Dora Matthews wiped the droplets of water and debris, as well as the sprinkling of thick black body hairs her husband Mark had carelessly shed, from the edge of the white porcelain tub. Mark’s girlfriend would be visiting today, and Dora didn’t want the woman to think her a poor housekeeper. She already must believe Dora was a poor wife: why else would she be sleeping with her husband?
Mark didn’t know that Dora knew of his indiscretions, but his wife’s suspicions were piqued one early evening the previous spring when he arrived home and she could smell the evidence. She knew another woman had been there, the way you know when someone has burned dinner the evening before, or that your great aunt who promised to quit smoking has pilfered a cigarette a few hours before your quick kiss to her on the cheek. It wasn’t a perfume that she smelled, either; no, it was the odor of something larger: the scent of secrecy, of newness, and of rediscovered youth.
It was the same scent she had been smelling on Mark a few times a week for the past year, especially after she arrived home following her evening shift at the city library. He had seemed happier over the last twelve months, too, sometimes whistling while he did his domestic chores like a stock character in a Thornton Wilder play. One Saturday that September, she watched him from the kitchen window as he raked the oak leaves into a rust-colored pile in the backyard. He seemed lost in his own thoughts, earbuds securely fixed in his ears, and Dora could have sworn she saw him sway a bit like he was dancing dreamily in time to the music.
Yes, Mark was happy again, and Dora understood that it was not because of her, but despite her.
She had given him everything he could have wanted: a clean home, a warm meal every evening, a travel and leisure partner. He had wanted children—they had wanted children—but it hadn’t quite worked out despite best efforts on the part of both of them. It was only three years previous when she’d left the white pregnancy test stick next to the coffeemaker for him to find, certain that the bright pink PLUS sign was a predictor of happy times to come. Then, two months later, she’d found herself fidgeting in the scratchy plastic chair of the hospital laboratory waiting area, blinking quickly in an attempt to adjust her eyes to the harsh fluorescent lighting, the kind of incandescence that made everyone, even supermodels, look somewhat mummified.
She’d glanced at the bloodwork order her doctor had handed her wordlessly after she’d slid from the ultrasound table and back into her loafers, the remnants of warm lubricant greasy on the button of her jeans. Spontaneous abortion, the order for bloodwork read. It was a term that seemed woefully incongruous to the situation. When Dora read the diagnosis, she expected a flash mob to appear from behind the corner of the phlebotomy office, jazz hands raised in unison to the tinny boombox blare of a 1980s Michael Jackson or Debbie Gibson song. After that day, there were no more pink PLUS signs, no more visits to the gynecologist for ultrasounds. It would be only Mark and Dora, Dora and Mark only, from that point on.
Except it wasn’t just the two of them: not anymore. No, now it was Dora and Mark and the girlfriend. This interloper was the concubine, the side dish, the “other woman,” as if to imply that Dora and the girl were on equal grounds: here stood one woman, there stood the other. Dora imagined herself as a piece of apple pie at a dessert buffet, Mark leaning over to savor the offerings with his eyes. Would you like a slice of chocolate cake, sir? Perhaps a dish of orange sherbet? She imagined her husband crossing his arms over his chest and pretending to ponder his options before opening his mouth to display every sweet tooth in a broad, pearly grin. He’d have a slice of each, of course. Life was just too darn short.
Dora pushed herself up from the edge of the tub and brushed her hands on the front of her thighs. She’d worn her old jeans, the ones with the frayed hemlines and splatters of blue paint from when they’d redone the bedroom five years ago. She was proud to still fit into the clothes she’d purchased a decade earlier. She had tamed her figure’s growling thrusts at expansion, even though it had gotten more difficult to stave off the creeping roundness in her belly and hips as she approached her mid-thirties.
Dora caught a flash of her image reflected in the vanity mirror. She placed the sponge on the edge of the sink and ran a moist hand through the tendrils escaping from her wide headband. She was still pretty, she thought. Not in that bouncy, twenty-something way, but attractive, certainly. When they went to dinner at the posh Delaney House or to The Chandler, the steakhouse that opened in the casino downtown, Mark always appeared proud to be seen with her hanging onto his arm. “You clean up nice, Dorey,” he’d said to her just last Saturday, eyeing her slim calves that tapered into the three-inch heels in which she’d pirouette for the rest of the evening. As he said it, Dora imagined herself rubbing a big bar of Ivory soap over her face, drawing streaks of pale skin into inch-high layers of marital dirt and grime. Clean up nice. She stared at her reflection for a moment longer, pulled the rubber gloves from her hands and dumped them into the trash barrel next to the toilet along with the sponge. Then she carted the barrel away into the garage to empty it.
