My New Year’s resolution was to start running. Our kids were finally all in school, and I could focus on me. I still hadn’t lost the bulk of the weight from three back-to-back pregnancies. The pounds had wrapped around my waist like I was a bear putting on fat for my winter hibernation, and I was done living with it. I was unhappy with myself. I wanted to feel sexy again. My dear husband, that sweet man, told me I looked fine, but I knew he understood because a few days before Christmas he presented me with new running clothes and shoes. He’d done his research for me. He wanted me to be happy.
I ran at night. I didn’t feel the need to share with the world the unfortunate ways my thighs flexed and wobbled with every step. After only a week, my nightly run became an escape for me. I was sleeping better than I had in years, which meant I had more energy for my kids and for Dear Husband when he was home. We laughed more. Enjoyed each other’s company more. He called just to see how my day was going or just to tell me he loved me. I thought our relationship was stronger than ever. I was wrong.
That night was clear and cold with a sliver of a new moon in the sky. People were still turning on their decorations and letting the Santas and reindeers play. Someone still had a recording of a choir singing “Ave Maria” on an endless loop, and in the empty streets, the music followed me as I ran down the neighborhood blocks. Street after street of LED Christmas lights and fake snow on cacti. Winter in Las Vegas. My favorite season.
When my step counter beeped that I had made it another mile, I slowed my pace. There was a stitch in my side and my calves ached. I walked another block or so before I came upon a wall with a gaping hole in it. A nearby streetlight helped me see the black tire marks left on the sidewalk. I couldn’t remember seeing any recent posts on the neighborhood message board about an accident in the four-mile stretch of homes that made up Weston Heights. I’d post about it the next day. Maybe we should start a new petition for more speed bumps in the neighborhood. Our kids walked these streets; we needed them safe.
I leaned in to have a look at the house. It was a similar shape to our home. All the houses in this area were built by the same builder over about fifteen years. From the 1950s until the mid-1960s. This block of homes seemed newer. The roofs were pitched a little differently but inside all the floor plans were the same. This house was dark except for a weak glow of light slipping through blinds in one upper window at the back. The small backyard was neatly tended. There was a small patch of open grass on one side; the other side had a covered hot tub and evenly spaced pavers that led to the sliding doors under an awning. The only blemish was the ruined retaining wall and the young palm tree that had given its life when the wall fell atop it.
A car went by on the street behind me, and I started to shrink back, ashamed of being nosy, when the car’s headlights showed me the vehicle parked in an RV spot next to the house. My stomach clenched. A second car came and went and helped me confirm what I’d seen. It was DH’s truck, black and hulking in the dark like a dog hiding when it knew it had done something wrong. If I had any doubts it was his truck, they were dispelled by the vanity license plate, which read 1HUBBY. Not quite two weeks ago, on Christmas morning, I’d gotten up early to install it on his truck. The kids and I even put a huge red bow on the truck. I had surprised him and now here he was surprising me.
This made no sense. He’d told me he was working late. He was always working late. He said he was overdue on a major project. He had to get it done before the client tried to back charge the company. He’d be working all night, for days if necessary. I had to have a sitter watch the kids for me so I could go run. But he was here. Not at work and not at home where he belonged.
A first-floor light turned on. Through a window I saw a woman with red hair walk into the room and stand in front of the small window. Without thinking, I clambered down into the yard and moved closer to the house. The woman was looking down and nodding her head. I could see the high arch of one of those pot filler faucets in front of her. Then there was DH. I saw him move up behind her. She seemed to lean back against him. His dark head bent over her. He was kissing her neck. Then his big hand grabbed her by the throat. I saw her head jerk upward. His lips were at her ear, and he shook her. She had to be on her tiptoes. Her hand flew up and pulled at his. My own hand went to my throat. Why was he doing this to her? Should I stop him? My DH had never done this to me. Never grabbed me or even bruised me. His other hand slipped down the front of her shirt until it was cupping her breast. Then she was turning and wrapping her arms around his neck. I saw him smiling as his head tilted toward hers. I watched, mouth agape, as he wound a hand up into her hair and kissed her slow and easy as you please. They knew their way around each other’s limbs. Clearly, they had done this many times. They sank out of view. I imagined them on the kitchen floor, bodies pressed together. My husband and this woman. This woman I knew was his High School Girlfriend.
