His Third Wife Read online

  “His Third Wife”

  I don’t know what made me get into my car and drive straight to the Westin when I left the police station. Or do I know and what it was just remains too embarrassing to express in any weak word that would make me feel foolish or stupid? I tried to call my mother to talk me out of it. Only I didn’t say that. I just reminded her that Tyrian had to be at camp by 7 AM the next day. She’d have to let herself into my house and get clothes for him to change into. He needed his swimming trunks and sunblock—he’d get such bad burns on his shoulders. She pointed out that it was 4 AM. She wasn’t complaining. I know she heard something panicking in my voice. “You’re a grown woman now,” she said. “You make your choices. You pay for them.”

  I hung up the phone after saying good-bye, opened the car windows, and turned up the music. Peachtree is a brilliant spectacle of lights just before daybreak. Not anxious like Las Vegas or busy like New York City. Just random bursts of ordinary lights, a few up-to-date animated billboards and forgotten We’re Open electric blue front-door signage. All of this glittering brightness dotting a sleepy strip that’s so empty it dares you to race to the next red light. It’s like the world is over. Like one of those eighties movies where you wake up and everyone’s gone, stolen in the middle of your dream, leaving you alone to drift forever.

  This old Faith Evans song was playing on the radio. I started singing along, trying to forget where I was going and hoping maybe I’d drive right past the Westin and get on the highway that led home, but the music pulled me back to somewhere that I’d been. It was a memory of Jamison and I riding in his car. With the windows open. Listening to this Faith Evans song. Maybe we were driving along Peachtree. But the sun was out. It shined into his old Cadillac from every window. I leaned my head into his chest and let his hand dangle over my shoulder. We’d just been married a year or two, so we must’ve been about twenty-three. The song was a little too fast for my mood, but Jamison sang along and I squealed at the torturous sound of his voice. Not even a sweet moment like that could make his singing voice sound good.

  I was about to tell him to stop singing when he pulled the car over. He didn’t park. Just pulled over and left the car running.

  “What’s this?” I asked. “Where are we?”

  He said he wanted to dance with me.

  “Dance? Here? Now?”

  Jamison jumped out of the car and ran around to my side to open the door. “Come dance with me,” he said. “We never dance.”

  I tried to keep the door closed, but I was losing, and laughing. “We always dance,” I said.

  “Okay. We do, but I want to dance right now,” he said. He pulled me out of the car and I almost fell into him. He wrapped his arms around my waist and started singing again. “If you only knew, what you really do! . . .” He sounded like a wounded baby bird.

  “Please stop!” I hollered, wresting away from him and that horrible sound. He wouldn’t let me go though. He held me tightly in place in front of him and started humming the words in my ear. Soon, I stopped fighting and swayed with him. Right on the side of the street that may have been Peachtree.

  I was crying when I pulled into the Westin and gave the valet my car key. There was no way away from my memories. From a whole past life with someone who was a part of me. A real part of me. Someone who had ached with me and loved with me. Not even my bitter heart could protect me from that.

  Jamison opened his room door and saw my tears. He pulled me into his arms like he had that day when we’d danced to Faith Evans and told me everything was going to be okay.

  We were both too tired to talk about what had happened at the Rainforest or at the police station. The sun was threatening to shine soon outside the window. We could talk then. We crawled into the king-sized hotel room bed like it was ours and spooned just in case we were dreaming and reality was to arrive with daybreak to separate us again.

  I was drifting into some restless sleep when Jamison whispered in my ear.

  “Would you marry me again?” he asked drowsily like he was already half asleep.

  “What? Hunh?” I asked, though I’d heard him clearly in my ear.

  “Marry me.” This time his words sounded less like a question and more like an offering.

  “Marry you?”

  Jamison laughed. “Why do you keep answering me with questions?”

  “Because I can’t believe what you’re asking,” I said more clearly than I had before. “This is crazy. Too fast.”

