I am Ethan’s wife. He stole me from his best friend Ryan. A man who took another man’s woman watches every male around her. When I started feeding a stray on our block, he confirmed the dog was female and that its owner was also female before he relaxed. Then a new intern started at the office. Some kid who brought me coffee for a few days. Ethan said he didn’t care. That night he scrolled through my phone until three in the morning and broke out in hives. On the way to the ER, face flushed and burning, he pulled up the intern’s Instagram and shoved it in my face. “Those pecs are obviously photoshopped.” “And this height? He’s five-eight in lifts, max. No way he’s six feet.” The doctors around us were biting back laughter. I squeezed his mouth shut and pushed him into the exam room. On the way to pick up his prescription, the doctor mentioned it casually. “For contraception, we recommend the pill or condoms. This male contraceptive just hit the market and the side effects are severe. The rash is the least of it.” “He’s taken it three times in one week. I understand not wanting to put the burden on his partner, but this is reckless.” I stopped walking. I was three months pregnant. … He was asleep when I picked up his phone. The passcode was my birthday. His photo gallery was all me. His search history was all me too. “How to get your wife’s attention back” “Wife thinks I’m too clingy. Does she have someone else?” “How to help wife who misses her dead mother” His notes app. All me. “March 20. She had a nightmare about her mom again.” “March 21. She can’t keep anything down. Morning sickness getting worse.” “April 1. Tracked down her old nanny. Learned her mother’s pot roast recipe. She cleaned her plate.” My eyes burned. I told myself it was the hormones. Then a notification popped up from the navigation app. “Based on your frequent routes, we’ve planned your trip home. Estimated arrival: 30 minutes.” The destination was Unit 7B, 280 Park Avenue. We lived in Unit 3A. My fingers opened the route history before my brain caught up. For the past three months, every day at noon, he drove to that address and stayed for roughly two hours. The morning sickness had hollowed me out. Fifteen pounds gone in three months. The only food I could keep down was whatever Ethan cooked. The office was far. Between taking care of me and dealing with the sharks at the company, working until two in the morning was normal for him. I felt bad. I told him to eat lunch at the office and rest. He took it as me not needing him anymore. We had a huge fight. No matter what I said, he refused to stop making me lunch. I had to pretend the morning sickness was getting better and swear I’d take care of myself before he finally agreed to stay at work. Except he hadn’t stayed at work. Every day, for three months, he’d been one door down in another unit with someone else. My hands shook around the phone. A message came in. “Babe, I left a pair of panties at your place yesterday. She didn’t find them, did she? I left them on purpose. Unwashed.” “They’re my favorites. Bring them for my birthday?” I stared at the profile picture. My hands were trembling when I tapped it open. Bianca. My father’s bastard daughter. The girl whose mother drove my mother to her grave and moved into our house before the funeral flowers had wilted. She spent her whole life grabbing everything I had. My clothes, my jewelry, my father’s love. Even my ex-husband. I caught them in our bed. That’s how that marriage ended. The day the divorce went through, I wanted to die. Ethan held me and said it word by word. “Babe, I will only ever love you. I don’t care what she does. I won’t give her a second look. Believe me.” And he’d proven it. When Bianca sent him nudes, he went straight to the police. She got seven days in a holding cell. He made sure her university found out. They expelled her. Her future, gone. I thought leaving that swamp and finding Ethan was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. So why her. Why was it always her. I opened their messages. Ethan calling her babe. Bianca threatening to tell me everything and Ethan shutting her down cold, blocking her, punishing her, taking the punishment to bed. Me in the hospital, crying over a bad prenatal result, and the two of them in the room I’d decorated with my own hands, Bianca wearing my pajamas… My whole body shook. Nausea hit the back of my throat. Behind me, the bed shifted. “Babe?”
