—when he realized what she was saying.
He’d been struck dumb, could only grin ear to ear and pat her leg for the first
twenty minutes.
So much joy between them. So much
possibility.
Olivia replayed that moment, over and over,
every time she got pregnant. It helped chase away the furrowing, the angles and
planes of Park’s forehead, cheek, chin, as they collapsed into sorrow when
she’d miscarried the first time. And the next. And the next. Every time she
lost their children, it was the same, all played out on Park’s handsome face:
exaltation, fear, sorrow. Pity.
No, the being pregnant part was idyllic for
her, albeit terribly brief. It’s only that she doesn’t know how she feels about
what happens ten months hence, and the lifetime that follows. The stranger that
comes into being. But that’s normal—at least, that’s what everyone tells her.
All women feel nervous about what comes next. Her ambivalence isn’t what’s
killing her babies. She can’t help but feel it’s her fault for not being
certain to her marrow what she wants. That God is punishing her for being
cavalier.
Of course, this internal conversation is moot.
There is blood. Again.
She hastily makes her repairs—the materials
are never far away. If she stashed the pads and tampons away in the hall
cabinet, it would be bad luck. Too optimistic.
Not like they’re having any luck anyway.
Six pregnancies. Six miscarriages. IUIs and IVF. Needles and hormones and pain,
so much pain. More than anyone should have to bear.
With a momentary glance at the crime scene
in the toilet, she depresses the handle.
“Goodbye,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
Olivia brushes her teeth, then pulls a comb
through her glossy, prenatal-enriched locks, rehearsing the breakfast
conversation she must now have.
How does she tell Park she’s failed, yet
again, to hold the tiny life inside her?
Downstairs, it is now just another morning,
no different from any over the past several years. Just the two of them,
getting ready for the day.
The television is on in the kitchen, tuned
to the local morning show. Park whistles as he whisks eggs in a bright red
bowl. Park’s breakfasts are legendary. Savory omelets, buckwheat blueberry
pancakes, veggie frittatas, yogurts and homemade granola—you name it, he makes
it. Olivia handles dinner. If she cooks three nights out of seven, she
considers that a success. They eat like kings in the morning and paupers at night,
and they love it.
She pauses at the door, watching him bustle
around. He is already dressed for work, jeans and a button-down, black lace-up
brogues. His “office” is in the backyard, in a shed Olivia converted for his
use. A former—reformed—English professor on a semipermanent sabbatical, Park
has launched a second career ghostwriting psychological thrillers. He claims to
love the anonymity of it, that he can work so close to home, and the money is
good. Enough. Not obscene, but enough. They’ve been able to afford four rounds
of IUI and two in vitros so far. And as he says, writing is the perfect career
for a man who wants to be a stay-at-home dad. There’s no reason for him to go
back to teaching. Not now.
A pang in her heart, echoed by a sharp
cramp in her stomach. They are throwing everything away. She is throwing
everything away. This round of IVF, she only produced a few retrievable eggs,
and this was their last embryo.
My God, she’s gotten clinical. She’s gotten
cold. Babies. Not embryos. There are no more frozen babies. Which means she’ll
have to do it all again, the weeks-long scientific process of creating a child:
the suppression drugs, the early morning blood tests, the shots, the trigger,
the surgery, the implantation. The rage and fear and pain. Again.
The money. It costs so, so much.
She has frozen at the edge of the kitchen,
thoughts roiling, and Park senses her there, turns with a wide smile. The whisk
clicks against the bowl in time with her heartbeat.
“How are my darlings feeling this morning?
Mama and bebe hungry?”
She is saved from blurting out the
truth—mama no more, bebe is dead—by the ringing of the doorbell.
Park frowns. “Who is here so early? Watch
the eggs, will you?”
Even chickens can do what she cannot.
It’s infuriating. House cats escape into
the woods and sixty days later purge themselves of tiny blind beings. Insects,
birds, rats, rabbits, deer, reproduce without thought or hindrance.
Nearly four million women a year—a
year!—manage to give birth.