  Jamison cleared his throat and turned me around to face him.

  “Then I’ll ask it slowly. Would you marry me?” he asked slowly. “That work for you now?”

  “I—That’s not what I meant. I meant it’s happening too quickly for me.”

  “Quickly? You know I love you. I never stopped.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Another question.” Jamison cupped my chin with his hand. “Do you love me?”

  “I—”

  “Don’t bullshit me. Don’t give me the ‘we’re divorced and I have to play from this side of the court’ response. Just tell me. Do you love me, Kerry?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So would you marry me?”

  “I can’t. I’m like, what—you’re married.”

  “I’m getting divorced. You know that,” he said.

  “So, I’m supposed to just be your third wife? Marry you again and be your third wife?”

  “Third time’s the charm.”

  “This isn’t a joke. Not if you’re serious,” I said and I heard a hunger in my voice that made me want to bite my lip.

  “I am serious. We should do it. Move past all of this shit and just do it.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I laughed lightly at his planning. “We can’t just get married and live happily ever after. We tried that already and failed.”

  “We were different people then—you, you were different. Now, you’re—”

  “What I am, you made me,” I said harshly so he could feel for a minute my pain. I knew I’d changed, but I’d had to. Had to discover my two feet so I didn’t fall down.

  I expected him to apologize, but he didn’t.

  “What I am, you made me,” Jamison repeated, and then for the first time I felt how my actions in the divorce and even before it had changed him. I knew of his darkness. But before I’d seen the suffering as a sign of my wins. Now I could see it as proof of his wounds.

  I turned and found my restless dream with Jamison’s arm wrapped around my waist.

  When I woke up, the arm was gone. I turned and saw the light on in the bathroom.

  “I’m not going to talk about this shit with you, Coreen,” Jamison said. The door was only halfway closed and I could hear him clearly. “Well, you saw it on the news. Fine. It doesn’t affect you. Do what you have to do. You do that and I’ll do what I have to do.”

  There was quiet. Jamison was cursing, but I knew he was talking to himself. Then I heard the phone rattling and he was repeating, “Where? Where? Where?” Jamison started cursing to himself again and came out of the bathroom. He was still fully dressed. We both were.

  “What’s going on? Who was that?” I asked. “Was it Coreen?”

  “Yes.” Jamison went to put on his shoes.

  I sat up in the bed.

  “What did she want? Where are you going?”

  “I need to handle this. I’ll be back.” He stood up and pushed his phone into his pocket. I could still hear it vibrating.

  “What? Is she here or something?” I looked around the room like she could be hiding under the bed. I remembered seeing her at the house that night when I’d found Jamison there. The wild, crazy look in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Jamison said soberly.

  “In this building? What does she want?”

  “I don’t know. I just need to go and calm her down. Get her to calm down. That’s all,” Jamison said.

  “Calm her down? You think you can calm a wo
man who’s traveled across the country and followed you to a hotel?” I asked. “Wait, does she know I’m here?”

  “I don’t think so. Look, just calm down, Kerry. I’ve dealt with this woman before. I know her. I know what she’s capable of. She just wants to see me. And that’s it. I’ll be right back down.”

  “Down? From where?” I was frantic, looking around the room for my shoes.

  I was about to get up, but Jamison stopped me.

  “Listen, we’re just meeting in the Sundial. It’s the restaurant on the roof. I don’t need a bodyguard. It’s just a woman. That’s all. Everything is fine. I’ve dealt with Coreen before. We’ll have coffee. I’ll give her some money. That’s it.”

  “I think I should go with you.”

  “No. I’m fine,” he said. “Everything is fine.” Then he lightened his tone a little. “We’ll order room service when I come back. Sound good?” He forced a smile.

  “Jamison, this isn’t right,” I said.

  “Do you trust me?” Jamison asked.

  “What?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do trust you.”