As she pushed the pile of soiled paper towels and discarded bathroom remnants farther into the larger brown barrel, compacting the waste as best she could, Dora thought of the time she’d gone to a local bar at the meek, but disillusioned age of nineteen, fake ID in hand though her youthful beauty made it inconsequential. It was there that she spotted a boy she recognized from high school, a senior when she’d been a sophomore with whom she’d never exchanged a word. It was karaoke night, and when he ran up to the microphone and began to wail “New York, New York” like Frank Sinatra had climbed into his abdomen and was slowly ripping his way out, she felt her stomach quiver and flip. The boy’s name was Jeremy, and he had striking orange hair and pale cerulean eyes, and in that moment, she had a crush on him the way young girls had crushes on rock stars or movie idols. As he slithered drunkenly along the mic stand, alternately removing and replacing his Irish hat, he was completely oblivious to any voyeurs. It was his confidence that Dora found sexy. Mark had been the same way when Dora first spotted him, his shoulders straight and back, his cool, sideways glances that indicated indifference, and one eyebrow always slightly raised as if to say, “Yeah, what of it?” The confidence had been ephemeral, though, and after a year or two of home cooking and general domestic bliss, the shoulders began to slump and the eyebrow rested. Until the previous year, that is.
Soon after their eighth anniversary, Mark began making himself a bone-dry martini each afternoon when he arrived home from work, a habit Dora at first found quirky and fun. She’d even contributed to the Mid-Century modern diorama, donning an apron as she served tuna noodle casseroles and Jell-o salads, planning elaborate cocktail parties where their friends could mingle about their home, chewing on toothpicked appetizers. Marriage is not a frozen tableau, however; it is always moving, even if the participants don’t sense its motion. One sunny afternoon the previous March, Dora’s world didn’t just shake; the ground split open from under her and swallowed her whole.
Mark arrived home as usual, walking straight to the liquor cabinet and removing a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose and the silver shaker in one seamless motion. Dora had stayed home sick with the flu and still donned a pair of ratty flannel pajamas, her hair a haphazard topknot stuffed into a satin elastic. She had brushed her teeth and washed her face, though: there was no point in being completely repulsive: she didn’t live alone, after all.
Running a finger delicately along her upper lip, red and raw from blowing it all day, she spoke to her husband. “Hey you,” she said, “how was work?”
With one hand, Mark slid a long-stemmed glass from the rack beneath a kitchen cabinet; with the other, he pushed the lip of the cocktail shaker into the icemaker handle on the front of the refrigerator. An avalanche of crushed cubes tumbled out, filling the room with a cacophony Dora had never acclimated to: she had grown up in a home where no one raised their voice, even in anger. Disagreements were solved with quiet discussion or, more often, complete silence. “Great,” Mark answered. “You know, busy, but good.” He poured a healthy splash of vodka over the ice. “How are you feeling? Any better?”
Dora stopped rubbing her chafed skin. “A little. I’m sure I’ll be back tomorrow. My fever broke this afternoon.” She paused then walked towards her husband. “I’m not contagious anymore, I don’t think.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. The grit of five o’clock shadow was rough, abrasive against her lips. She pulled away again, and he turned from her and placed the cap on the container before shaking it violently.
It was then that she smelled it: a foreign odor, one that made her nose wrinkle instinctively. It wafted from his body like heat escaping asphalt on a summer day. It wasn’t unpleasant, per se, but it definitely did not belong to their home, their marriage…their life. Dora had caught trails of it here and there over the previous few weeks, but she had dismissed the alien scent as an aromatic hallucination. That afternoon, she thought momentarily of those 1950s B-movies with alien invaders who inhabited unsuspecting human hosts. Mark was no longer Mark; at least, he didn’t smell like Mark. She brushed off the feeling, attributing it to an alteration in her olfactory senses brought on by her illness.
