HIS DISCARDED WIFE

CHAPTER 3- DISCARDED

The porch light is on. It's never on.

Jack thinks it wastes electricity.

There's a car in the driveway I don't recognize. Low, black, expensive in a way that isn't Jack's taste.

My phone is still in my hand, the unknown number still open on the screen.

"You should be more careful about who you trust."

I put it away. Whoever sent it can wait.

I pay the driver with a hand that isn't quite steady and let myself in through the side door, the one that doesn't creak.

"Jack?"

Nothing.

"Jack, I'm home. I need to talk to you."

My own voice sounds far away, like it's coming from the next room instead of my own throat. The hallway is too long. It's never been this long before.

Then I hear it. Laughter, upstairs, low and easy, the kind you only make with someone you're comfortable with.

Georgina laughed.

Everything else drops out. The refrigerator hum. The clock on the wall.

Just her laugh, looping, too loud, filling the whole staircase.

I tell myself there's a version of this where it means nothing. She stopped by. They're talking. She's telling him about my treatment, about the bill, about—

My hand is on the banister, and I don't remember putting it there.

I climb the stairs, and my legs don't feel like mine. Each step takes longer than it should, like the house has added extra ones since this morning.

I found the bedroom door open. Not all the way. Enough.

I push it the rest of the way myself.

And what I saw, shattered me completely.

Jack's shirt is on the floor. Georgina's dress is beside it. They break apart when the door hits the wall, and the sound of it wood against wood, is the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life.

Then silence. Total.

My own heartbeat is the only sound left in the room, slamming somewhere behind my ears instead of in my chest where it belongs.

"Get off her."

I don't remember crossing the room. One second, I'm in the doorway, the next Georgina's arm is in my hand, and I'm pulling, and the walls are too close, tilting slightly, like the floor isn't level anymore.

"Lauren—"

"Get out of my bed."

Jack sits up. Doesn't reach for his shirt. Doesn't reach for me.

"You need to stop this, Lauren. " And listen to me.

"We need to talk," he says.

"Now you want to talk." My voice comes out wrong, too high, not mine.

I can't get a full breath in, like the air in the room has thinned out.

"Now. While she's still in our bed?"

"The marriage is over, Lauren."

"What?"

"It's over."

"You don't get to say that lying next to her."

"I'm saying it because it's true." He finally stands, finally reaches for his shirt, and pulls it on like this is a meeting running long.

"This isn't news to you. You've felt it too."

"I have cancer, Jack." Each word costs me air I don't have.

"I don't have time to feel anything except that."

"That's not my responsibility anymore."

"Not your—" My ears are ringing now, a thin, high whine underneath everything.

"You stood at the altar in a church. You said in sickness and in health."

"Don't do that."

"Do what? Remind you of your own vows?"

I hit him. Open hand, full swing, and it connects before he catches my wrist.

"Let go of me."

"Lauren, stop—"

I won't stop. I swing again with the other hand, and he catches that one too, and I'm pulling against him with everything I have left, which isn't much, my breath coming in short, useless pulls that don't fill anything.

"Georgina, help me."

She does. Hands on my shoulders, not gentle, pushing me back until I'm sitting on the floor instead of standing. The carpet burns against my palms. I don't remember falling.

"Stop it." She's not even breathing hard.

"Just stop. You're embarrassing yourself."

"You were my best friend." My own voice sounds like it's underwater.

"I was your babysitter. There's a difference." She straightens her dress, doesn't look at me while she says it. "You've been sick for a year, Lauren. Everyone's allowed to be tired of it. You just don't get to be the only one who's exhausted."

"You knew. This whole time, you knew, and you sat in that hospital room and told me he still loved me."

"Because you needed to hear it."

"That's not the same as it is true."

"Jack." I look at him instead of her because I can't look at her anymore. My vision has narrowed, like I'm looking down a hallway instead of across a room. "Tell her that's not true."

He doesn't say anything.

Footsteps in the hall. Slow. Certain.

Beatrice stops in the doorway and takes in the whole scene,

Her son half-dressed, Georgina straightening her hem, me on the floor without a single change in her face.

"So it's finally happening," she says.

"Beatrice." I get to my feet using the dresser, the room swaying slightly. "Please. Talk to him."

"Talk to him about what?"

"About this. About us."

"There is no us." She says it the way she'd correct a mispronounced word.

"There hasn't been an us since you got sick and decided the Roland name owed you a free pass on being useful."

"That's not—"

"You married into this family. You didn't earn a place in it. And for four years you've taken and taken and given this family nothing but hospital bills and a husband too distracted to run his own company."

"I'm his wife."

"You're a liability." She turns to Jack.

"End it tonight. Properly. Not the way you end things when you're afraid of your own decisions."

"Beatrice, please. I've done everything right. I married your son. I loved him. I got sick, that's all. I got sick, and none of you can forgive me for it." My throat closes around the last word. I have to force it out anyway.

"Forgive you?" Beatrice almost laughs.

"You make it sound like an accusation. Nobody's punishing you for being sick, Lauren. We're simply done pretending it doesn't cost anything."

"Jack." My voice breaks on his name. "Please."

He looks at me for exactly one second. Long enough that I almost believe something's still there.

Then he looks away.

—

I don't remember all of what happened after that. Beatrice's voice, giving instructions to someone I can't see, the words arriving in pieces, like a radio losing signal. My clothes coming off hangers. I picked out myself. My medication bag, the small one, was carried past me by a woman in a uniform who wouldn't meet my eyes.

I ended up outside. I don't remember walking there. The cold air hits my lungs wrong, too sharp.

The door closes.

I hear the lock turn from the inside, a small, specific sound, deliberate in a way that leaves no room for misunderstanding.

I stand on the steps with two bags at my feet and my ring still on my finger, and I wait, because some stupid, stubborn part of me still believes a door can open again once it's closed.

It doesn't.

No one comes.

Not Jack, Not Georgina.

Not one voice on the other side of that door saying Wait, come back, we made a mistake.

The porch light goes out.