Dead Wife Watching You Burn

The call from the precinct was the crack that finally shattered the fragile peace of my remarriage to Adrian.

The detective on the line said Adrian was being detained on suspicion of sexual assault and battery. He told me to get down there immediately to cooperate with the investigation.

In the mediation room, the sight of Adrian and Sabrinadisheveled, clothes half-torn, and radiating a guilty heatseared into my retinas.

Sabrina was hysterical, sobbing that Adrian had to divorce me right then and there. If he didn't, she threatened to "confess" everything about her pregnancy, claiming her husband would kill her and the baby if he found out.

Adrians face went rigid. I watched the gears turn behind his eyes, the agonizing struggle of a man caught between two worlds. Finally, he nodded.

The moment his head dipped in agreement, I knew our marriage was over. For good this time.

I signed the mediation transcript without a word, ending the farce. With a few strokes of a pen, I drew a final, jagged line through ten years of shared history.

I looked at him and remembered how different hed seemed after we remarried. Hed stopped staying out all night; he stopped calling me "crazy" or "unstable." Wed started living like a normal couple againdinners out, movies, planning for a future child while sitting on the porch swing, making wishes for a lifetime of happiness under the Fourth of July fireworks.

It was all a lie. The only reason hed changed was that Sabrina, his little mistress, had married another man out of spite.

...

The heavy door to the mediation room swung open, and my eyes met Adrians.

"Claire? What are you doing here?"

He faltered when he saw my gaze drop to Sabrinas protruding stomach. He let out a sharp, jagged breath.

"You... you saw. Fine. I wont lie to you anymore. Sabrina and I are back together. Im the one who reached out to her."

He stepped in front of her instinctively, shielding her as if he expected me to fly into the kind of hysterics I used to be known for. "Blame me if you want, but leave her out of it. Shes innocent in all of this."

Only when he realized I wasn't screaming did he relax his guard and step toward me.

"Claire, Im sorry. I know I broke my word. But her husband, Victor, is a goddamn lunatic. If he finds out about us, hell kill her. And its my faultshe only married him to get back at me."

He lowered his voice, his tone shifting into that manipulative, pleading register I knew so well. "The only way to get her away from him is if she leaves. But shes pregnant and stubborn as hell. She refuses to leave Victor until she sees our divorce papers. So, Claire, can you just sign? Once shes safe and the divorce is finalized, well find our way back to each other. Okay?"

In the three years since wed remarried, I thought Adrian had grown a soul. But looking at him now, all I saw was the familiar flicker of irritation and impatience.

When I didn't answer immediately, his temper flared. "What are you waiting for? Claire, be realistic. Your grandmothers medical bills, her physical therapyIm the one paying for all of it"

"Fine. Ill sign."

The words cut him off mid-sentence. I reached out and took the papers from his hand.

He stared at my signature, written in a steady, cold hand. He seemed stunned by how easy it was.

His voice softened instantly. "Thank you. You know you and Grandma are still the most important people in my life. Once Sabrina is safe, everything goes back to the way it was. Ill make it up to you. Ill take even better care of you both."

I felt nothing. His promises had become white noise, static in the background of a life I no longer recognized.

Was it the first time I caught him cheating that the words lost their meaning? Or the night he knelt on the floor, begging me to remarry him, swearing hed never betray us again? It didn't matter.

I nodded vacantly, paid the fine for his "disorderly conduct," and turned to leave.

I hadn't made it ten feet before Adrian lunged after me, dragging me back toward the station's side exit.

"Someone leaked the story. The press is crawling all over the front entrance."

He suddenly reached out, his fingers digging into the skin of my neck. He squeezed, hard enough to leave a mark, forcing a bruised discoloration to bloom on my throat.

"If Victor's people see the footage, Sabrina is dead. Claire, I need you to do this for her. Just tell them... tell them it was you in the car with me last night. That you were the one the cops caught. Please?"

Before I could even gasp out a refusal, he shoved me through the doors and into the blinding flash of cameras.

"Mrs. Sterling! Were you the woman caught in the car on the bridge last night?"

"Whos the other man? How could you do this to your husband?"

"Is it true you were recently released from a psychiatric ward? Did you really try to burn your own grandmother alive during a breakdown?"

"What did you say?" The rage hit me like a physical blow. "Don't you dare mention my grandmother!"

I lashed out, knocking the microphone from the reporter's hand. In the ensuing scuffle, a heavy camera lens swung toward me. It connected with my temple with a sickening thud.

Hot blood began to crawl down my face. I collapsed to the pavement, shivering and humiliated.

"Claire!"

Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Adrians voice. He started to break through the crowd, rushing toward me.