“I can put a frozen casserole in the oven,” she offered. “Or we could order in. What would you like?”
Mark lifted the martini to his mouth and poured the clear liquid down his throat, emptying the glass. He glugged more of the bottle into the shaker. “Yeah, either one. Whatever is easier.” He glanced at Dora for a moment, then looked sheepishly away. “I’m gonna jump in the shower.” A moment later, he was carrying the newly full glass into the bathroom and turning on the exhaust fan.
Two hours later, Dora scraped the food remnants into the garbage and stacked the soiled plates into the dishwasher. As the machine began its soft hum, she plodded into the living room to join her husband but found Mark sprawled along the sofa, his eyes closed and one of his arms folded across his chest. His other hand still held his cell phone and stretched awkwardly toward the carpet like a tree branch bending somberly with the weight of snow and ice.
Dora listened. His breathing was long and steady. He was definitely asleep. She carefully placed his errant arm on his stomach and removed the phone from his grasp. It awoke from the movement and the screen lit up, prompting Dora for a pin code to unlock it. Dora and Mark had an unspoken agreement: they knew each other’s passcodes, not just for their phones, but for their laptops, their social media accounts, and their bank accounts. But they’d never used them; at least, Dora hadn’t used Mark’s. What reason would she have for opening her husband’s phone when she had her own? She didn’t know why she did it: it wasn’t like the movies—she didn’t have a premonition or a vision or even a suspicion. But she tapped in his four digits just the same without a moment of hesitation.
The text exchange was still on the screen. I miss you, it read. She glanced to her husband’s response. I can still feel your mouth on my skin.
Dora blinked. She looked away, tried to focus on the droning television in the corner. She looked at her husband. His face was blank, slack. She returned her eyes to the screen.
This is the beginning of something special, Mark wrote. Dora scrolled upward. I know I should feel guilty, but I don’t, the other person wrote. I need you.
Dora looked to the owner’s name at the top of the screen. Nicole. She frowned. She didn’t know a Nicole. Mark had never mentioned a Nicole. She wondered if Nicole was someone he worked with or if he had met her somewhere else, some place he had visited without Dora. Somehow, this thought stung worse than the lascivious exchange.
I need you too, Mark wrote. More than you can imagine. You are my only thread in this world tying me to sanity. At times I feel like it’s going to snap. I can’t take this prison much longer.
Prison? Dora flinched at this portrayal.
Oh, baby, Nicole wrote back. Can I come to your place Friday?
Of course.
Good. I can’t wait. I miss you.
I can still feel your mouth on my skin.
Nicole responded with an emoji of a blushing smiley face.
This is the beginning of something special. Mark hadn’t pressed the RETURN button after finishing this sentence. It wavered in his text box, the sliver of cursor blinking expectantly alongside it.
Dora clicked the power button and the screen went black. She placed the phone on the end table and walked back into the kitchen. She grabbed her car keys from the hook beside the door and walked through the breezeway and into the garage. She climbed into the driver’s seat of her sedan. The car was cold, having sat in the garage all day. Without thinking, she placed the key in the ignition and swiveled her wrist forward; the engine roared, the sound echoing against the enclosed space.
She sat with her slippered feet resting under the brake pedal for a moment, looking around at the contents of the garage: the half-empty can of Rust-o-leum paint thinner tilted sideways against the bottles of engine oil and gas-line cleaner on the back shelf, a large green recycling can, the somnolent gas grill cloaked by a waterproof cover—a forgotten ghost of summer. A green canvas camping chair, folded tightly like a sleeping bat, leaned against the far corner, draped in spider webs. She reached her hand up to turn her key back and shut off the car’s engine, and then she stopped. How easy it would be to watch the exhaust fill the dim space until the air became hazy and simply fall asleep.
Dora leaned her head against the back of her seat and closed her eyes. She thought for a moment. With one quick flick of her wrist, she silenced the motor. When she walked back into the living room, she saw that Mark had switched positions: he was lying on his side, his knees pulled up slightly toward his chest like a toddler. His head balanced precariously on the edge of a throw pillow.
