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

been fighting, or as my therapist explains, Ashlyn has been asserting her independence. I think it’s more than that. She’s independent but confused. She feels abandoned by her dad, confused because when she was sixteen, he chose to leave her for another life, another woman not much older than she was. That’s tough. And as she would say, it’s gross.

I thought I would simply outlast Tish, truth be told. Once I found out about the affair, I decided to ignore it. I thought it was a phase John was going through and that he’d realize his stupidity in a couple of months and then we could deal with it through counseling. I was in denial, I suppose. And I also was wrong. Dead wrong.

I never imagined he would ask me for a divorce. I never imagined he would move out of our family home, never to return. I never imagined he would go through with it and marry Tish. That would be socially unacceptable.

Something in me darkened deep down inside when I heard about their engagement three years ago. It was like a part of my heart dropped to the bottom of a cold, black sea.

I didn’t even know John had been drifting, but she did. And she grabbed him and held on tight.

I knew it wasn’t a phase the night he told me he was moving out.

That’s when everything changed.

I open a bottle of wine and pour a generous glass. It took a while, but about a year ago, my therapist and I celebrated my progress. I was no longer a victim, she declared. I had found constructive ways to channel my anger. I started developing the Forever project, a cutting-edge consumer portal for EventCo clients.

In the weeks before the IPO, John stopped by my office so often it was almost like back in our start-up days. He was eager to bounce ideas off me, and I was pleased to see him walk through my office door.

“Kate, do you have a minute?” He’d appear in my doorway without an appointment, Nancy frowning behind him.

“Come on in, John.” I’d smile at Nancy and close the door behind us. He was in my territory, my office, asking for my support.

“I can’t believe our luck. This thing is happening.” John’s glee was boyish and charming. Sometimes, Tish would walk past my office door, stalking him, somehow knowing we were together. John’s phone would ring, and he’d have an “important meeting” immediately.

Despite Tish’s maneuvers, I told Nancy to let John in to see me as often as possible, especially if he was alone. She had a little tally going of his visits—proof, she said, he wanted to reconcile. I don’t know what was in his heart. No one really knows another person, do they? I do know one thing for sure—if he hadn’t married Tish, he wouldn’t be dead. Of that I’m certain.

It must have been taxing, balancing Tish’s many demands and the reality of working at the same office with me, all the while making plans to take the company public, his biggest project ever. There was just so much strain on his heart, already weakened by his high blood pressure.

All it took was a little something more to push his heart over the edge. The high altitude in Telluride was never good for him, it just wasn’t.

CHAPTER 25

ASHLYN

I sit in my car, headlights off. I’m parked on the street across from Tish’s house, the one she talked my dad into buying because she said the condo was too small, too bachelor pad. It was, I agreed.

This house is two story, four bedrooms. Painted white, with black shutters. It looks like a family home, like it should be filled with kids and laughter. But it’s not. It never was. One of the bedrooms she called mine, but I never felt comfortable here. Well, I guess that’s not true. At first, when I still thought of her as a friend, when all of this was new and shiny, I did like it at their house. It was decorated “soft contemporary” according to Tish, with all neutrals: gray, cream, and white. It was like walking into Restoration Hardware, Tish bragged. I liked my all-new bedroom, decorated for an adult in all white with a rattan headboard and cool woven lights. A thriving potted fern in the corner by the bay window and a cozy sheepskin rug on the floor. The golf course the house is nestled next to made the backyard seem to go on forever, especially at night and on Mondays when no golfers were out. So, that first year they were married, I did enjoy it there. But it got old fast. Tish would try too hard to make me talk, to connect, to be best friends. Meanwhile, my dad would have his hands all over her. It turned gross and uncomfortable.

I can’t imagine how my mom felt at the office. I was only subjected to the PDA when I went to Dad’s house, stays and visits that tapered off considerably by the time I left for college.

I’d been blissfully detached, consumed by college life: studies, sororities, and social life. Then, when this summer rolled around, my college adviser told me I needed an internship in my field, and Tish helped me talk Dad into it. I worked at the office all summer. I was watching, expecting to see gross displays of affection between my dad and Tish. But I didn’t.

Things had changed between my dad and Tish, and between my dad and my mom.

Now as I watch Tish walking around in her bedroom, lights on but shades not drawn, a hot wall of rage surges through me. Who are you, Tish?

I remember back to when they got married. My dad was proud, and dripping with excitement when he showed me the marriage certificate. I just laughed at the name I saw there: Terry Jane Crawford. Birthplace: Pineville, Kentucky. Using that memory, I search Google. Nothing. From what