"Adrian... my stomach... it hurts so much..."

Sabrinas voice was a pathetic whimper, but it worked. Adrians footsteps stopped instantly. He pivoted, turning his back on me to scoop her into his arms.

By the time he looked back, I had already crawled away. I stood up, wiped the blood from my eye, and pulled out my phone. I booked a one-way ticket out of the country.

Two days later, I checked myself out of the hospital early.

When I walked into the house, Adrian wasfor the first time in yearsstanding in the kitchen heating up milk. He froze when he saw the bandage on my head. A flicker of genuine guilt crossed his face.

He walked over, holding the mug out as if to feed me.

I stepped back. "Im allergic to dairy, Adrian."

The mug trembled in his hand. The guilt deepened.

Hed forgotten. Of course he had. Years ago, when we were "in love," Id eaten an entire cake hed baked for me just because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Id ended up in the ICU with a throat so swollen I could barely breathe. Back then, hed held me and cried, swearing hed never forget as long as he lived.

But "as long as he lived" was apparently just a decade.

"Im so sorry, Claire. These last few days... Ive been buried. I know I put you through hell."

He leaned in, pressing a soft, pacifying kiss to my bandaged temple. "Just trust me one more time? Once Sabrina gets her divorce and has the baby, Ill set them up somewhere else. Ill come back to you completely. Well take care of Grandma together, just like we planned."

The same old script. Id believed it a thousand times. Id believed it at the altar. Id believed it when my grandmother and I emptied our savings to fund his first start-up. Id believed it when he knelt in the dirt three years ago.

Every single time, reality had slapped me across the face.

I looked past him into the hallway. I saw the door to the nurserythe room we had meticulously decorated for our son, Teddy. It had been a sanctuary. Now, the door hung open, revealing a wreckage.

I pushed him away, a cold, jagged laugh bubbling up in my throat. "Stop it! Stop acting! Its disgusting!"

"You let her stay in Teddys room. You knew exactly what that would do to me. We are done, Adrian!"

I stumbled toward the nursery, my heart breaking all over again. Teddys little toddler bed had been kicked over and shoved into a corner. His favorite toy carsthe ones hed played with the day he diedwere smashed.

And the photos. The photos I had tucked away so carefully were shredded, scattered across the floor like confetti.

"Oh, Claire, Im so sorry. I didn't mean to."

Sabrina was sitting on the sofa, sipping her milk with a look of pure, predatory triumph.

"Adrian was so worried about me. He said this room got the best sunlight, that it was the best place for the baby. I didn't know it was your sons room. Adrian never mentioned him."

The rage was a physical thing now, making my hands shake uncontrollably.

"Besides," Sabrina said, her eyes glinting. "If Teddy were here, Im sure hed want his new little brother or sister to have the room, right? Its not like a dead kid can use it."

I didn't think. I lunged. My hand connected with her face in a crack that echoed through the house.

"If it weren't for you and Adrian, Teddy would still be alive! How dare you? How dare you!"

The memory of my sons final moments flooded my brain, stripping away my sanity. I struck her again and again, ignoring her screams.

Then, a shock of ice-cold water hit me.

I gasped, my body seizing as Adrian stood over me with an empty ice bucket. I slid to the floor, shivering and broken.

Adrians hand was shaking, but his voice was hard. "Thats enough, Claire! Teddys death was an accident. Sabrina had nothing to do with it!"

"Im grieving too, goddammit! But hes gone. Hes not coming back. Ive done everything I can to make it up to youwhat else do you want from me?"

"An accident? Innocent?" I was screaming now, my voice raw with salt and blood. "You left him! You left a three-year-old alone in the car because you had to go inside and see her! He got out... he wandered into the street... he was hit by a truck because you weren't there! Tell me again whos innocent!"

The scar I had tried so hard to stitch shut was ripped wide open. Every night, I wondered: If I hadn't been sick that day... if I hadn't trusted him with our son... would Teddy still be here?

"Im sorry, Claire. I am." Adrian reached down to pick me up, his voice softening again. "But we have to let the past go. When Sabrinas baby is born, he can be your child too. We can be a family again."

I shivered, but before his hands could touch me, Sabrina let out a sharp cry of pain.

"Adrian... my stomach. It hurts. My face..." She was sobbing, clutching her belly. "If you hadn't come in, she would have killed the baby. What if she does something to me when youre not around? What if she hurts me like she hurt her grandmother?"

I saw it then. The shift in Adrians eyes. The pity for me vanished, replaced by a cold, sharpened fear.

After Teddy died, Id been a ghost. Grief is a madness no one tells you about. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my sons body broken on the asphalt. I didn't sleep. I wandered the house clutching his favorite blanket, searching for him. I thought if I just kept looking, he wouldn't really be gone.

