The English Wife. Doreen Roberts

of a call to Devon, England. Of course not. He would have called from work. He wasn’t a stupid man.

      I turned on the computer and played with several possible combinations of words and numbers, knowing all the time how futile it was. Brandon’s E-mail would be lost forever. In any case, he’d have used his work computer if he wanted to hide anything from me.

      The lower drawer held a number of files, all neatly labeled. I flipped through them but couldn’t see anything connected to a cottage in England. I should have known he was too clever to leave clues lying around for me to find. Obviously he wasn’t as trusting as I had been.

      I gave up and went back into the living room, where I called James. Melanie answered, and I made an appointment to see him. I still had papers to sign, and I wanted the address and phone number of that darn cottage. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it yet, but I’d feel better knowing how to get in touch with her.

      The days after that stretched before me without any real purpose, and I felt lost, wondering if I’d made a mistake by taking time off. The house seemed so empty and silent.

      At first I filled my time by cleaning all the corners that sometimes got neglected during normal housework. I shoved furniture around and rearranged everything, polished windows and washed all the light fixtures.

      I sorted out drawers, cupboards and shelves, managing to avoid Brandon’s closet, his dresser and his office. I’d exhausted the contents of the kitchen cabinets, and I went grocery shopping, coming home loaded with frozen dinners, packages of cookies and gallons of ice cream.

      The television kept my evenings occupied until well into the night. I slept until late the next morning, and lived in jeans and oversize shirts. Val kept calling to ask me to lunch, but I couldn’t be bothered to get dressed up, much less face her constant chatter, so I made excuses until finally she stopped calling.

      Through it all, an underlying guilt kept nagging at me. Thousands of miles away, a woman waited for a word, a letter, an E-mail or a phone call that would never come. James had given me the address and phone number, but I couldn’t seem to make a decision on what to do about it.

      The questions still haunted me. Was she suffering, wondering why she’d been abandoned? Or was she innocent of any wrongdoing, going on with her life, happily unaware that her free ride in the cottage was about to end?

      Each time I thought about her I pushed the questions to the back of my mind. I’d deal with that problem later, I told myself. When I felt stronger. After all, there was plenty of time. Or so I thought.

      CHAPTER 3

      Val called the day before the Fourth of July holiday. “Come on over,” she said, her voice brittle with forced enthusiasm. “I’m having a barbecue. Just a few friends, you don’t have to bring anything. You need to get out of that house. Besides, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

      The thought that she might want me to meet one of her computer dates scared me. I tried to sound appreciative. “Thanks, Val, but I already have plans.”

      I could tell she was miffed when she answered. “Well, don’t say I didn’t try. You’ll be missing a great party.”

      “I know. Thanks for thinking of me.” I hung up, wondering how she could have known me for six years without realizing I wasn’t a party person.

      A month after that I sat down one afternoon to pay the bills and realized there wasn’t enough left in the bank to pay the mortgage for longer than three months. It was wake-up time. I had to go back to work.

      I paced around my spotless house, arguing with myself over my next move. I had to get on with my life, that much was obvious. Decisions had to be made. One thing was certain—I didn’t want to go back to the health club.

      What I needed was to put the past firmly behind me and start over. I wanted a new place to live, a new job, a whole new life. I’d wasted enough of the former one. I had a lot of catching up to do.

      I went back to the kitchen table and studied the bank accounts and the bills I owed. It dawned on me then that I couldn’t put the past behind me until I’d dealt with it. I had a house I couldn’t afford to live in for much longer, and property in England that wasn’t producing one cent of income, yet had to be accumulating debts, like taxes and maintenance. It was time to sell them both.

      I wondered where Brandon had kept all the papers on the cottage. His company had sent home his personal belongings from his office, but I still hadn’t opened the box. I went to get it from the spare bedroom, where I’d dumped it on the bed.

      There wasn’t much in it except a few books, a little stand with his name tag on it, a few CDs of jazz music and a slew of receipts for his expenses, which I assume had been paid with his last salary check. Nothing that had anything to do with property overseas. No photo of me to stand on his desk. Trust Brandon to prefer gazing at his own name rather than a picture of his wife.

      Having drawn a blank on that issue, I called Val, and after some hedging around, told her I wanted to quit.

      “You’re not serious!” she said, sounding more upset than I’d expected. “So are you going to England?”

      “No, of course not.” I tried to think of a diplomatic way to say it. “I just think I need something a little more rewarding if I’m going to make a career of it. I thought I might do something with children, maybe office work in a school or something.”

      “Well, you can’t quit. You’re the best bookkeeper I’ve ever had. You know just as much about the business as I do. Besides that, you’re the only woman I know who isn’t into competing with me.”

      “That’s because I’d lose. I’m sorry, Val. I’ll really miss you.”

      “Hey, just because you won’t be working for me doesn’t mean we can’t ever see each other, does it?” Doubt crept into her voice. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

      I wasn’t sure of anything right then, but I didn’t want to admit that. “Quite sure.”

      “Have you decided what you’re going to do with the cottage in England?”

      I was expecting the question, but not the sudden stab of resentment. “No, I haven’t. I’m sorry, Val. There’s someone at the door. I have to go.” When did I get so adept at lying, I wondered.

      “Let’s have lunch,” Val said urgently. “Today. You’ve got to get out of that house.”

      I muttered something about next week and hung up.

      Determined not to fall back into that awful inertia, I took a walk in the park. The August sun had dried out the grass, leaving brown patches despite the sprinklers that must have worked overtime to compensate for the lack of rain. We were in midsummer already, and I’d lost the past two months in a haze of laziness and procrastination.

      I sat on a sun-warmed bench and tried to empty my mind, to let the surroundings soak into me. Joggers loped along the curving path between the trees, dodging around the two elderly women engaged in what appeared to be an intriguing and highly amusing conversation. I couldn’t help wondering if I’d ever feel like laughing again.

      In front of me, two little girls chased each other around the swings. Listening to their squeals, I envied their blissful ignorance of life’s brutal punches. How I wished I were a child again, with my whole life ahead of me and choices still to be made.

      As I watched, one little girl fell on her knees and started to cry. Out of nowhere an elderly woman rushed toward her and gathered her up in her arms. The tug I felt then had nothing to do with being young and making choices.

      If I hadn’t married Brandon I might have had grandchildren by now. I’d wasted so many years, and now it was too late. I’d never have a child of my own, never see grandchildren grow up, never know what it was to tuck up a child in bed and read bedtime stories, or watch a daughter walk down the aisle as a beautiful bride. So many wonderful