  “Well, try doing it right now. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  Jamison was about to walk out the door. I noticed that his gray suit pants were wrinkled in the back the way they always were when we were married.

  “Hey,” he called walking toward the door. “You relax and take a little nap. And think about what you’d say if I ever asked you to marry me again. Like formally. Down on one knee, a ring, the works. I might even call old Thirjane and ask for permission.”

  “You serious?”

  “Depends. Would you say yes?”

  “I might,” I said.

  “Might?” He laughed.

  “Yes. I’d say yes, Jamison. I’d do it.”

  Jamison grinned wide and Tyrian was in his cheeks.

  The phone started rattling in his pocket again.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Right back.” He went to go, but then turned around suddenly and jumped in the bed with me, kissing me all over my face.

  “Stop,” I hollered, fighting him off. “You’re so ridiculous!”

  He jumped back up.

  “Gone for real this time,” he said. “Be back.”

  I fell back into the pillows when the door closed behind him. Begged myself for an answer over what I was doing. I hadn’t known I was going to say what I’d said to Jamison. I was okay with admitting where it had come from then. I loved him. That was it. And I didn’t care anymore. I closed my eyes and tried to forget about everything.

  But I kept seeing red. Coreen’s red hair. The red in her eyes.

  I opened my eyes.

  I’d promised Jamison I was going to stay in the room and wait for him, but I kept looking at the door. And then I’d look at my shoes. And then I’d look at the door.

  I did trust him. He knew more about Coreen and her ways than I had. She wasn’t crazy. She wouldn’t do anything crazy.

  I looked at the door and then at my shoes.

  But what if she could? What if she had? Well, what was crazy? Was it showing up at the hotel? Was it demanding he see her when the sun was hardly in the sky?

  I closed my eyes again and promised myself I wouldn’t look at the door anymore. I’d force myself to sleep. I’d wake up with Jamison back in the room on one knee with one ring.

  I tried to keep my eyes closed that time, but there was the red again. Red like fire. Red like burning everything I loved.

  And that was it.

  I jumped out of the bed and into my shoes. I don’t remember if I closed the hotel room door behind me.

  When I got up to the restaurant, there was nothing but a cleaning crew there. Someone told me that they didn’t open until noon and when I told him I was looking for someone he said that he’d seen a man up there and he was looking for a woman, but he left. I asked if there was another open section to the roof and he told me I’d need to take the stairs on the side of the restaurant where the rotator was that turned the floor of the spinning Sundial around over the city. “But you can’t go up there,” he said to my back. “It’s not safe.”

  My heart was pounding as I climbed those stairs up the side of the spinning Sundial. It was early morning. The sun was up then and the wind was calm, but so high up the altitude had my head light and my skirt blowing up hurriedly. But I have to say, I wasn’t afraid for myself. I was afraid of what I’d find. What Jamison was facing. In my mind Coreen had grown into a big red monster, horns and fangs, anger and resentment.

  I kicked a door open that led to the little flat landing on the side of the restaurant. Jamison’s back was to me. Over his shoulder was a woman in a dress. But it didn’t look like Coreen. The person was bigger, had broad shoulders.

  “I don’t know who you are, but I came up here to meet Coreen,” Jamison said with his arms outstretched in a “T.”

  “Well, that’s good, because that’s who sent me,” the person in the dress said but in a voice I could tell didn’t belong to a woman.

  I tried to see why Jamison was standing back with his arms up and that’s when I saw it.

  “No,” Jamison yelled. “Stay back!”

  “What? What’s that?” I looked at the gun in the man’s hand pointed at Jamison and then at me. “He has a gun!”

  “No! Don’t point the gun at her,” Jamison said, pulling me behind him. “She’s not the one you’re here for. It’s me.”

  “Well, that’s the issue with these kinds of situations. You can’t have any witnesses,” the man said.

  “I can’t let you do anything to her. She has nothing to do with this. If Coreen sent you here, that’s it, but you have to let her go.”