But Adrian saw my grief as a liability.

"You already left your grandmother in a coma, Claire. Are you going to kill another person?"

He turned his back on me to cradle Sabrinas face.

I stared at his spine. "Are you really sure I was the one who did that to Grandma?"

The sleepwalking. The fire in the kitchen. The night the world went up in flames. Grandma had run in to save me. But when we reached the door, it had been locked from the outside. With a heavy chain.

She had used her last bit of strength to shove me through a window. She had stayed behind, crushed by falling debris, her right leg lost, her body a map of third-degree burns.

When I finally woke up in the hospital, I had told the police exactly who I saw lurking in the shadows that night. Sabrina.

"It was her," Id sobbed into Adrians chest. "I saw her. She locked us in!"

But Adrian had pushed me away. "Youre delusional, Claire. Sabrina was with me. Why are you trying to ruin her life?"

Hed handed the police a hotel receipthis alibi for her. And then, hed used my "mental instability" to sign the papers that committed me to the state asylum.

"So what now?" I asked, my voice a dead whisper. "Are you going to send me back to the psych ward to protect her again?"

I stood up and ripped my sleeve back, then my collar. I bared my skin to him. It was a landscape of horrors. Cigarette burns, needle marks from forced sedatives, long-faded whip marks from the orderlies.

Adrian froze. His mouth hung open. He reached out to touch a jagged scar on my wrist, his fingers trembling.

"How... how did this happen? Why didn't you tell me?"

His eyes welled with tears. "Claire, I didn't know. I swear, if Id known they were hurting you like this, I never would have sent you there."

He moved to help me up. "Ill take you to the hospital. Well get you the best plastic surgeons. I wont let these scars stay on you."

"Adrian!" Sabrina screamed again. "It hurts! Help me!"

Without a second thought, he let go of my arm. He turned and ran to her, leaving me to fall back onto a pile of shattered glass from a broken picture frame.

As the blood pooled in my palm, I started to laugh. It was a hollow, jagged sound. Adrian would always choose the lie.

Two hours later, my phone buzzed with a text from him.

Im so sorry, Claire. Sabrinas having complications with the pregnancy, I cant leave the hospital. I asked the housekeeper to make that herbal tea you like. Stay home and wait for me. Ill be back as soon as I can...

I didn't reply. I dragged my suitcase to the door and called an Uber.

He thought I was the same stupid girl who would wait forever. He didn't know that Id already moved Grandma to a private facility under a different name. I was leaving the pain behind.

But when I reached the airport, two officers stepped into my path.

"Claire Sterling? Youre under arrest. Youre a suspect in a homicide investigation. Come with us."

The handcuffs were cold and heavy. At the station, the truth came out.

Sabrina had gotten into a fight with her husband, Victor. Shed stabbed him. And to clear her name, Adrian had taken the murder weapon and hidden it in the trunk of my car.

"Claire, I know its not fair." Adrian stood on the other side of the bars, his face haggard. "But if Sabrina goes to prison, what happens to the baby? Thats two lives, Claire."

"And you have a history," he continued, his voice low and desperate. "The judge will be lenient because of your mental health record. Ive hired the best lawyers. You wont be in for long."

"Once the heat dies down, Ill get you out. Ill make it up to you for the rest of my life. I swear."

I listened to him, but the words felt like they were in a foreign language.

"You want me to take the fall for a murder? For her?" I stared at him, truly seeing him for the first time. The man who had promised to love me forever was gone. In his place was a monster wearing his skin.

"Just this once, Claire. The last time." He was practically begging. "I already lost Teddy. I cant lose another child. Do this for me."

It was the first time hed ever humbled himself before me. And he was doing it for her.

I stayed silent for a long beat. Then, I smiled.

"No."

Adrians expression turned to one of pure, venomous disappointment. "How can you be so heartless? Youd watch a mother and her child die?"

"I'm sorry. I just can't do it."

"Fine," he snapped. "Wait here. I'll find a way to fix this, but don't expect things to be 'fine' when you get out."

When I get out? I laughed.

Youre on your own, Adrian. You will never see me again.

After he left, I looked at my handshands that had been nearly broken by the guards in the asylum. I asked for my one phone call.

"The deal you offered," I said into the receiver. "I accept."

...

The next morning, Adrian hurried back to the station with a team of lawyers. As he stepped out of his car, he saw a black sedan speeding toward the airport.

His heart skipped a beat. A sudden, inexplicable dread washed over him. He rubbed his temples, trying to shake the feeling, but as he entered the lobby, the world fell out from under him.