The Replacement Wife (39 page)

“You mustn’t worry,” Elise said gently. “He’ll be all right.”

“I’m not so sure, but at least, he won’t be alone.”

Elise blinked, and let out a small gasp. “You mean you
know
?” she whispered.

“I was talking about the kids,” Camille said, frowning. “What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing. I . . . I don’t know what I was thinking,” Elise stammered. Camille was reminded of the time her daughter had been caught covering for her best friend. Alexia’s mother had called asking for Alexia, who, it turned out, was at her boyfriend’s instead of spending the night at Kyra’s. When the truth came out, the look on Kyra’s face was the same one Elise wore now.

“Elise, is there something I should know?” Camille spoke calmly, but on the inside she was coming unraveled. Because she
knew
. She’d known all along, deep down. She thought of the growing distance between her and Edward, his increasingly erratic hours, how closed off he’d become lately.

“You should talk to your husband,” Elise said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

E
dward arrived home that night to find Camille soaking in the tub. It was after ten p.m. He’d just looked in on the kids, who were asleep in bed. The place was quiet except for the music playing softly on the stereo—something operatic, and tragic from the sounds of it; Puccini, he recognized. He felt a pang as he bent to kiss her moist cheek. “You didn’t wait up for me, I hope?”

She shook her head, reaching for the bar of soap in the brass holder. The clawfoot tub was one of the few original fixtures they’d kept when renovating the apartment. Camille loved that she could immerse herself all the way to her chin. It was her favorite place to be after a stressful day at work. “Believe it or not, this is the first moment I’ve had to myself all day,” she said. “I just got the kids off to bed. I let Zach stay up late to finish his project.”

Zach’s project. Edward groaned inwardly at the reminder. The assignment had been to do a diorama of a Civil War battle, accompanied by an oral report. Zach had chosen to do his on the Battle of the
Monitor
and the
Merrimack
. Camille had helped him with the report, and Edward had gotten him started on the diorama. They’d spent several hours the night before cutting out pieces of cardboard and constructing the wood frame. He’d promised to help with the final assembly, but it had slipped his mind like so much else.
I should’ve been there,
he thought now.

He had told Camille he was having dinner with an old college buddy from out of town but, in truth, he’d spent the evening with Angie. She’d made him supper at her place, Moroccan lamb stew, which she had left to slow-cook in the oven while they’d created some heat of their own in the bedroom. The memory of which brought a stab of guilt. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but that was the thing about Angie: It
felt
right when he was with her. It was only when they were apart, when he was with Camille, that he felt wretched. Sometimes he wondered if it was possible for a person to literally drown in guilt. Camille had made him promise to keep an open mind about the future, but he had done more than that—he’d opened the floodgates.

“How did the project turn out?” he asked, perching on the rim of the tub.

“Well, I’m biased of course, but I think he did an amazing job,” she said. “He was so proud, you’d think it was the actual warships he’d built. He can’t wait to show it off at school tomorrow.”

She lifted a leg from the sudsy water and gave it a desultory pass with the soap bar. With her hair pinned in loose curls atop her head and her face flushed from the steam, she looked so much like the old Camille, the woman with whom he’d fallen in love, his heart caught in his throat. He recalled when they used to take baths together, soaping each other down with long, leisurely strokes until they became so aroused they had to climb out and finish what they’d started. Often they didn’t make it as far as the bedroom. One time after they’d made love on the bathroom rug, she drew a heart with her fingertip on the steam-coated medicine cabinet mirror, with their initials inside it. As if they were young lovers and not a married couple with two children.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help,” he said.

She shrugged. “How was your dinner?”

“Fine. You know, just catching up on stuff.” He could feel the lie stamped on his face, hot and glaring. He dropped his gaze, fiddling with a button on his suit jacket that had come loose.

“What’s Ray up to these days?”