  “Hurt you?” The man laughed. “You think I’m here to hurt you?” He cocked the trigger and straightened his arm. “I don’t get paid for that!”

  “Oh, my God,” I screamed. “He’s going to shoot!”

  Jamison fell back on top of me to shield me from the bullet, but where we expected to hear a bang there was nothing. He jumped up and when he saw the gunman getting ready to pull the trigger again, he rushed toward him.

  “No!” I screamed, feeling so alone and helpless there was no way I could imagine I was standing on top of one of the highest buildings in the most beloved city in the South. I would’ve looked around for someone to help. Would’ve called for someone to help, but everything was moving too quickly. I was nowhere. On top of everything. All I could hear was the hum from the rotator behind me. “Jamison!”

  Jamison and the man wrestled with the gun back and forth, turning it in every direction their muscles could will in the struggle and then back to one another, aiming it at their chests.

  Soon they were locked in a fight at the ledge that came up just beneath their waists and I kept hollering Jamison’s name, but I knew he couldn’t hear me. I looked around to see if I could find something to hit the man with, but there was nothing there. Just tiny stones and air vents. The rotator humming.

  And when I looked up, there was Jamison, finally looking at me. Finally looking into my eyes. His arms were held out to me. He was smiling. Maybe. And that’s when I realized what was happening. The gunman had Jamison bent over the ledge. And his arms reaching for me were just flailing at me.

  He was falling.

  Everything went white.

  “Jamison!” I ran to him. “Jamison! Jamison!”

  I probably should’ve noticed the man with the gun still pointed at me, inching in and threatening me. But I saw only my beloved, his legs, his shoes, go over the ledge as I ran to him, not thinking for a minute about what going over the ledge myself might mean.

  I reached for him. Tried to catch him, but it was too late. He was flying. Already dead when he was still in the sky.

  “Jamison!”

  I left myself. Went to some safe little place in my body. Where else could I go? I didn’t want to see. Or to hear. I di
dn’t want to know anymore of the truth. Give me another lie. The lie from the day before. The lie from a week before. Anything but the truth of that moment. There was no wanting that moment. No knowing that moment. I couldn’t be there. We couldn’t be there.

  The next thing I heard was the door I’d come through banging open again behind me. I turned around screaming for help thinking it was the gunman trying to get away, but when I looked at the door there was more than one gun pointed at me and the man was nowhere around. The men in front of me were in blue suits. Silver badges. Screaming. “Put your hands up!”

  “Jamison! He—” I tried to point toward the gunman, but I was alone then on the roof. I pointed to the ledge. “He needs your help. He fell!”

  “Step away from the ledge!”

  “Okay, okay!” I tried. “I just need help. I just need your help.” I stepped toward the officers and they came in toward me, one going for every limb to capture me. “Wait! Wait! What?” I hollered. “It’s Jamison. He fell! The man was here! He pushed him!” I was pointing over the ledge as they pulled me into a circle where someone cuffed my wrists together. “Wait! My husband!”

  “Are you Kerry Jackson?” a man with short gray hair asked Kerry.

  “Yes?”

  “We need you to come with us.”

  “What? Why? I didn’t do anything,” Kerry said.

  Two other officers came funneling about the maze of faces around Kerry.

  “Chief, we shut down the hotel. I spoke to the couple next-door to the room where Mayor Taylor was staying. They said they heard arguing. Cursing coming from the room not over an hour ago,” one said. “And the valet downstairs confirms that Ms. Jackson checked her car downstairs late last night.”

  “That was Jamison on the phone—” Kerry tried to explain. “He was arguing with Coreen. That’s who did this. Who sent the man with the gun here to kill Jamison. You have to find him. If you shut down the hotel. He’s still in here!”

  The other officer added, “A witness downstairs said she saw a woman on the roof right after Mayor Taylor was pushed. Some guy in the restaurant described Ms. Jackson as the woman who’d been up here earlier.”