I backed away, then I was out of the yard, back up on the sidewalk, and running home. I paid the sitter, checked on my children, still safe and sleeping soundly in their car-shaped beds, and then I cried in the shower. I’d been so foolish. I’d ignored the warnings.
At first, HSG had been nothing but a whisper, an anecdote. An email from my father-in-law to our shared account informing us that he had run into the mother of that girl DH had dated in high school. Did we know she was moving back? Maybe she needed a real estate agent? Would Dear Husband reach out and ask her? My FIL would come by and make sure we had his new and improved business cards. He had retired a couple of years ago and after a summer of sitting around had decided that getting his real estate license was just the thing to make him happy in his golden years. FIL had sold exactly one house and he berated us if we didn’t hand everyone we met his business card.
Then at a Christmas party hosted by Dear Husband’s friend from school, the hostess asked him, “Did you hear that she’s back?”
I felt his body go still next to mine, then he smiled and said, “I guess it’s true then. Vegas really is back. All the cool people are moving here.” The hostess rolled her eyes and then it was all talk about the next office golf tournament and the colds their children had. Later, in the kitchen where we were making fresh rum and cokes, the hostess playfully hip-checked me and said, “It was high school. She was so pretty with that red hair and all but a little full of herself, you know? She’s nobody you need to worry about.”
I laughed it off because at that moment it hadn’t occurred to me to be worried. Some flame-haired old girlfriend rising from the ashes of high school? What did I care? We had beautiful kids and we had each other. We didn’t want for anything. I guess I was wrong. My husband had wanted something I didn’t have, and he’d found it in her.
In the days that followed, I didn’t know what to do except to pretend I knew nothing. I kept running right to her house every night I could. How funny was it that he couldn’t stay away from her, and neither could I? Sometimes his truck was there; sometimes not. Then I went home to our kids and sometimes he was home, and instead of being happy he was there, I wondered if I’d just missed him leaving her house. I wondered if he knew I knew. I wondered if she’d seen me lurking. But Dear Husband hadn’t changed. Still patient and kind. He played with our kids. He washed dishes after dinner. He helped at bath time. He still looked like the perfect husband. I never would’ve thought another woman could lure him away.
My DH had one great love. If asked, he’d say it was my stuffed pork chops—which are phenomenal—but if pushed, he’d say I was his one great love. Now his actions said otherwise. How else to explain an affair? How could my DH, the dumb, beautiful, lying bastard, still have a thing for her?
A week later, I was back at her house. I had decided that if he was there, I would confront him. DH’s truck wasn’t there. The house was dark. Feeling bold, I climbed over what was left of the wall, nearly falling once when a block shifted under my weight, and landed on the forbidden ground of her yard. I felt a perverse surge of joy at invading her space. The dinky yard with the low-end spa. We had an in-ground pool. Wasn’t that worth staying together for? A loving wife, three beautiful kids, and a pool! Maybe I should’ve just left him. Was that what he wanted? An easy out?
I swiped at the tears that welled up. I should’ve gone home. It was too cold to be out stalking this stranger. It would’ve been mortifying to be caught crying out here. I had to crawl up to the top of the blocks before starting down sideways to get back down to the sidewalk.
“Hey,” said a voice in the dark.
Startled, I lost my footing and tumbled back in, scraping my knee on the blocks before I hit the ground. I tried to locate the person behind the voice in the darkness of the yard. She materialized out of the night like a magic trick. One minute, nothing. The next, a mistress approached me. HSG dressed in jeans and a UNLV sweatshirt, holding a long-stemmed glass filled with cheap box wine, probably. She tiptoed over to me barefoot and stopped a couple of feet from me.
“Why were you climbing into my yard?”
“I wasn’t,” I babbled. “I’m so sorry. I was being nosy. I just wanted to peek at your yard. I wanted to see how badly it was damaged.”