“Same old same old. You know how it is with politicians, always looking to get reelected.” Ray Walker had been his roommate their sophomore year at Brown. After they’d graduated he’d gone on to law school, and then into politics. He was now mayor of his hometown in West Virginia, or at least, he was the last Edward had heard. They’d remained in touch, though admittedly not close touch. Edward didn’t know why he’d used Ray as a cover, and it was a decision he’d soon regret.

“Really? I’m surprised he didn’t mention he’d been indicted.” Camille’s tone was so mild it was a moment before the realization kicked in: She was on to him. “It’s amazing what you can find out just by Googling someone.” She went on to inform him that Ray had been caught six months ago, in a sting operation, taking bribes from a local mining company in exchange for concessions. “So here’s what I’d like to know,” she said in the same mild tone. “How did a man who’s under house arrest manage to travel all the way to New York City to have dinner with his old college buddy?”

Their eyes met, and there it was; he could see it now. It was like rounding a bend on a dark road at night and seeing the flare of an emergency torch up ahead, knowing there had been an accident. In some ways, that’s what it felt like, an accident. Except
he
was the cause. He’d been reckless, and now someone he loved dearly was hurt because of it. He looked down, fixing his gaze on the checkerboard tiles at his feet, black-on-white in a diamond pattern, until they blurred before his eyes. He felt deeply ashamed but also strangely relieved. He was sick of the lies. Not just sick
of
them; they were literally making him ill. Each time he told his wife a lie, he could feel it in the pit of his belly, eating away at him like something corrosive he’d swallowed.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a dull voice.

“So where were you tonight, really? With
her
?”

He felt a lurch inside, and his stomach floated up into his rib cage. “Yes,” he said.

“Why?” Her voice was a strangled whisper. Just that one word but much was contained therein: whole rivers and valleys, an entire mountain for him to climb. Why indeed? He was as baffled by it as she was.
I love you. I don’t want to lose you. I didn’t see this coming any more than you did.

He lifted his gaze, finally, to look at her. She was staring at him accusingly, but her blue eyes, which had always melted him in the past, were having the opposite effect on him now. Anger rose up in place of shame. His voice, when he spoke, was harsh. “
Why?
You don’t get to ask that. You don’t get to play the injured party. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t given up on
us
when you gave up on yourself!” He shot to his feet, leveling a finger at her. “I warned you, you were playing with fire! But you wouldn’t listen. Well, you got what you wanted. Only it didn’t turn out the way you expected.”

“You think I wanted
this
?” She bolted upright, sending soapy water surging over the rim of the tub onto the floor. “You lying and sneaking around behind my back? That was never the plan!”

“The plan?
The plan?
” he hurled back at her. “Christ Almighty, I’m your
husband,
not a 401(k)!”

“I only wanted what was best for you and the kids.” A querulous note crept into her voice.

“Really. And what about what
I
wanted? Or did that not figure into your agenda?”

“You make it sound so . . . cold. It wasn’t like that, and you know it.”

“All I know,” he said, “is that your plan backfired. I met someone.”

Camille sat very still, her eyes burning in her pale, lovely face. “Are you in love with her?”

His anger died down as suddenly as it had erupted. His shoulders slumped, and the muscles in his face sagged. “I don’t know,” he said in a hollow voice. Another lie, perhaps. But what was the joy he felt with Angie compared to the deep bond he shared with his wife of twenty years?

“Let me rephrase it then,” she said. “Is it serious?”

He nodded unhappily. “Yes.”

Camille’s eyes filled with tears. “I see. And do you plan on marrying her?”

He winced. “Jesus. You talk as if you’re dead already.”

“I will be soon enough.”

Her words went through him like a scalpel. To lose Angie would be like cutting off his air supply, but just as unimaginable was the thought of losing Camille. “I don’t want you to die,” he said.