But not her.
She’s not depressed, really, she’s not.
She’s come to terms with this. It happens. Today will be a bad day, tomorrow
will be better. They will try again. It will all be okay.
Mechanically, Olivia moves to the stove,
accepts the wooden spatula. Park disappears toward the foyer, shoulders broad
and waist nearly as trim as the day she met him. She will never get over his
handsomeness, his winning personality. Everyone loves Park. How could you not?
He is perfect. He is everything Olivia is not.
The television is blaring a breaking news
alert, and she turns her attention to it, grateful for something, anything, to
focus on beside the intransigent nature of her womb and the fear her husband
will abandon her. The anchor is new, from Mississippi, with a voice soft as
honey. Tupelo? No, Oxford, Olivia remembers; Park took her to a quaint
bookstore there on the square one summer, long ago.
“Sad news this morning, as it has been
confirmed the body found in Davidson County earlier this week belongs to young
mother Beverly Cooke. Cooke has been missing for three months, after she was
last seen going for a hike at Radnor Lake. Her car was found in the parking
lot, with her purse and phone inside. Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Vanda
Priory tells Channel Four Metro is working with the Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation and Forensic Medical to determine her cause of death. The Cooke
family released a statement a few minutes ago. ‘Thank you to everyone who has
helped bring Beverly home. We will have more information on her burial soon. We
ask for privacy during this difficult time.’ Metro now turns their attention to
identifying a suspect. In this morning’s briefing, Homicide Detective William
Osley stated that Metro has a lead and will be pursuing it vigorously. Next up,
time to break into the cedar closet, it’s finally sweater weather!”
Olivia sighs in regret. That poor woman.
Like everyone in Nashville, Olivia has followed the case religiously. To have a
young mother—the kind of woman she’s so desperate to mold herself into—
disappear into thin air from a safe, regularly traveled, popular spot, one
Olivia herself hikes on occasion, has been terrifying. She knows Beverly Cooke,
too, albeit peripherally. They were in a book club together a few years ago.
Beverly was fun. Loud. Drank white wine in the kitchen of the house and
gossiped about the neighbors. Never read the book.
Olivia stopped going after a few meetings.
It was right before she’d started her first official fertility treatments, had
two miscarriages behind her, was hopped up on Clomid and aspirin, and all
anyone could do was talk babies. Beverly had just weaned her first and was
drunk for the first time in two years. She alternated between complaining and
cooing about the trials and joys of motherhood. Olivia couldn’t take it, this
flagrant flaunting of the woman’s success. She stood stock still in the
clubhouse kitchen, fingers clenching a glass of Chardonnay, envisioning the
myriad ways she could murder Beverly. Cracking the glass on the counter’s edge
and swiping it across Beverly’s pale stalk of a neck seemed the most expedient.
Honestly, she wanted to murder them all,
the sycophantic breeders who took their ability to procreate for granted. They
had no idea what she was going through. How she was tearing apart inside, month
after month. How she felt the embryos detach and knew it was over. How Park’s
face went from joy to disdain every time.
Some people wear their scars on the
outside.
Some hide them deep, and never let anyone
in to see them.
Olivia is still staring at the screen,
which is blaring a commercial for car insurance, processing, remembering, fists
balled so tightly she can feel her nails cutting the skin, when she hears her
husband calling her name.
“Olivia?” His voice is pitched higher than
normal, as if he’s excited, or scared.
Park enters the kitchen from the hall
between the dining room and the butler’s pantry.
“Honey, they found Beverly—” she starts.
But her words die in her throat when she sees two strangers, a man and a woman,
standing behind him, people she knows immediately are police officers just by
their wary bearing and shifting eyes that take in the whole room in a moment,
then settle on her appraisingly.
“I know,” Park says, coming to her side,
shutting off the gas. She’s burned the eggs; a sulfurous stench emanates from
the gold-encrusted pan. He takes the spatula from her carefully. “It’s been on
the news all morning. Liv, these detectives need to talk to us.”
“About?”
