The Shadow Wife

Joelle hesitated a moment before answering. “Honestly, no. I love it here. But maybe I can come back someday.” She let out her breath, looking up at the ceiling. “This doesn’t have to be forever.”

“Does Liam still perform his music?” Carlynn asked the question seemingly out of the blue.

Joelle shook her head. “No. I don’t think he’s picked up his guitar since Mara went into the nursing home.”

“Well.” Carlynn set her sandwich plate on the coffee table. “There is one thing I know for absolute certain about you, Joelle.” There were tears in Carlynn’s eyes as she moved closer to Joelle, wrapping her thin hand around Joelle’s where it rested on her knees. “You are a tremendously noble human being.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at what you’re doing, honey. You love this man so deeply that you want to find a way to heal his wife, to return his wife to him, because you know that’s what will make him truly happy. Even though you love him. Even though you’re carrying his child. You’ve placed his happiness above your own. Few people would do that.”

A bit embarrassed, Joelle looked at her uneaten sandwich resting on the coffee table. “It feels good to love someone that much,” she said, her voice a near whisper. “It’s the only thing that feels good about this whole situation.”

“The next time I visit Mara,” Carlynn said, “I’d like Liam to be there, as well. Can you arrange that?”

Joelle grimaced. “I’m not even sure how he’s going to react to your being there today, Carlynn,” she said. “But I’ll ask him.”

“Good.” Carlynn patted her hand and stood up. “Now you’d better get out of here before the fog socks you in.”

Joelle nodded, although she was thinking it might not be that bad to be stuck in the mansion with Carlynn.

At the front door, she kissed Carlynn’s cheek.

“Thanks so much,” she said, opening the door and walking outside. The world was filled with translucent gray air, but all Joelle could think about was that she had a new confidante. An unexpected confidante.

Although she was not very far from Carmel, the fog obscured parts of the road, and she had to drive slowly. She felt trapped inside her car with nothing but the memory of that night with Liam.

She and Liam had sat with Sam on Liam’s bed, looking through a picture book with the little boy and singing him silly songs, like “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” and “Pat-a-Cake,” and Sam didn’t care a bit that Joelle couldn’t carry a tune. He giggled and let her nibble his fingers while he cuddled with her and his dad. When Sam grew tired, Liam carried him into the nursery and tucked him into his crib, but Joelle stayed where she was on Liam’s bed. She was looking forward to talking with Liam about the day, and if she realized the sofa in the living room would be a more appropriate place for such conversation, she didn’t let herself think about it.

Liam came back into the room and fell forward onto the bed, his head resting on his folded arms. His face was turned toward her, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he seemed to be staring into space. The light on the night table caught the pale blue of his eyes, and she wanted to touch his cheek, the place where the long, sexy dimple formed when he smiled, but she kept her hands to herself instead.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked him.

He licked his lips. “About you, actually,” he said. “About how great you’ve been this year. How I couldn’t have made it without you. How good you are with Sam. How much I need those late-night phone conversations with you. How incredible you’ve been at helping me deal with all the nuts-and-bolts issues around Mara—the nursing home, dealing with her doctors, the whole gamut. You took so much of the pressure off me by being there.”

“I’m glad,” she said, touched.

With a sigh, Liam rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “We’ve been grappling with this mess for a year,” he said. “One long fucking year. My beautiful wife is a… She’s just gone. I don’t know who that person is inside that screwed-up body, but Mara’s not in there anymore.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Why didn’t I listen to her, Jo?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. “Why did I talk her into having a baby? If I’d only listened…really let myself hear…how afraid she was. How much she didn’t want to have a baby. She knew it was the wrong thing for her.”

“She made the choice, Liam. She—”

“It was my choice,” he said. “You know it and I know it. She did it for me. She had a selfish side to her, I know that, but she would have done anything for me. I begged her to do something she knew was wrong. She had a gut feeling about it, Jo.”

“I know,” she said. “But—”

“I destroyed her.” He began crying, like a child might cry, with rivers of tears and shaking shoulders, and Joelle wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, as though trying to keep the parts of him together. “I killed her, Jo,” he said.