“I know.” Her expression softened. “But it’s going to happen whether we want it to or not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. I don’t need test results to tell me the drug isn’t working. Look at me, Edward.” She rose, dripping, to stand before him naked: a statement of truth in human form. He could see each of her ribs, as clearly delineated as on an X-ray, and the bruising on her arms and legs from the blood thinner she was on—one of the cornucopia of drugs she was taking—the chemo port covered with an adhesive pad. He winced at the sight of her, and yet couldn’t take his eyes from her. “You think I liked having Elise around?” she went on. “Sure, I adore her—who wouldn’t? But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to scream every time she smiled at you or said something that made you smile. I only encouraged it because I believed you and the children would be better off with her than without her. The children, especially.” He started to protest, but she thrust her hand out, traffic-cop style, stopping him before he could speak out in his own defense. “No, don’t. I’ve heard it all before. What you don’t seem to realize is that kids can’t just be put on hold. Where were you tonight when Zach needed help finishing his project? And last week, when you were late picking Kyra up from her play rehearsal? Will they be able to depend on you when it’s not just homework or an after-school activity but some crisis that can’t wait? When Kyra’s heart gets broken or Zach’s at an age when drinking and drugs are more tempting than video games?”

“So it’s just the kids you’re worried about,” he said bitterly.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Edward! Of course not. If this was just about the kids, I’d be interviewing nannies instead. I want you to be happy. To be”—her voice broke—“to be loved.”

“I
was
happy. I
was
loved. Or I thought I was. Until you—” He took a step toward her, forgetting about the puddle on the floor, and felt his right heel skid out from under him. He grabbed hold of the towel rack to keep from losing his footing altogether. But even as he gripped it, he had the sensation of falling. “I never wanted this. She was just . . . there.” He spoke the last word in a whisper. He closed his eyes a moment, picturing Angie at the meet-and-greet, with her smile that had been like a door flung open at the end of a dark passageway, letting in sunlight. When he opened his eyes, Camille was hugging herself, shivering. He pulled a towel from the rack and started toward her again, but this time was stopped by the coldness in her voice.

“Who is she? Someone I know, or someone you picked up in a bar?”

He eyed her with reproach. “A bar? Do you really think so little of me?”

“Right now, I don’t know what to think.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Well, that makes two of us.”

“Tell me her name, at least.”

He drew in a breath and slowly released it. “It’s Angie.”

“Angie?” She frowned in confusion, then, “Angie, the caterer? But how—?” She stopped as comprehension dawned. “The meet-and-greet. Of course.” Her baffled expression gave way to a look of panic. “But that’s . . . that’s . . . She’s all wrong! It would never work. She’s not the marrying kind, she said so herself. I don’t even know if she wants kids. Why
her,
of all people?”

Edward could have extolled Angie’s virtues and explained that she did in fact adore children—her nieces and nephews, the kids in her cooking class. He could have told his wife that, though Angie and Elise had little in common, they were alike in one sense: They both had good hearts. But those weren’t the words that rose to his lips. “I can breathe when I’m with her,” he said.

Tears rolled down Camille’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you,” he said.

“Yes, you should have.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

She gave a smile that was more a grimace. “I just want to know one thing: Do you still love
me
?”

She began to shiver in earnest as she stood there, naked and dripping and thin . . . so thin. He helped her out of the tub and wrapped the towel around her, wincing at the scars from her various procedures. On her belly, more faintly drawn, were the silvery stretch marks from her pregnancies. He drew her close, murmuring into her damp hair, “Of course I love you. I’ll always love you.”

He held her, and together they wept. They wept for what was lost and what they had yet to lose. They wept for the milestones in their children’s lives that would take place without her and for the grandchildren she’d never know and who would never know her. Most of all, they wept for the young couple they’d been, so full of promise and so passionately in love, who’d naively believed, not only that they had all the time in the world, but that they could survive any storm.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“S
tephen Resler,” Dara announced, a hand over the receiver. “He says it’s urgent.”

Camille eyed the blinking hold button on her phone. Urgent? It had been two weeks since she’d last heard from Stephen. Then, he’d been in a quandary over his fiancée’s offer to have another attorney in her firm draw up their prenup. Was he calling this time to let her know they’d set a date for the wedding? She didn’t have a good feeling for some reason. Or maybe it was just that it was impossible for her to feel good about anything right now.