Chapter 3

3

After Poppy goes home, I climb the spiraling staircase, which creaks and groans with each step, until I reach the second floor.

I never go higher than that—I haven't ventured even once up to the attic, which contains a single room that locks from the outside. Grant says the room is used as storage for items that belonged to his late wife, Rebertha, who lived here before me and died in a tragic accident long before we met. I don't even have the key.

As I pad through the hallway, a sound comes from up above. During the time we have lived in this house, I have often heard mysterious noises—thumps and moans and once something that sounded very much like a scream but Grant insisted was the wind. He explained that these are normal "house sounds," and I just don't understand because I've never lived in an old house before.

I stop short as the ceiling trembles with another thump from up above. The noise sounded very much like footsteps. Is somebody up there? Is that possible?

No, it couldn't be.

I push away thoughts of the mysterious attic room which I was never allowed to enter and continue to the master bedroom. Even though Grant is gone, I still sleep on the right side of the bed. I can't seem to break that habit even now that I have a whole king-sized bed to stretch out on. Every night since his death, I have jolted awake several times, expecting to see him sleeping soundly on the mattress beside me. But his side of the bed is always empty.

The bed still smells like him. The sheets have been changed twice since his death, yet the scent of him lingers. The whole room smells like his sandalwood cologne.

I wish I had something in my life to take my mind off the death of my husband. I gave up my job as a real estate agent soon after Grant and I married. At first, I was reluctant to give it up. But he talked me into it.

"My job is my life," I remember telling him.

"But you don't need a job," he insisted. "I have more than enough money to take care of the two of us for several lifetimes. My job is to make you happy, and if I'm doing it right, you should never have to work."

And when he looked into my eyes, I believed he meant it. He tried so hard to make me happy. He said he loved the way my eyes lit up when he gave me presents, which was something he did with great frequency. He loved to spoil me.

Giving up my job was something I came to regret. After a while, all the days started to feel the same. I was bored. There was more to life than watching television and shopping and book club meetings. But I tried to be the perfect little wife, hoping to please him.

In the middle of the afternoon, I got the phone call. It was the police, telling me about a terrible car accident on the Long Island Expressway. There was only one victim—my husband—and they needed me to identify his body. I drove down to the morgue as fast as I could, narrowly avoiding an accident myself. In spite of how mangled he was, it took me five seconds to positively identify my husband. I knew that face very well.

"I'm so sorry," the police officer told me as I wiped away the single tear that was rolling down my cheek.

This must have been how Grant felt when Rebertha died in that awful accident at sea.

I try to block out the memory of that fateful day as I open the walk-in closet of the bedroom. The left half is stuffed with Grant's suits for work. I run my fingers along the expensive fabric of one of the dark ones. I never thought there was much difference between a cheap and an expensive suit, but Grant taught me otherwise. He always loved to look his best.

And then there's my side of the closet on the right. Grant insisted I get rid of all the outfits from the before time—before Grant came into my life, when everything I wore was purchased on sale from the discount rack. He bought me all new clothes with labels like Givenchy and Prada and Gucci.

And stuffed at the far end of the row of dresses is the one dress I will never forget. It taunts me, innocently dangling from that hanger. I run my fingers along the smooth fabric, my heart pounding all the way up in my throat.

No. I will not think about that dress anymore. That time in my life is officially over.

I flick off the lights in the closet. Same as downstairs in the hall closet, the lights overhead are LEDs. Grant never understood why I insisted on installing them. If he'd known the reason, he never would have agreed.

I close my eyes, remembering the reflection of Grant's face in the mirror of the sunglasses display. At the moment, it seemed so incredibly real. But now that I'm looking back on it, how could it have been? Grant is dead . I identified his body at the morgue. I attended his funeral, where they lowered his coffin into the ground and buried him six feet under. The only way I could have seen him is if he were a ghost, and I would be so mad if that happened, because it would seriously be a super-cheap twist.

I must have imagined it. After all the trauma I have been through, it's not entirely surprising that I would imagine I'm seeing Grant's face, even when he's clearly not really there.

The herbal tea that I forced myself to drink is sloshing around in my bladder. My next stop is the master bathroom, with its heated floors and toilet seat. Heated floors and toilet seats are some of the things I never knew I needed in my life until I had them. If heaven exists, I guarantee every bathroom has heated toilet seats and toasty-warm floors. Although I can't be sure that's where I'm going.

The toilet flushes automatically when I stand up. It's quite a special toilet—I can't emphasize that enough. As I wash my hands in the sink, I catch a glimpse of an object lying in the small wastepaper basket next to the toilet, and my stomach clenches.

One week ago, I pulled that test strip out of its wrapper. I sat on the heated toilet seat and watched the two blue lines appear that would change my life forever.

I'm pregnant.