Part 2
Ethan sat there calmly, rolling his shoulders as if he had just woken from an ordinary nap. The amber night-light touched the side of his face, and for one foolish second my mind tried to rescue me. Maybe this was a spasm. Maybe I had misunderstood the diagnosis, the years, my own life.
Then he stood.
He did not stagger. He did not brace himself on the bed. He rose with the easy irritation of a man tired of lying still, stretched both arms over his head, and reached for a glass of wine waiting on the nightstand.
My hand clamped over my mouth.
Across the room, Vanessa stepped out of the bathroom in a silk robe, her hair brushed smooth and her bare feet soundless on the rug I had bought with Ethan on our third wedding anniversary. She looked younger without the white coat, softer around the face. When she turned sideways, the robe pulled against the small, unmistakable curve of her stomach.
Pregnant.
I had seen her touch that stomach twice in the last month. Once at the kitchen counter, once beside Ethan’s bed. Both times she laughed it off as indigestion.
“Do we have to do this much longer?” she asked.
Her voice was not professional now. It was petulant, intimate, tired of waiting. She crossed the room and took the wineglass from Ethan’s hand before he could drink again.
Ethan gave her the smile I had prayed to see for six years. It landed on another woman.
“We’re close,” he said.
“You’ve been saying that since Christmas.”
“Because Claire keeps dragging her feet on the Michigan parcel.” He lowered his voice, but the window was old, and the night carried sound clearly. “Once she signs the development rights over to the trust, we’re done. I disappear into a long-term facility, you sell the land through your cousin’s company, and we start fresh.”
Vanessa looked toward the bed, then toward the door. “She touches you every night. I don’t know how you stand it.”
The words should have made me angry. Instead, I felt something fold inside me with terrible neatness.
Ethan laughed under his breath. “I think about the money.”
Vanessa swatted his arm, but she was smiling. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” He set the wine down and rested both hands on her stomach. “She built a shrine around me. She thinks suffering makes her good. Let her. It paid for this house, your practice, the foundation, and everything our kid is going to need.”
I pressed my forehead to the cold glass. My breath fogged a small circle near the curtain, and I stepped back before they could see it.
Vanessa’s mouth tightened. “Diane called again. She wants to know when you’re going to stop punishing your mother by making her pretend.”
“She’ll get her share,” Ethan said. “Tell her to stop calling Claire for every fake medical expense. She’s getting suspicious.”
“She found something?”
“I don’t know.” He looked toward the dresser, where the camera hidden in the clock sat blank and useless. “She’s been watching the room.”
Vanessa went still.
Ethan picked up the little clock, opened the back with practiced fingers, and smiled. “Cute.”
My knees almost gave way.
He knew. Maybe not from the beginning, but he knew now. The lost feed, the changed hand, the smell, the laundry—none of it had been an accident. They had been careless because they had stopped being afraid of me.
Vanessa took the clock from him. “Then we should leave tonight.”
“No.” Ethan’s voice hardened. “Not without the land. Not after six years.”
“Six years of what?” she snapped softly. “You sleep in a real bed next door. You eat steak at midnight. I’m the one walking in here every day pretending to measure the pulse of a man who asks me what’s for dinner when your wife leaves the room.”
Ethan’s face changed so quickly I understood, for the first time, how he had fooled me. He could empty himself at will. One moment there was irritation in him; the next, nothing.
He touched Vanessa’s cheek. “Two more weeks.”
She closed her eyes, but she leaned into his hand.
I stood outside that window with rainwater drying on my clothes and blood tacky across my palms. Inside, my husband kissed another woman in the room where I had prayed over his body, washed his skin, and apologized to him for surviving.
Then Ethan walked to the built-in wardrobe.
The unit covered the entire far wall, white oak panels from floor to ceiling, custom-built after the accident to store medical supplies. I remembered the carpenter measuring that wall. I remembered Ethan’s brother saying it was a shame to spend that much money on cabinets for a man who could not admire them.
Ethan opened the middle panel and pushed aside a row of hanging gowns I had not worn since hospital fundraisers. His hand disappeared beneath the second shelf. There was a soft mechanical click.
The back of the wardrobe moved.
Not swung. Moved. A hidden panel slid sideways, exposing a narrow, lit passage beyond the wall. Warm light spilled through it, gold and impossible, along with the smell of garlic, perfume, and cigarette smoke.
Vanessa stepped through first. Ethan followed her, wineglass in hand, ducking slightly under the frame.
For two or three seconds before the panel closed, I saw the inside of the “empty” townhome next door. It was not empty. It was beautiful…
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