The Other Widow Read Online Free Page B

same clouds that were thin and white at breakfast have turned gray by early afternoon.
    â€œSo is it a wake or a funeral or what?” Samuel squats in front of the nearly empty fridge and grabs a carton of milk. She looks away.
    â€œA funeral. It’s so . . . It’s so awful. I really don’t want to go.” If there were any way at all she could stay home, she would. But her absence would raise questions, the last thing Dorrie wants.
    â€œFor his wife especially,” Samuel says. He’s staring at her. Dorrie feels her cheeks burning underneath a heavy layer of foundation. “Are you okay? You look a little—pale or something. A little green around the gills. You should probably eat something before you go.”
    Dorrie nods. “I will. You know how I hate funerals.”
    â€œI know.” Samuel squints at the date on the milk carton. “This can’t be easy for his wife. Unless they weren’t really—”
    â€œThey were,” Dorrie says. She straightens her skirt, puts on a bland face, a bland concerned voice. Sedate. Calm. “ Extremely close,” she says. “And I’m sure this must all be un bear able for Karen. I can’t even imagine.” She sticks her daughter’s cereal bowl in the sink and pictures Karen reaching for a plate in her own kitchen with a graceful, fragile arm, imagines her holding a cigarette, tilting her head back to blow out the smoke, can almost hear the echo of her footsteps on the stairs, her voice bouncing off the open empty spaces of the house she’d shared with Joe. A character in a Greek tragedy.
    â€œWhat if it’d been me?” Samuel says.
    â€œOh! God, Samuel! I’d be devastated. Don’t even talk like—”
    â€œWould you?”
    â€œYes,” she says, moving closer to her husband as, again, he takes a tiny step away. “Of course!” And she would be. Even with the lies between them, even with his nights at the corner bar, even though she yearns for Joe. Even if her husband lately takes a step away when she moves toward him. Even so, she’d be distraught if something happened to him. She loves Samuel. She knows he loves her, too; she’s never doubted that. She knows that if, at the end of his life, he’s standing in some mystical place between worlds and someone asks him to name his one great love, Samuel will breathe out her name without the slightest hesitation.
    Dorrie might have a harder time with that question. She would have to weigh all the moments, hours, years, spent with Samuel—Lily’s birth, the times they cried together, all the meals and fights, the rants and silences, the blankness they share now. She’d have to weigh it all against the time she had with Joe, exciting, perfect moments that left her always wanting more.
    They are two entirely different things. Husbands. Lovers. One is for the long haul, and the other—well, the other probably isn’t, although she’s only had this one experience, and she’d never really meant to sleep with Joe. But it was like a drug, their love. It forced her to wake up. It saved her.
    â€œDad?” Lily stands in the kitchen doorway, an overnight bag in her hand. She’s going on a ski trip with her best friend, Mia, and Mia’s thrill-seeking, fun, athletic parents. “Ready? You look pretty, Mom,” she says, crossing the new kitchen floor to give Dorrie a kiss. “See you in a couple days.”
    â€œThanks, honey. Do I look— Is my makeup okay?” Her voice is high-pitched, squeaky.
    â€œYes,” Lily says. “It’s fine.”
    â€œBe careful.” Dorrie hugs her daughter and continues to hold on until Lily pulls away. “Stay on the beginner slopes. Okay?”
    â€œRight.” Lily rolls her eyes. “I left my gloves on your dresser,” she says. “I need them back, though. You never did return my hat . . .”