“Can you believe this shit?” She moved closer and gestured at the ruin of the wall with the glass, nearly spilling the contents. “Somebody did a hit-and-run on my wall.” Her voice was shrill. Too high-pitched to be pleasant. I couldn’t believe he loved her. I couldn’t believe she was barefoot in January. Sure, desert winters were mild compared to the rest of the country, but cold was cold. I was twice her size and wearing two layers of clothing and I was still shivering. Though perhaps that was because of something other than the cold.
“It’s terrible what people do to each other,” I said.
“It is and the fucking home warranty doesn’t cover this. Look at my palm tree.” She squatted down to pat the remains of the tree.
“It’s too bad. Your landscaping was lovely.” Why was I still talking to this woman? I needed to go home. DH and I needed to have a talk. I stood up and grimaced in pain. My knee stung. I pulled off a glove to touch it. There was a hole in my leggings and my fingers came away wet. “Well, you have a good night.”
“Are you hurt? I have bandages. Come in the house.”
How could I pass this up? “Sure. I’m Kate, by the way.”
“I’m Gwen.” She linked arms with me, the stalker and now invited guest.
Once inside, she sat me down at her dining room table and went to fetch a first aid kit from another room. From my position I could see into her kitchen with its tired peel-and-stick linoleum floor, molded kitchen counters, and white-painted cabinets. It seemed the only attempt to modernize the room in this house that was a decade or so newer than mine was that pot filler faucet I’d seen before. Its arched neck glinted in the overhead light. I looked over the room and my eye kept returning to the floor in front of the sink. Had he made to love to her right here on this floor? I could imagine her there, flat on her back on the bare floor, then my brain corrected. DH would never let her be uncomfortable. He would’ve made a pillow of his clothes for her. My DH was a gentleman. A gentleman who liked it rough it seemed. My mouth suddenly filled with saliva, and I thought I was going to be sick. Then I heard her footsteps and I swallowed down the urge and steeled myself for her return.
She reappeared, smiling as she handed me the first aid kit. I dabbed peroxide on my knee, added a little ointment, and applied a bandage. I heard her murmuring to herself and looked to see her frowning, then she pulled a new wineglass from a cupboard and filled it nearly to the brim with wine. Surprisingly, it wasn’t box wine, but it looked cheap, nonetheless. I took a moment to look her over in the light of the kitchen. Fine lines decorated the corners of her mouth and eyes. The red hair was a little too red to be natural. Overall, though, she had aged well. Not as well as I had, but she had nostalgia on her side.
“Do you want a tour of the house? I just moved in, but I have big plans for it,” she said.
I agreed. Limping slightly, I followed her. HSG, in her role as tour guide, led me from room to room, flicking the lights on and off as we went, her drink swaying back and forth. Never spilling, though. Each room was the same. White everything. Minimal effort. Everything about this house screamed rental and loneliness. It felt empty. Did she expect to fill this house with my family? Would she edge me out slowly until what was mine became hers? Finally, we arrived at the master bedroom.
“My sanctuary,” HSG giggled. She downed the last of her wine and set the glass on a table covered with candles. Candles covered every surface. Candles burned on each nightstand. Some in the adjacent bathroom, too. Their flames made shadows dance on the walls. Long, lacy curtains covered cheap plastic blinds on the windows. The bed, though. This was what she was proudest of. It was this four-poster number with a canopy decked out in a pink and white confection of tulle. I noticed she had long, silky-looking scarves tied to each post. She jumped onto her bed, letting her feet dangle, setting off an avalanche of pillows tumbling to the carpet. Pools of candle wax trembled on the nightstands.
Automatically, I started picking up the pillows and placing them back on the bed. One was a pink and lavender pillow with an embroidered E centered on it, and I looked from it to HSG stretched out on her bed, rambling on about candles and which ones she burned for which occasion.
“. . . and sometimes I just burn them all for the hell of it,” she was saying. I noticed a shadow on her pale skin. A bruise. I stepped closer. It was a bruise, in what seemed to be the exact spot where Dear Husband’s wide, strong hand had gripped her neck that first night in the kitchen. It wasn’t a love bite like he had given me on occasion but something more violent and somehow more personal. He’d given her pain and they’d gotten off on it. I gave him children, and he gave himself to her.
