1. Dead husband

ONE

My husband is dead.

I never saw a body, but that doesn't change the fact that I've been haunted by his ghost for months now. Ever since I received the envelope in my mailbox about a week after Will seemed to fall off the face of the Earth, I've known he was dead, that I was to blame, and whether he's a real ghost or I've fucking lost my mind, he won't leave me the hell alone.

He haunts my dreams. He stars in my nightmares. I see him everywhere, hear his voice in my head, and know that—even in death—he's holding me to the vows I was too naive to understand.

‘Til death do us part… if only. He has to be dead, but he's here in my kitchen, hovering in the corner while I focus on my laptop screen, absently scrolling through Amazon, adding things to my cart.

He's wearing the same outfit he always is. The last time I saw Will, it was mid-March, and he had on a dark grey coat, black pants, and sneakers. It's May now, a pleasant spring in Merrill Grove, and I've put all of my coats, jackets, and sweatshirts away in the spare bedroom a few weeks ago. The kitchen is warm, and if Will was still alive and really here, he'd be sweating under that coat.

Me? I'm sweating under his unblinking stare.

I can't escape him. I've known William Burke for eight years, ever since I met him my second year of college when I was nineteen. I'd completely reinvented myself out of high school, and I was so flattered when Will asked me out the first time. A well-known lacrosse player for Fairview University where we both attended, I thought he might be the one to make me feel loved. Safe. Protected.

That's all I wanted, and Will gave me all that and more—until we were married fresh on the heels of graduation and the mask slipped.

Once Simone Walton became Simone Burke, I got to know the real Will. The man who had certain ideas about how he expected his wife to act. Forget the fact that I got my BA in communications. Will's wife would stay at home while he went to the office every day. I'd cook for him, clean for him, fuck him whenever he wanted, and he'd provide for both of us. Easy, since the Burkes have more money than they know what to do with, but with his wealth came the arrogance he was careful to conceal during our dating years.

Married? I was trapped, looking for a way out until I thought I might've found one.

It didn't work. Not the way I hoped, at least, and all that happened was that Will left me with a black eye, bruises around my throat, and the resolve to get away from him before he actually killed me the next time. I did my research. I know the statistics. Once an abuser escalates to strangling, odds of him killing his partner increase exponentially.

I told him I wanted a divorce, and he strangled me. So I took off one night, with nothing more than the clothes on my back, the ring on my finger, and as much cash as I could carry.

But online shopping proved to be my downfall, and when I used one of Will's cards to ship something to the house I'm renting here in Merrill Grove, he found me.

Will was only ever a monster behind closed doors. In the cul de sac I moved into, there's always someone watching. The night he found me, he stopped banging on my door when he realized he had an audience, promising he'd be back in the morning.

But he never returned—and that was all I needed to know even before I received the envelope.

Two weeks. For two weeks, I trembled behind my locked door, staring at my phone, waiting for it to ring. I blocked Will when I ran, but when he disappeared, I unblocked him, trying to see if he would answer just so I would know.

He never answered. I texted him, left voice messages, promised him things I have no intention of letting him ever have again… but Will was gone, and with me the only living family he has, I don't think anyone gave a shit except for maybe his boss at work.

Two weeks… and then, on one of my rare trips to the mailbox, grabbing the junk mail so that my post office worker didn't think I'd died or something, I found a letter addressed simply to Simone.

No stamp on it. No return address or even mine, either. Just my name, and a solid lump tucked inside the sealed envelope.

I think I knew what it was even before my shaky fingers tore open the flap. Tipping the envelope over, my mind went blank as a dull gold band, dotted with brown, fell into my palm. I didn't need to see the inscription inside of it—the date we were married in Connecticut—to know it was Will's.

Just like I didn't need to know what dried up, flaking blood looked like to tell Will's wedding band was covered in the stuff.

There was a note, too. Part of me wanted to chuck it before reading it, but I never would have forgiven myself if I did. So, breathless and afraid, curious and determined, I pulled out the torn scrap of paper from the envelope and read it to myself:

And that's how I learned that, in the cul de sac, someone is always watching—and they're watching me.

The Watcher… I don't know who they are. The handwriting was careful, each letter printer carefully, capitalized and spaced perfectly. Only the signature seemed to have any personality; that, plus the message, made me convinced the Watcher is a man.

A man who got his hands on my dead husband's wedding ring…

Before I could think better of it, I put the bloody ring in a small plastic bag, then hid it in my pajama drawer. With those ominous words running through my mind—consider yourself single… for now—I took off mine, too.

That one went right in the trash where it belongs. So did the note… before I plucked it back out and hid that with the ring.

Did I call the cops? Fuck no. Instead, I waited a few more weeks on edge, and though I told myself at the time it was because I expected another note from the Watcher, the truth is that I spent all that time convinced the cops would come to me, telling me that Will was dead and that I was going down for his murder.

That never happened, and a month later, the only one accusing me of being responsible for his death is Will himself.

I know that's just my guilty conscience. Anytime he hit me, I wished him dead. A dead Will couldn't hurt me—but he sure the hell can fuck with my mental state.

Like now.

Will is hazy. Because he's a ghost I've conjured up myself, he looks like one. If I look at him head-on, I can see right through him to the refrigerator behind him. He's in the same familiar pose—arms crossed over his chest, cheeks hollow, legs crossed at the ankle—as he stares at me.

I ignore him, adding a pair of fuzzy pink slippers to my cat.

"Another pair," my dead husband snorts. "Don't you have three already?"

In Springfield, maybe. When you're fleeing from your abusive ex, snatching your bunny slippers from the closet is the last thing on your mind. I've been slowly but surely buying up the things I need to make me feel like I'm truly at home, and slippers seem pretty essential at this moment.

Or maybe I'm just getting a reverse sort of pleasure, spending all of Will's money while I can.

I know he's dead. No one else does. I'm sure his work noticed he stopped showing up, but Will was very particular. Every single one of our bills was withdrawn out of his account automatically. So long as the rent is paid and the utilities stay on, who needs to know that he's gone. And since he's not spending his money…

The slippers come in light pink and dark pink. As a fuck you to my mental image of my late husband, I add a second pair.

Will huffs. "Look at me, Simone. Not the damn screen. We need to talk about this."

"We don't need to talk about anything," I mutter under my breath.

"You killed me?—"

"I didn't do it." It comes out in a singsong voice. I'm cracking, I know it, and not even distracting myself with the promise of instant gratification and another slew of brown packages being dropped off on my front porch is helping. "It wasn't me."

"Just like Simone. It's never your fault, huh? It's always someone else."

It was someone else—and I'm pretty sure I know who, too.

"Shut up, Will." I never would've had the balls to tell my husband that while he was alive, but he's not, and he can't hurt me anymore.

"Why? You know I'm telling the truth?—"

"No. I know that you're not real," I tell him, and the fact that I have to means I need the reminder myself. "So just leave me the fuck alone."

How many times did I tell that to Will while we were married? Too many, and it never worked then.

But I'm in control now.

Will vanishes in a wisp of nothingness, leaving me alone in the kitchen with my laptop and a full cart.

I rub my eyes, making sure he's really gone. Then, when I see that he is—for now, for now, for now…—I return to the keyboard.

I think I need a fuzzy pink bathrobe to match my new slippers.