He saw my red eyes and reached for me. I smelled it on him. Something faint and sour. I shoved him back and ran to the bathroom, doubled over the sink. “Babe!” He was right behind me. The second his hand touched my back I flinched, grabbed the glass ashtray off the counter and hurled it at him. “Get away from me!” The ashtray caught him on the temple. Blood ran down along his brow. He didn’t touch it. He just looked at me, eyes full of panic. “Is it the baby acting up again?” “Or does something hurt?” I sat on the floor and watched him bolt out of the bathroom. He came back with water and pills. Blood dripped onto his white collar and spread into a small red bloom. He didn’t notice. He just held out the pills. “Open up, babe.” “Why?” I looked into his eyes. The tears came before I could stop them. Days ago we were picking out names. We were talking about the future. The three of us. Taking her to the coast and the mountains and every place we’d been when we first fell in love. Minutes ago he was raging jealous over some kid bringing me coffee. “Why did you betray me?” I stared at him through the blur. Ethan froze. His hand tightened around the pills. “You know.” I waited for him to explain. I told myself I would believe anything he said. As long as he said it, I could forgive him. “I’m sorry.” He stepped closer, voice shaking. “I know having the intern fired behind your back will upset you. But I can’t stand another man being near you every day, seeing you smile.” He crouched down and looked up at me. “You have no idea what it took to take you from Ryan. How hard I fought just to stand beside you. And some nobody gets to walk in and hand you coffee like it’s nothing.” “I know I’m obsessive. I know I’m not normal. But I don’t regret it.” “Babe, hit me, scream at me, punish me however you want. Just don’t hurt yourself. Don’t leave me. I’ll die.” He looked up at me with red eyes, like an abandoned dog. I looked at him and knew I should turn around and walk out. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t give up his tenderness. I couldn’t give up these happy days. So as long as I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I could pretend none of it was real. As long as I didn’t see it. I looked at him and smiled. “I want pot roast.” His eyes lit up and he turned toward the kitchen. But his phone rang. He glanced at it, face apologetic. “Sorry, babe. Something urgent at the office. I’ll make it for you when I’m back.” He was out the door before I could answer. I got in my car and followed him. 812 Sutton Place. I stood under the trees and watched Bianca take his arm and walk him through the front door. The second it closed, I took out my phone and called him. Through the living room window I saw him stand up and reach for his jacket. Then Bianca rose on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. Through the phone I heard wet sounds and his breathing. My grip on the phone turned my knuckles white. “Ethan. My stomach hurts.” He shoved Bianca away and grabbed his coat and headed for the door. “Babe, don’t be scared. I’m coming right now.” Then a muffled sound came through the line. Bianca doubled over. The call went dead. Ten seconds later, a text came in. “Babe, emergency meeting at the office. I have to be there. I’ve already called the doctor, he’ll be at the house any minute. Don’t be scared.” I looked up. Through the window, I watched him carry Bianca toward the bedroom. Something in my chest died. I took out my phone and called the clinic. “I need to schedule an abortion.”
I was pulling out when I saw someone standing in front of my car. My father. We looked at each other. Then I followed him into the house I’d grown up in. The living room was the same room. But nothing in it was mine anymore. The photos of me and my mother on the wall had all been replaced with Bianca and her mother. My mother’s orchids were gone. Stiff red roses in their place. I stood in the middle of the room like I’d walked into the wrong house. My father pointed at the sofa. I sat down and he got straight to it. “Leave Ethan.” “No. Ethan can’t live without me.” Once, when I found Bianca’s number in his phone, I packed a bag and headed for the door. He got there first. Didn’t say a word. Just grabbed a knife from the coffee table and drove it into his own stomach. Blood poured out and he didn’t move. He just stood there between me and the door. “You want to leave? Then I die first.” My father said nothing. He just looked at me. Then he pointed at the wall behind me. A photo wall. All Bianca and Ethan. Cuddled on a gondola in Venice. Holding hands under cherry blossoms in Kyoto. Kissing beneath the Eiffel Tower. “He wasn’t on a business trip last week. He took her around the world.” He stood up and walked to the wall and pointed at the photo in the center. A wedding photo. “They got married overseas. Had a ceremony. Invited everyone.” “Including his parents.” “To get his parents to accept her, he knelt outside their door for seven days.” “Remind me, did anyone come to your wedding?” My mouth opened but nothing came out. Ethan’s parents despised me. They thought I’d seduced their son and made him break up a friendship and ruined his reputation. They didn’t come to the wedding. They refused to see us after. But in the photos, they were smiling and accepting tea from Bianca’s hands. “I heard you had a car accident a few days ago.” “You didn’t tell Ethan because you didn’t want him to worry.” My father let out a short laugh. “You know where he was?” “Right down the block from you. Shopping for a diamond ring with her.” My skull buzzed. “He watched the whole thing. Watched the other driver get in your face. Watched that man shove you to the ground. Watched you lock yourself in your car and cry. Watched them bang on your window and scream at you. Watched you sit there shaking and call the police.” “He didn’t move. Because she was thirsty and he wanted to get her a drink.” “That’s a lie!” I was on my feet, shaking. I refused to believe that the man who agonized over a scratch on my finger could watch me get pushed to the ground and do nothing. “You’re making this up because you want me away from Ethan.” My father looked at me in silence. The look in his eyes made my skin crawl. After a long time, he spoke. “Bianca’s pregnant.” “The baby’s name is Julian.” Julian. Something inside my head snapped. That name. Ethan and I spent a whole month on it. We went through every baby name book and argued and laughed and finally agreed. It was our baby’s name. Only our baby’s name. “A man knows a man.” My father’s voice came again. “All he has left for you is obligation. Keep going like this and you’ll end up exactly like your mother.” My mother. When she found out about the affair, she refused to leave. My father brought the other woman into our home and kissed her in front of my mother. My mother couldn’t take the humiliation. She killed herself. Would I end up the same way? I didn’t know. I just felt tired. I stopped listening to the man in front of me. I pushed the door open and walked out. The sun hit my skin and I couldn’t feel it.
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