The Shadow Wife

a language only Liam could understand, the little boy’s eyelids began to droop.

Liam set the books on the night table, settled lower into the pillows and turned his sleepy son so that he was resting against his chest. He kissed the top of Sam’s head through the blond curls, the scent of baby shampoo comforting in his nostrils. He felt like hugging him tightly, but didn’t dare for fear of waking him. When Sam was still like this, Liam felt a fragility in him, a need to protect him, always, from anything that might hurt him.

“I love you, Sam,” he whispered into his son’s clean hair.

If only he could share Sam with Mara. He wanted that more than anything. Of course, he did share him with her, as much as was possible. But when he was honest with himself, he had doubts about what sort of mother Mara would have been. She’d never had an interest in children and had been nothing but candid with him about that fact. Maybe he was kidding himself to think she would have been as smitten by Sam as he was.

He’d told Mara about Sam’s first steps and his first words, but Mara had only smiled her simple smile, the same expression she would have offered if he had said that Sam had been hit by a car. Once, he’d put that theory to the test by telling Mara he had some sad news.

“Your mother died,” he said.

Mara smiled.

“She was in a car accident.”

Smile.

“I made that all up, Mara,” he said quickly, upset with himself for even putting the awful thought into words. “Your mother will be here to visit you tomorrow, as usual.”

Mara’s constant smile, though, encouraged Sam to relate to his mother, and for that Liam was grateful. How long would that last, though? For how long would Sam be able to relate to her so easily, so unassumingly? Liam thought of the future—the first day of school, Sam’s teen years, his graduation, his leaving home, his wedding. When he pictured himself in the future, he was completely alone with his son.

He would always have a wife whom he loved, but who could never truly be a wife to him. Not in any way. She could not be a friend in whom he could confide or a partner with whom he could share life’s joys and sorrows. Nor could she be a lover to hold him close, to touch his body the way he hungered to be touched. He still reached for Mara in the middle of the night sometimes, only to find the cool, empty space on the bed where her body should have been. Confused for a moment, he’d turn on the light and then remember, and he’d want to scream and punch the walls. He had lost so much.

Sometimes, people who didn’t know what had happened, people in the music world, perhaps, would ask him why Sommers and Steele was no longer performing, and he’d have to explain. He and Mara had formed their little two-person folk group shortly after meeting, and they’d been fairly popular on the local club circuit. They both sang quite well, especially together, and they both played acoustic guitars. Mara would play the piano when one was available. People had commented on how well matched they were. Joelle had known that even before he and Mara had met. If it hadn’t been for Joelle, the two of them never would have been together. Liam told himself that he didn’t regret their meeting, that a few years with Mara was worth what he was going through now, but he wasn’t sure. He never sang these days, not even in the shower. He hated the sound of his voice alone. It had been Mara’s harmony that had made his voice whole.

Liam breathed in the scent of Sam’s hair again. He should get up and carry him into the nursery, but he felt weighted down on the bed, and he remembered the case in the E.R. What would he have said to that devastated man if Joelle had not rescued him? At least your wife died. That’s what he would have liked to say, and the thought made him feel instantly guilty. It was true, though. At least that man would have a fresh start. He had the hope of happiness. Liam would have explained to him that the baby would become his world. His reminder of his wife, his source of laughter and hope. But he knew those words would not have been helpful. Mara used to say she thought therapists who had “been there,” who had experienced the issues their clients were struggling with, were rarely as helpful as those who had not. They’d argued about that. An intellectual argument, the sort that was frequent between two bright and opinionated people. Now, though, he understood what Mara had meant. When he visited her earlier that evening, he even told her she’d been right, but her vacuous smile let him know she didn’t understand his words, much less the meaning behind them. He told her he would have been of absolutely no help to that man. He might even have done some harm, if not to the widower, then to himself, by trying to handle that family’s crisis.

Thank you, Jo.

Joelle had been so wise to know how that case would have affected him, and so truly loving to come down to the E.R. to save him from it.

He wouldn’t have survived this past year without Joelle. Their relationship had been one of respectful co- workers and good friends before Mara’s aneurysm, but Joelle quickly became his main source of support afterward. She shared his grief. She could get inside it with him because she loved Mara, too. She understood the reality of what was happening. She knew what the future held for Mara, as well as for him, and she let him talk about it, opening the door to his fury, and sometimes his tears. Not like Sheila, who never, not once during the past fourteen months, acknowledged Liam’s dilemma of having a wife, yet having no wife.

“Because she’s Mara’s mom, Liam,” Joelle had said to him. “She’s too busy seeing what’s happening to her daughter. She can’t see how it’s affecting you. Give her time.”

But he feared Sheila would never understand, no matter how much time passed. She had cared for her cancer- ridden husband for five years at home before his death, sacrificing her needs to take care of his, and Liam knew Sheila expected nothing less of him.

Liam and Joelle had never directly addressed what was happening to their relationship, but they grew closer over the months, stopping in each other’s offices at work for a bit of conversation and talking on the phone every night. Most of the time, he would call her. Other times, it would be the reverse. Either way, those calls became a routine, and if for some reason he wasn’t able to talk to her before going to bed, he would lie awake for hours before he could fall asleep.

They taught each other to smile and laugh again. To a grieving person, nothing was more seductive than laughter. Then there were the hugs, of course, the comforting embraces between good friends. At some point, though, those hugs became longer, tighter, followed by lingering touches. Her fingers would slide over his shoulder or wrist, his hand would brush an eyelash from her cheek.

He missed her. He missed talking to her every night. There was a vacuum around him at night now, after Sam fell asleep and he was alone with his thoughts.