The Next Wife by Kaira Rouda (speld decodable readers txt) 📕

I wake up in the lobby of our condo building, aware there is a crowd gathering around me. I couldn’t have been out for long. I stand up quickly. “Take me to John.”

The EMT doesn’t say anything as he leads me out the door. Once we’re outside, the sunshine is blinding. I blink. He stops and touches my shoulder.

“We need to hurry. What are you doing? I need to get to my husband. Now,” I demand. I love him.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Nelson. Your husband died en route to the hospital.”

John’s dead?

My mind goes blank as a tiny thought makes its way through to the surface. Is this real, true?

“I don’t believe you. Take me to John.”

PART 2:

TISH, KATE, AND ASHLYN

CHAPTER 14

KATE

I stand at the kitchen sink and look toward the fountain gurgling in my back courtyard, birds splashing in the water. It’s going to be a good day. Ashlyn and I had a late breakfast together. We managed to enjoy a full meal without an argument and without a harsh word. I chalked it up to her hangover. She’d been out with old high school buddies, a last fling before they head back to college.

We’re getting close again, my daughter and I. It warms my heart. She is my life. Her, and the company. They are all I care about.

My phone rings as I’m rinsing the dishes. I check to see who is calling. It’s Lance from the office, so I answer.

“Where are you?” he asks.

I don’t like the frantic sound of his voice.

“Um, I’m talking to you from my kitchen. What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Deep down, I think I was expecting this call. My mind races through a million scenarios. The stock stopped selling, someone ran a negative story on EventCo. Some scandal, made up but credible, had taken us down.

“Are you alone?”

“No, Ashlyn is here. What the hell is wrong?” I yell into the phone.

“It’s John. He’s . . . he’s dead.” Lance sobs into the phone.

My knees buckle, and I slide down the cabinet onto the kitchen floor. “No, this isn’t true.”

“I’ll come over. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Oh my god, I’m so sorry, but it’s true.”

“How do you know?” I wrap my arms around myself. I am shaking.

“Tish called me from the hospital. They just declared John dead. I don’t know what else to say. I’m so sorry.”

I knew John’s heart was trouble. I pinch myself. This is real.

“Kate. Are you there?”

“Yes,” I manage.

“I’m coming over.” Lance hangs up.

John’s dead. My brain is having trouble accepting the fact of it. Not yet. So far it’s just Lance’s words.

My mind shifts to John, nervous, on one knee, proposing to me. We’d been dating and living together, working on the company. We were in Maine, at a small bed-and-breakfast he’d heard about from a mutual friend. It was private and isolated and tiny. At Small Point Inn, I learned how to properly eat a whole Maine lobster, how to appreciate a purple lupine, how to dress for a forty-degree temperature shift. And on the last evening of our visit, before we joined the other guests for cocktail hour on the screened porch, I learned how romantic John could be.

“Will you marry me, Katie?” he said as he dropped to one knee on the moonlit path outside the inn.

I was stunned. Not because he was proposing, but because he was proposing here, in this strange place full of history that wasn’t mine and never would be. Here, and yet, it was magical, out of time, out of place. A place we didn’t belong and would never visit again.

I looked into his twinkling blue eyes and knew he was the one. It wasn’t about where we were, it was about being together, always. I knew we would build a big life together. He’d already proven his work ethic. EventCo was better because of him, because of our teamwork.

“Yes. Of course I’ll marry you.” I was drinking a strange cocktail, something traditionally East Coast, something pink. An old-fashioned? I remember the promises of forever, and loyalty, and until death do us part.

The doorbell rings.

I push myself to stand and walk on wobbly legs to the front door.

“Mom? Do you want me to get it?” Ashlyn calls from upstairs. It’s too soon. She can’t know this. Not yet. Not until I have more details.

“I’ve got it. It’s Lance. Work stuff,” I yell. The lie rolls off my lips easily.

“Of course. Work stuff. It’s always fucking work stuff!” Ashlyn slams her door.

My mind flashes back to the dinner when John told me he was moving out, leaving me for Tish. That night changed my world forever. Changed me forever. I push those thoughts away and focus on now. John is dead.

I hold Tish responsible for this, even as part of me sees it’s what he deserved. He left me for a woman half his age, a woman who used the oldest trick in the book to seduce my husband, right under my nose. So yes, I hold him responsible, culpable. Liable. Lie-able.

But it’s my fault, too. Why didn’t I see her coming? See the threat more clearly? Was I so blinded by ambition, by our race for success and the promise of big money on the horizon, that I didn’t care enough about our personal life together any longer? I mean, when John stood up and walked out of that restaurant, we hadn’t been intimate in months. Nothing but quick kisses, brief hugs, promises of tomorrow night, or the agreement that we needed a date.

He was trying to work his way back to me, to his family. I just know it. He was seeing me again, and he liked what he saw. John was ready to reconnect. He wanted to come back home. That’s what he wanted.

It’s time to let Lance inside, as much as I want to avoid this moment, the reality of what has happened. I take