So, I blink several times and wear a confused look. “Ah…you know…Fox is taking a shower and?—”
“I’m surprised, though, to see you here,” Margaret talks over me. She does that a lot. I think it’s because no one exists for her, and she loves the sound of her own voice.
Now, I furrow my brows. I am laying it on thick, but I’m also enjoying it tremendously. I am tempted to say something like, “Who are you?” but then go with, out of curiosity, “Why?”
“Why?” Margaret looks at Reina and then at me. “Because, I thought that you and Archibald…well…I thought…”
That we were getting divorced, but she doesn’t say it because she’s confused now that I’m here. I pick up my tea and sip.
Margaret moves to the porch railing, which I repainted last fall, and Fox helped after he realized I wouldn’t let him hire someone to do it. We had fun painting—and then playing, and then making love on the grass, hurriedly, like teenagers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Sadness spills through me. Will we ever make love again?
“The garden looks overgrown,” Margaret states as if that is of any consequence.
“Fox hired someone to take care of it.” I straighten and set my tea down. “Look, why don’t you both wait inside. I’m sure Fox will be coming down any second, and you can visit with him.”
She turns from the railing, and her face twists; the elegance and polish fall away. This is who shereallyis, and she usually shows it to me, and those she thinks are beneath her, and only when her precious Archibald is not around.
“I came to see how you were,” she clips. “And to be honest with you.”
I let out a long exhale. “Ah…it’s obvious that Fox hasn’t told you about?—”
“Fox did the right thing by you earlier, and he’s doing it again.” She can be a bitch, but she’s never been blunt like this. “He’s a good man, and he will make sure you’re taken care of through the divorce. Financially. The settlement will be?—”
“What?” I gasp. “Divorce? What are you talking about?”
“Well, you’re getting divorced, aren’t you?” She says it with the gentleness of a woman delivering a diagnosis.
“We are?” I set my teacup back down with a small, shocked thud.
I look from her to Reina, like the other woman is going to be my savior. A part of me is enjoying this, especially because Fox is going to return any second now, and I want to see how he handles this situation.
His mother, his ex, who I think his mother wants to make his current, and his amnesiac wife. If this were a soap opera, they’d say it was overdone.
I hear the shower stop—a pipe down here does a little rattle when the water in the master bath cuts off. I have been waiting for it since—like a storm you can already smell.
I tune out Margaret for the first time since I met her.
God, I tried to convince her that Fox and I were good for each other, but now I’ve accepted that there would be no way to do that because she doesn’t give a crap about Fox being happy.
But I have to give Margaret credit where it’s due. She’s not giving up. She’s going at it, talking about a fair settlement and how Fox deserves to move forward with his life.
I nod with the vacant, slightly lost expression of a woman doing her best to follow along. It’s a remarkable performance, even if I’m the one saying so.
Reina has said almost nothing. She just stands slightly to Margaret’s left like a footnote that intends to become the main text.
I hear footsteps on the stairs and stifle a smile.
I pick up my tea and lean back to watch the show. I don’t know how Fox will react—but I’m going to make sure he knows exactly what his mother said, because I want to see his true colors. If he tries to smooth things over with her, I’ll know his confessions of love are nonsense. But if he doesn’t—well. That’s information I’ll need to recalibrate on.
The footsteps cross the hallway, pass through the living room, and Fox appears in the doorway to the porch, freshly showered, and he takes in the scene in approximately half a second—his mother at the railing, Reina arranged beside her, me in my chair with my blanket and my tea and my expression of gentle bewilderment—and fury moves across his face.
“Mother.” His voice isveryflat. Ominously so. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
16
MY WIFE