The man—stocky, slick smoky-lensed gold
glasses, perfectly worn-in cowboy boots and a leather jacket over a
button-down—takes a small step forward and removes his sunglasses. His eyes are
the deepest espresso and hold something indefinable, between pity and
accusation. It’s as if he knows what she is thinking, knows her uncharitable
thoughts toward poor dead Beverly.
“Detective Osley, ma’am. My partner,
Detective Moore. We’ve been working Beverly Cooke’s case. I understand you knew
her? Our condolences for your loss.”
Olivia cuts her eyes at Park. What the hell
has he been saying to them?
“I don’t know her. Didn’t. Not well. We
were in a book club together, years ago. I don’t know what happened to her. I’m
sorry I can’t be of more help.”
“Oh, we understand. That’s not why we’re
here.” Osley glances at his partner. The woman is taller than he is, graceful
in the way of ex–ballet dancers even in her street clothes, with a long, supple
neck, hooded green eyes devoid of makeup and blond hair twisted into a thick
no-nonsense bun worn low, brushing the collar of her shirt.
“Why are you here, exactly?” Olivia asks.
Park frowns at her tone. She’s come across
too sharp, but my God, what she’s already handled this morning would break a
lesser woman.
“It’s about our suspect in the Cooke case.
Can we sit down?”
Olivia reigns in her self-loathing fury and
turns on the charm. The consummate hostess act always works. Park has taught
her that. “Oh, of course. Can I get you some coffee? Tea? We were making
breakfast. Can we offer you some eggs, or a muffin? I have a fresh pan here—”
“No, ma’am, we’re fine,” Moore demurs.
“Let’s sit down and have a chat.”
Olivia has a moment of sheer freak-out. Was
it Park? Had he killed Beverly Cooke? Was that why they wanted to talk, because
he was a suspect? If he was a suspect, would the police sit down with them
casually in the kitchen? Wouldn’t they want something more official? Take him
to the station? Did they need to call a lawyer? Her mind was going fifty
thousand miles an hour, and Park was already convicted and in prison, and she
was so alone in the big house, so lonely, before she reached a hand to pull out
the chair.
She needs to knock off the true crime
podcasts. Her husband is not a murderer. He is incapable of that kind of
deceit.
Isn’t he?
Sometimes she wonders.
“Nice kitchen,” Osley says.
“Thank you.”
Olivia loves her kitchen. It is the model
for all her signature looks. Airy, open, white cabinets with iron pulls,
leathered white marble counters. A black granite–topped island just the right
size for chopping and serving, light spilling in from the big bay window. A
white oak French country table with elegant cane-backed chairs. It was the
heart of her home, the heart of her life with Park.
Now, though, it is simply the site of his
greatest betrayal. Forevermore, from this morning—with the burned eggs and the
somber police and Park’s face whiter than bone—until the end of her tenure
here, and even then, in remembrance, she would look at this precious place with
fury and sadness for what could have been. The ghosts of the life they were
supposed to have clung to her, suckled her spirit like a babe at her breast never
would. Everywhere she looked were echoes of the shadow existence she was
supposed to be living. Here, a frazzled mother, smiling despite her fatigue at
the children she’d created. There, a loving father, always ready to lend a hand
tossing a ball or helping with homework. And look, a trio of towheaded boys and
a soft blonde princess girl, the teasing and laughter of their mealtimes. How
the table would seem to grow smaller as the boys got older and took up more
space. The girlfriends came, the boyfriends. The emptiness when it was just the
two of them again, the children grown with their own lives, the table bursting
at holidays only. The grandchildren, happiness and racket, the noise and the
joy creeping out from the woodwork again.
She is alone. She will always be alone. She
will not have this life. She will not have this dream.
Park made it so.
As the detectives continue to speak,
softly, without rancor, and her world splinters, Olivia hardens, compresses,
shrinks. She watches her husband and holds on to one small thought.
I have the power to destroy you, too. Dear
God, give me the chance.
Excerpted
from It’s One of Us @ 2023 by JT Ellison, used with permission by MIRA Books.
