“Seth hit Hannah. You need to know that. When I found out and confronted him about it he got rough with me, too.”

A muscle twitches in her temple, a tiny pulse.

“Goodbye, Regina.”

   THIRTY-ONE

When I leave Regina’s apartment, my head is spinning. I pause at the top of the stairs, my hand on the railing. Someone has scratched the word cunt into the metal with their keys. Regina could be lying about everything. I can’t actually trust my husband’s other wife, can I? Could it be that Seth lied to her, too? Lied about me and our relationship? I thought that perhaps he was keeping things from his shiny new wife, Hannah, but maybe he kept Regina in the dark, too. Had he lied to us all? Who was this man? Had I loved him so unconditionally that I’d gouged out my own eyes? Seth, who told me that Regina didn’t want children, and that’s why he sought out a second wife. Seth, who never told Regina that I’d miscarried our baby. There are so many secrets, and I’ve been blind for too long. It makes me feel sick that I’ve allowed all of this to happen. I need to speak to Hannah, make her tell me what’s going on. Where has he hidden Hannah?

I drive back to the Cottonmouth house, feeling worse by the minute. My stomach makes a loud appeal for food. When was the last time I ate? I pull into a drive-through and order a sandwich and a soda, but when I unwrap the foil, the sight of it makes me feel ill. I throw it away, sipping delicately on the Coke. I’m feverish, my face clammy and warm. I stumble into the house, my head spinning. The empty walls swim around me, and the smell of paint and rot makes me gag. Suddenly, I don’t want to be here. I’ll sleep just a few minutes, enough to make me feel better. I duck into the room and lock the door behind me. It’s only eight o’clock, but my body aches from exhaustion. I crawl into the stale-smelling bed, my eyes heavy, and I sleep.

“Thursday?”

I sit up in bed, groggy, and reach for my cell. It’s not there. I can’t find the time. I’m holding a phone to my ear and someone is saying my name. That’s right. I’m in Portland. I left my cell phone in the corner of an elevator. This is a burner.

“Yeah...” I say, struggling to untangle the sheets and sit up. “Who’s this?”

A woman says my name again. “Thursday—” And then, “It’s Regina.”

Suddenly, I’m wide awake, my senses on full alert. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and stand up.

“What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

“No...” Her voice is uncertain.

I pace the tiny space to the window and back to the bed, the strange phone clumsy in my hand.

“Seth knows you’re here. I told him you came to the firm. He’s looking for you.”

I sit down abruptly. I’m not surprised. But how long until he tracks me down?

“Why are you telling me?”

There’s a long pause on her end. I can hear her breathing into the phone, clogged breath like she’s been crying.

“Can we meet somewhere to talk?”

“When?”

“Now,” she says. “There’s an all-night diner two blocks from my apartment. It’s called Larry’s. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

“All right,” I say cautiously. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“I don’t think you have any other choice.” She hangs up. She’s an attorney; she’s used to getting the last word.

I hang up the phone and begin searching for my clothes. The only thing relatively clean is my orange sweater. I pull it on and slide into my jeans. My hair is a dirty mess. I brush it into a quick ponytail, splash water on my face, and I’m out the door five minutes after Regina’s call ended. It’s only when I turn on the ignition to my car that the dashboard lights up and I see that it’s 4:30 in the morning. What would possess her to call in the middle of the night?

I’m seated in a booth in the nearly empty Larry’s with a cup of coffee in front of me when Regina walks through the doors. She’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair in a knot on top of her head. She could be mistaken for a college student. She has a backpack slung over a shoulder—not the kind you run away with, just the kind you use as a purse. I watch as she surveys the diner, looking for me. My breath is jagged. I lift a hand as her head turns my way and she catches my eye. She takes her time working her way over to where I am, and I have the feeling she’s questioning her decision to come here. She slides into the seat across from me, slipping her arms out of the backpack. I notice right away that her eyes are swollen and red. She takes a minute to settle in, fussing with nothing, before looking up. She is here, I realize, to unload a burden.

“Same as her,” she barks when the server approaches our table.

I smile at him apologetically as he hurries off. It makes her angry to be honest. A hazard of her job. She reminds me a little of my sister, bossy and so sure of herself that she comes across as irritated with everyone else. My sister and I are so different; our relationship has always felt tepid, something we could both do without. So for the sake of our mother, we try to see each other at least once a month, which usually ends up being an awkward dinner. We document the night with an overly enthusiastic selfie that we then text to our mother. She gets so excited that we’re hanging out that it makes the whole ritual more bearable.

I decide to keep the upper hand and be irritated with her for being irritated with me.

“Well?” I say, my voice terse. “Why am I here?”

She swipes her fingers under her eyes and then checks them for mascara. You washed it all off this afternoon, I want to remind her. Then she looks at me squarely and says, “The first year Seth and I were married, I had a miscarriage.”

My heart sinks. I want to reach out and touch her hand, but there’s something so stony about her face that I hold back. Regina doesn’t seem like the type who wants comfort. I don’t do the typical I’m sorrys, either. We aren’t two girlfriends sharing heartache over coffee.

“Okay...” I say. My hands wrap around my empty mug for lack of anything better to do. The caffeine is already in my system and making me jittery.

Plenty of women have miscarriages, most of them early in the pregnancy. Maybe she’s trying to find common ground.

“I was twenty-one weeks,” she says. “I didn’t know about...yours. Seth... He never told me.”

I let go of my coffee mug and sit back. “Okay,” I say again. “What did he tell you?”

She glances at me, unsure. “He said that you just hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. That you were trying.”