He’s going to have a nasty stitch in his neck when he wakes up, Dora thought then turned and retired to their bedroom for the evening.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
The following Friday, Dora sat hunched behind the large evergreen bush that flanked their back fence. She was half-sitting, half-squatting in the green camping chair now relatively free of cobwebs. She wore a dark brown sweatshirt with the hood pulled tight around her head and a pair of wide sunglasses digging into the tops of her cheeks. Within the span of one week, she had become Ted Kaczynski.
Dora had signed up for an extra shift at the library Friday afternoons, but she’d called in sick that morning after Mark had left for work. She exited the house at her expected time, but instead of turning left onto Main Street, she made a quick right and nestled her car in the back of a bank parking lot. She then walked nonchalantly home, bypassing the screen door and walking straight through the backyard to the rickety chair she’d set up the day before. She had tested the view from her home’s windows—the chair was invisible from every angle—but even so, when Mark bounded onto the breezeway three hours earlier than his work scheduled him to leave, she flinched a bit, tilting her head in the fear she’d been discovered.
Less than an hour later, she watched a petite brunette open the screen porch door, hesitantly slip inside, and rap softly on the window. She looks like me, Dora thought. Or me before we got married. Dora, a decade younger. Her husband appeared in the doorway and quickly ushered his visitor inside, not bothering to look around for witnesses.
Dora stayed at her station and watched the door as hours passed. When Nicole finally left, Dora waited until her shift was due to expire then creeped stealthily along her neighbor’s property and onto a side street. She changed her clothing in her car, drove home, and made dinner for her husband like nothing had happened. She repeated this cycle for weeks, then months. Pinterest surfing, cookie baking, and adulterer stalking: those became her pastimes. Although Mark didn’t know it, she gave up her Friday hours at the library for good; her shift was in the backyard.
By August, the girlfriend was no longer bothering to knock; she simply walked right into the house without hesitation. Please: make yourself at home, thought Dora as she watched the darkness of the kitchen swallow Nicole whole. Come on in. It’s open.
In the hours following the woman’s arrival, Dora dug. She kept a sharp, new garden spade in the dirt behind her vantage point and spent the late afternoons digging then refilling holes. As the hazily sunny days of summer evolved into the cinnamon-spiced overcast afternoons of fall, Dora continued going to work. She continued to shop for the groceries, make the dinners, and clean the house. She continued to spend her Friday afternoons watching. Wash, rinse, repeat. Dig and fill, dig and fill.
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾
Now, it was the Friday afternoon following Halloween, nearly seven months since Dora had first read her husband’s text exchanges. She walked from the garage onto the cement front steps, picked up the heavy doormat, and shook it violently. A cloud of dust and pollen surrounded her then dissipated as suddenly as it had arrived. Dora spotted a few stray candy wrappers on the walkway and picked them up. Soon it would be time to remove the earthy autumnal decorations and replace them with sparkly Christmas ones. There was something about the winter, with its barren tree limbs, hoary skies, and icy carpets of snow that made Dora think of cleanliness, immaculacy. It was pure and perfect, the crisp air of coldness. Everything would be silent or smothered. Mother Nature cleaned up nice.
Dora returned to the kitchen, rinsed her husband’s martini glass in the sink and placed it gingerly in the dishwasher. She opened the cabinet beneath the sink and pushed the empty can of paint-thinner aside. She would have to put dishwashing detergent on the shopping list: they were almost out. She still couldn’t believe that after so many years of daily martinis, her husband hadn’t noticed that his vodka tasted different.
She shut the door to the machine and walked quickly to the bathroom. She knew she only had a few minutes left. Dora glanced about the room: nothing was out of the ordinary. Mark’s body was safely hidden behind the curtain of the tub, and she’d cleaned up all of the vomit he’d sprayed during his shower. The poison had tinted his lips and fingers a periwinkle blue. Dora certainly hadn’t expected his body to thrash about the stall like it did. Now, he was curled up on his side, his knees pulled slightly up to his belly, his pale head lying motionless in a gelatinous puddle of dark red blood: an amuse-bouche of just desserts.
It was just as Dora slipped quietly behind the door of her dark bedroom, clutching the garden spade in her hand, that she heard the soft knock on the window of the breezeway.
Come on in, she thought. It’s open.