The First Wife

“You called the police?”

She shook her head. “I told you, they were accidents. Which the doctor in the emergency room felt compelled to report. The police asked some questions, and they left. No charges were filed.” Holding the container of fresh strawberries in her lap, she glanced up at him. “God knows, I appreciate the law that requires medical personnel to notify police whenever they see something that suggests abuse, but in my case, those calls just caused a lot of embarrassment. James was a professor at the local university. Well liked. Respected. He was not a wife beater.”

Brad’s expression remained completely focused. “Do you have any idea why Ms. Grant would be interested in the reports?”

“Apparently they were filed with suspicion.”

“Meaning that while no one was charged, the investigating officer wasn’t convinced a crime hadn’t been committed.”

Right. So Sheila Grant had explained, though that morning had been the first Jane had heard of any suspicion.

“What happened? Tell me about the accidents.”

“I fell down the stairs once and before you say anything, yes, I’m positive I tripped. James did not push me, though the doctor, and the cop, too, for that matter, kept trying to get me to say he did.”

“So James was there.”

“Yes, we were going downstairs together. And no, we weren’t fighting.”

His head slightly lowered, Brad watched her with a sideways glance. “And you’re sure there’s no way he pushed you.”

“It would have been physically impossible. I was behind him. As a matter of fact, he helped break my fall.”

“And the other time?”

“We were playing tennis. We had one of those machines that shot balls over the net to us. He was demonstrating. I ran into his swing and caught his arm with my nose.”

“How were things between you then?”

“He was wonderful, picked me up and ran me to the car, not caring that I was dripping blood on his new upholstery. He rushed me to the hospital and was everything any wife could want in a loving husband.”

“I meant before the incident. How were things between you on the tennis court?”

Oh. Jane thought back, her chest getting tight again. And then she reined herself in.

“I think we were fighting,” she said slowly. “Or had been. It’s hard to remember. There were so many times we were at odds there toward the end.”

“And he never lifted a hand to you?”

“Not once. Ever. He never backed me into a corner, or even touched me in anger.”

Brad moved and Jane jumped. Reaching toward her, he tucked a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear. “If the suspicions are false, why was it so hard for you to tell me about it?”

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to know that I considered myself in love with a man who was so not in love with me that he was actually married to someone else at the very same time he was married to me?”

Brad frowned and she continued, “After Sheila Grant first called this morning, I started thinking about my marriage. Looking for signs James might have given of what he was doing, clues that I missed. Something to restore my faith in my judgment. And it took me right back to square one. Before, I thought I’d only missed the signs of him being unfaithful—having a girlfriend. That kind of thing happens all the time. But bigamy? I missed the fact that James was someone else’s husband at the same time that he was mine. Why didn’t I see it before? And how do I know I wouldn’t miss something that big in the future? How could I ever trust myself to know? The phone call also confirms that I wasn’t such a great wife. Not only did my husband seek sex elsewhere, he sought a wife elsewhere, too.”

How much of that had been Jane’s fault? James had obviously loved her at some point—he’d wanted to marry her. What had she done to cause him to lose interest?

“By all accounts that man is sick, Jane. His choices are no more a reflection on you than they are on the other two women he lied to.”

“Which doesn’t negate the fact that I didn’t see what he was doing. Didn’t even suspect. I was an easy target.”

“You were a young woman, a student, who trusted her mentor. And later her husband.”

“I trusted an untrustworthy man.” Jane hated being unsure of herself. It reminded her too much of her life with James.

Her life before Twenty-Something.

“The way Emily trusted me.”

Emily. Brad’s ex-wife and his biggest scar.

“That woman adored me,” he continued. “And you know I say that with shame, not ego. I loved her, but not any more deeply than I’d loved other people.”

He’d told her all about his guilt over drinks after their first time in court together with a Durango resident.

“I cared enough about Emily that I stayed, even after it became obvious to me that our relationship had run its course. I kept trying to be as happy in our marriage as she needed me to be. As happy with her as she was with me during those times when she believed I loved her. She stayed because she kept hoping that, with time, our relationship would grow and we’d find the closeness she craved. I hung on for several years trying to fall in love with her as much as she loved me. A lot of people were hurt over my inability to give up. I robbed her of several years of happiness, of the chance to find someone who could love her more deeply than I could. And still Emily hung on, waiting. Believing in me, in the vows we took. Does that make her somehow less?”

“No.” Jane got his point. But she wasn’t Emily. “There’s a major difference here, Brad.”

“What’s that?”

“She was married to a good and decent man who was trying to love her the way she needed him to.”

“And you thought you were, too.”

“Right, but the guy I was married to was apparently a two-bit schmuck.”

“His problem. Not yours. It sounds to me like you were a faithful wife, committed to the marriage. Nothing more.” With his arms resting on his bent knees, Brad glanced straight at her again. “Unless there’s more. Sheila Grant seems to think so…”

“Why are you trying so hard to paint me abused?” He hadn’t actually said as much, but she knew what he was implying. She could tell he didn’t believe her. Indignation was good for the soul. Or at least for distracting her from her own weakness.

“I’m not sure,” he said, as frank with her as ever. “Maybe because I’ve seen that frightened look a hundred times before but never in your eyes.”

The compassion in his voice brought her close to tears. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? Being a friend?”

“Climbing inside my head.”

“I don’t know,” he said again. After a moment of silence, he added, “You’re struggling. And I care.”

She needed him to care and was glad he did. But he was pushing. And they didn’t pressure each other. It was part of what made their unique friendship so successful.

“It occurs to me for the first time—” Brad paused, and Jane braced herself “—that things about you fit the profile of an abused woman.”

They did not. He was just wrong about that. If she fit the profile, he’d have seen that before today. “Like what?”