The Housewife(3)

“And as they say,” Roy continues, still smiling at me, “the rest is history.”

I smile at him and raise my glass. “Happy birthday, Roy.”

“Happy birthday, Roy!” everyone cries. Roy takes a little bow.

Eileen pops a fig and Brie tartlet into her mouth. “Oh my God. These are divine,” she says, mouth still half-full. “Jack, have you tasted these? No, don’t taste them.” She turns to me. “He’ll leave me when he realizes what he’s missing out on. Poor Jack. He married a scientist. A biologist to boot. Like I told him before we were married, I can’t boil an egg, but I can count cards in Vegas. That’s got to count for something, right?”

“I can show you if you like,” I say.

She puts a hand on her chest. “Would you?”

“If you show me how to count cards.”

She laughs.

“I should get the cake,” I say, preparing to stand.

“And how long after that romantic meeting were you married?” Meredith asks Roy, like she wasn’t at the wedding. Barb elbows her and Meredith lets out a muffled squeal.

“Mmm…let me think…” Roy says, rubbing his chin. As a renowned psychologist with six books published in five languages, you’d think Roy would pick up on what’s going on here, but it’s going right over his head.

I sit back down.

“Three months, wasn’t it, Jodie?”

“Yes. Three months.”

“Oooh! That’s quick,” Barb says.

“So…Deborah would have only been dead for what, six, seven months by the time you got married?” Meredith says.

Roy nods, and as always when Deborah’s name is mentioned, his eyes water. “Six months. That’s right.”

“What happened?” Eileen asks softly .

Roy rubs his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids. “My wife committed suicide.”

A beat of silence. “I’m so very sorry for your loss,” Eileen mumbles. Roy nods, fingers still against his eyelids.

“We do miss her terribly,” Meredith says with a sigh, gazing up at the painting. “She was a wonderful person. Wasn’t she, Roy? So charming and warm, just delightful company. She brought sunshine with her wherever she went.” She turns to me and tilts her head. “I hope that’s all right to say, Jodie.”

“Of course it is.”

No one says anything for a moment. Then Eileen leans toward me and whispers slurrily, her head tilted toward the painting, “You don’t mind?”

I gaze up at Deborah in full-size splendor. I hate it, I want to say. And it’s not just the portrait; it’s the photographs scattered around the house: images of the two of them gazing into each other’s eyes, running on the beach, laughing into each other’s perfectly windswept hair, getting married…

“If I die,” I said to Roy once, “and you marry again, will you keep photos of me in every room in the house?”

He smiled at me the way he does, a gentle tugging at the side of his mouth, and cupped my cheek. “Maybe not in every room.”

“So would you shove me in a cardboard box and store me in the basement?”

“We don’t have a basement. But I would keep lots of photographs of you,” he said. “I promise. ”

“Well, I’d hate being Mrs. Davies the Third then, surrounded by all those ghosts of past wives.” I shuddered.

He frowned at me. “Does it bother you that I keep photos of Deborah?”

I pretended to think about it for a moment. “No,” I lied. “After all, if you loved Deborah as much as you say you did, I can see why you’d want the world to know about it.”

He looked at me like I’d just kicked a puppy. “If?”

“No, I don’t mind,” I tell Eileen now. “I’m used to it. The way I look at it, we’re just one big, happy family.”

Eileen gives me a lukewarm smile and a squeeze of the hand. She turns to Roy.

“Speaking of which, are you still in touch with her family, Roy?”

“Deborah wasn’t particularly close to her parents,” Roy says into his drink. “I only met them twice. At our wedding, and later…” He pushes his fingers through his hair. “At Deborah’s funeral.” He shakes his head. “Lovely people. Salt of the earth. I wrote to them to let them know I was getting married again; I thought it was the right thing to do…” He gives me a sad smile. “But I never heard back from them.”

That would be because I threw the letter in the trash, I don’t say.

“I even considered inviting them to the wedding, but Jodie would have none of it.”

“It’s not that I’m jealous,” I say, and they all nod gravely into their drinks as if to say, No, of course not. Never crossed our minds.

Except for Roy who says, “Well. You are, I mean…and it’s understandable, up to a point, but let’s call a spade a spade, sweetheart. ”

I’ve never understood why some people insist on calling a spade a spade when they’ve never held one in their lives and wouldn’t know the difference between a spade, a shovel, and a pitchfork without reading the labels at Home Depot.

I pick crumbs off my lap and drop them into my palm. “I just think sometimes a clean break is best for everyone.”