I saw DH in this too-high bed with its obnoxious little-girl canopy and too many pillows. I saw him grabbing her like he had that night in the kitchen, grunting and sweating over this woman, alternately cussing and praying, saying fuck you good and thank god yes in that funny way he had. The sentences clipped and fragmented by the force of his lust and love. I felt my face contort, and I realized that I wanted to hurt her. Bite her. Maim her.
I went from standing next to the bed to launching myself at her. She yelped in surprise as our bodies collided. I used my weight to hold her in place. My knees trapped her arms against her sides. I pressed the too-pretty pink pillow down over her face. She bucked and wriggled, but I was steady. I was solid. I was his wife.
“He’s my husband,” I said over and over while she fought me. The bed shook with her wasted efforts.
I thought about the last time Dear Husband and I had tried to have sex. He’d come home early, and we’d kissed and laughed our way into the bedroom. Once there, he’d stubbed his toe on the bed frame. Then I’d screamed when he pulled my hair and I’d ended up elbowing him in the face when he clumsily tried to free me. We rolled apart, halfheartedly laughing. I’d gone to sleep soon after, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my chest. The next morning, DH sported a black eye. I went to the DMV and put in the order for the personalized plates that day. I tried. I was still trying to save us. I wonder when he decided to stop.
I saw the curtains catch fire. Then I realized she wasn’t moving anymore. I got off her slowly, moving to the other side of the bed. There were no signs of life under the pillow. I grasped a corner and snatched it away. My heart was hammering in my chest. What did I expect? For her to jump up and yell Boo? I placed a shaking hand on her body and felt the very slight rise and fall of her chest. Unconscious, but definitely still alive. There was a sensation rising in me. I thought for a moment it was relief. I hadn’t killed her. I hadn’t done a terrible thing. But no, it was anger mixed with . . . yeah, a little bile. I was nauseated by what I’d done to this woman. What I’d tried to do.
I swung myself off the bed and winced as my knee flexed. One glance down showed me blood oozing from under the bandage. I checked around her and found blood on the duvet. I could take the blanket with me but even if she didn’t remember that it had been me here with her, she would wonder where her duvet had gone. Then she’d remember me, tripping into her backyard. I couldn’t leave it. The blood was concrete proof I’d been here. I looked at the burning curtains and the flames licking at the delicate lace patterns, transforming them into smoking black tatters. So many candles. Fire hazards everywhere. It was risky but the idea of the fire getting rid of all my problems was too tempting. With renewed purpose, I put my gloves back on and grabbed the lighter off the nightstand, and then lit the rest of the candles in the room.
That done, I looked down at HSG—Gwen. I couldn’t believe that she’d come back into town and tried to take my husband. I tipped one candle over onto the bed and watched the material begin to darken and smoke. I set the curtains on the other side of the bed on fire, too. Then I was out the back door, across the yard, and through the opening in the wall. Back on the sidewalk, I took a deep breath of cool, crisp night air. I was shaking from exertion and too much adrenaline. Another deep breath and I headed home.
The next morning, as I was giving the kids breakfast and finishing my morning coffee, I heard the local newscaster reporting on a fire:
“Firefighters were alerted to smoke and flames last night. Unfortunately, the resident, a woman, appears to have died from smoke inhalation. Preliminary cause of fire is believed to be unattended candles.” They cut to the fire chief proclaiming the dangers of candles and mentioning the fire safety measures everyone needed to take. “Smoke alarms would have saved this woman’s life.”
No, smoke alarms would not have saved her. I shut the television off and heard DH singing his way through his morning shower. I sent the kids off to get dressed and decided to join him in the shower. Maybe I could talk him into holding me down on the bed. Maybe he’d like it if I bruised him. 
Nikki Dolson’s stories have appeared in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021, TriQuarterly, Tough, and Thuglit, among other publications. She is the author of the novel All Things Violent and the story collection Love and Other Criminal Behavior.
Illustration: Sam Hadley.
