There is an elderly man already seated at one of the computers, wearing a fedora and jabbing intently at the keyboard with two pointer fingers. He doesn’t look up when I pass him and so I have time to stare at his screen. A dating website. He’s writing messages to a prospective partner. Good for you! I think. Seth would have called me nosy, made fun of my “all-seeing eye” as he called it. I have to remind myself that Seth’s opinion no longer counts, and that if it weren’t for my nosiness I’d still be in the dark, married to a man I only thought I knew.

I find a computer near the back and slide into the plastic chair. My mouth is gritty from the diner coffee and nap in the car, my hair a greasy mess. The librarian on this floor keeps shooting glances at me like I might run off at any minute with one of the outdated computers tucked underneath my arm. I tap my finger impatiently on the desk as I wait for the internet to load, glancing around every few minutes like Seth might walk in and catch me here. The screen finally pops up and I type in my first search, chin resting on my palm. There are three things I have come here to learn about, and Seth’s parents are first up: Mama and Papa Polygamy! I type their names into the search bar, the names that Regina gave me: Perry and Phyllis Ellington, along with murder/suicide. There are no articles, no newspaper coverage. The only thing I can find is an obituary dating their births and deaths, their surviving child listed as Seth Arnold Ellington. According to Seth, there were other siblings from his other mothers, siblings much younger than him, since his father married his other wives when Seth was a teenager. But since Perry and Phyllis lived outside of the norms of society, there is little information on how to find Seth’s half siblings, who are now barely teenagers themselves. Perry’s legal marriage was to Seth’s mother, who now shared a grave with him. The only people who knew what truly happened to Perry and Phyllis were the other wives...and my husband.

Abandoning that search, I think about the drug Regina had mentioned at the diner: misoprostol. A drug used to start labor, used in conjunction with mifepristone, it is said to be effective in bringing about abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy. Taken by mouth, it is safe to use until the forty-ninth day of pregnancy, after which it proves to bring on serious risks in the mother. My hands shake as I think back to the day my baby died. I move the mouse from link to link. I feel cold from the inside out, like my internal warmth has been snuffed out by the information in front of me. Used later in pregnancy it’s more dangerous for the mother, causing low blood pressure, loss of consciousness and infections after the abortion has occurred. I let go of the mouse and lean back in my chair, covering my eyes with my palms. The day of my miscarriage, Seth had stopped at the gas station for snacks. I remember the paper cups of tea he carried out to the car, how grateful I’d been for such a caring husband. The tea, the tea he said was sent by his dead mother. Oh my God. If Regina was right, it was Seth who caused the miscarriage.

The pain I feel is almost unbearable. At the time of my miscarriage, I’d not seen the medical report from the hospital; I hadn’t wanted to. Seth had been my protector during those days: grieving with me, sheltering me from the things I didn’t want to hear. I wouldn’t have managed to get through that time without him. He’d told me that his decision for a second wife came when Regina decided that she didn’t want children. Why then would he end the life of his unborn child, endangering my life, too? Nothing makes sense. I want to pull at my own hair, scream from frustration. There can be no answers until Seth gives them to me. I want to see my medical files. I want to hear it all.

My last search is the most painful, prompted by Regina’s last words before we parted ways outside of the diner:

“I think there’s something wrong with him.”

   THIRTY-THREE

Despite how hard I try, I can’t stop thinking about what Regina told me. Realization is a slow boil, but once you’re there, the anger is hot and spitting. My husband is sick—not just controlling, but disgustingly sick. Why had I never pressed him about his home life? He hid his trauma, blowing off my questions about his childhood, redirecting everything to me. And now I’m horribly afraid for Hannah—for her unborn baby.

I hadn’t always been so trusting, had I? There was a time when I wouldn’t allow newcomers into my life, lest they distract me from my goals. What had it been about Seth that drew me in? Sure, he was handsome, but lots of men were. And he flirted with me, but that wasn’t a first, either. There were men all around me who spoke, and offered, and prodded for my attention. I had received their interest with a detached politeness. Sometimes I went out to dinner with them, or grabbed a beer, or did the things that girls my age were supposed to do, but none of it ever felt good—the way I imagined it was supposed to feel. Not until Seth.

When I try to pinpoint why I’d been so drawn to him, wooed by his advances, it always boiled down to one thing: he’d been so interested in everything I was. He asked questions and seemed fascinated by my answers. I remember the way he raised his eyebrows when I said something witty, the soft, amused curl of his lips as he listened to me speak. It had seemed at the time that he didn’t have any ulterior motive, he was just as drawn to me as I was to him: pure chemistry. He’d quizzed me for my exam on that very first night in the coffee shop, and asked me detailed questions about why I wanted to be a nurse. No one had ever asked me those questions before, not even my parents. But that was it, wasn’t it? He’d had a carefully concealed plan, a strategy. A woman like me, detached from her family, devoted to her studies, was secretly longing for a connection. I don’t think I cared who it would be: a man, a woman, a friend or a long-lost aunt. I was waiting for someone to see me. I don’t know if I’m angrier with myself more for falling for it in the first place, or for not seeing it sooner. But I know that as humans we want to be heard, and so when someone does the hearing, we feel a connection to them. I was no different than any other woman who’d been made to feel special and then, over the course of time, abandoned by the man she’d given everything up for. Seth was a charlatan, a charmer. He used his personality to manipulate women’s emotions. By the time he told me about Regina, I was already in love with him. I was willing to accept anything he had to offer just to be loved by him. I’m ashamed to think about it.

Right now Hannah is pressed somewhere under his thumb, blindly trusting, daydreaming of the life they’d have with their child. If what Regina had skirted around is correct, Seth is planning to do to her what he had done to us.

I sit on a random bench in the city, a line of food trucks in front of me. A man in a Dodgers hat stands close by, looking longingly at the taco truck across the street. I wonder why he doesn’t just get a taco and make himself happy. It starts to drizzle but I don’t move. There is something bothering me about all of this, something that isn’t adding up. I close my eyes and try to fit all of the pieces together. Regina, Thursday, Hannah and Seth: what do we all have in common? What parts are we playing in Seth’s game? Some people have moments of absolute clarity; my moment comes like a slouched lurker. I entertain it only for a few moments before deciding what to do. I stand up just as the man in the Dodgers hat jogs across the street. Instead of joining the taco line, he heads for a salad truck. I smile to myself as we both make our choices.