I didn’t buzz the apartment when I got to Shelly’s building. I waited until someone else was going in and I slipped in behind him. I raced up the stairs and banged hard on Shelly’s door. She didn’t answer. I rapped again, and she still didn’t answer. I lifted my foot to kick the door open, and suddenly it opened wide. Shelly stood behind the door, staring out at me.

“I was wondering when you would get here,” she said. She left the door open and walked back into the room.

“If I’d known where you live, I’d have come the first day.”

“Mason, you and I both know it’s the only time I get with her, and when she’s here, she’s not even herself. She’s one of them. But I take what I can get. I’m not going to give her back when I just got her.”

Shelly was dressed the same as always. She had on a tan pencil skirt, a pink shirt, and she wore a strand of pearls around her neck. For the first time ever, I noticed the pendant hanging near her cleavage. That was my necklace. I’d given it to Lynn, and I hated that it was around Shelly’s neck. She lifted her hand and wrapped her fingers around the pendant, as though she could protect it from my gaze.

But I didn’t really care about the pendant. I just wanted Lynn.

“Where is she?” I asked.

She snorted. “Which one?”

Any of them. “Lynn.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know where Lynn is. I can promise you that she wouldn’t come here on purpose. She hates my guts. But you know that already, don’t you?”

She walked to the fridge and got out a bottle of water. She offered me one, but I remembered the tea. I had to decline. “No thank you.”

“Are you sure?” she teased. “You look kind of parched.”

“I’m positive.” I looked around. The apartment was sparse, but clean. Ash’s bag lay near the door. “Is Ash here?”

“In the shower.” She jerked her head toward the bedroom door. “Have a seat, Mason. I promise not to try to fuck you.”

I danced from side to side. I really just wanted to get to Lynn. Or Ash. Or whoever was here.

“I never really wanted to fuck you anyway.” She sat down and crossed her legs primly. “I just wanted Lynn to think you wanted me. I wanted her to finally worry that you were cheating. I wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

I nodded my head, but said nothing.

“I never thought you were good enough for her. Particularly not when you started sleeping with the rest of them.” She uncrossed and re-crossed her legs on the other side.

I still said nothing.

“And then the fear arose that one day, that Lynn might want a family with you.”

My eyes jumped to meet hers. She knew. The bitch knew.

“I know,” she said. She laughed lightly. “You could have pushed her away for good, Mason. You understand that, right? Your carelessness might have made her go away and not come back.”

I wasn’t careless. I’d never been careless. Lynn was on birth control. She always had been.

“I made an appointment to take Ash—or whoever is around—to the doctor. I think she needs a check-up.”

“Thank you, but I’ll take her myself.”

“Now, now, Mason. That’s not very fair, particularly since I’ve been taking such good care of them.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled.

She leaned toward me. “Fuck you, Mason. Fuck you.”

The bedroom door opened and Ash stepped into the room. Her hair was wet and combed back from her forehead. She was wearing what I recognized as a pair of my boxers and one of my t-shirts. “Mason!” she cried. “What are you doing here?” She started toward me, but stopped when Shelly made a noise deep in her throat.

“Ash,” I said. I held my arms open to her and she walked into them. I held her close, the ache in my chest easing a little when I held her in my arms.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again. “Shelly hates you,” she whispered.

Yeah, I didn’t feel very kindly about her, either. “I’m here to take you home. With me. Where you belong.”

She smiled, her head tilting as she regarded me with a quizzical expression. “What? Why?”

I caught her hands and held them. “Until Lynn comes home, I’d like for you to stay with me. And only me. Would that be okay with you?”

She smiled wider and I thought I had won her over, but then her face fell. “That’s not my house,” she said. “It’s Lynn’s. And yours. Both of yours together. I feel like a guest. I’d kind of rather be a guest right here.”

She pulled herself out of my arms and went to get a bottle of water from the fridge. “Wait,” I said, taking it from her. I checked the seal and passed it back.

Shelly laughed from behind us. I ignored her.

“I really would like for you to come with me.”

She turned to get something from the cabinet and I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. I laid my hand upon her belly.

“I want to take care of you,” I whispered.

She laid her hand over mine. “You know?” she whispered back.

I nodded and set my chin on her shoulder. Her stomach didn’t have the smallest bit of swell to it, but I knew there was a life in there. I could feel it.

“Do you want to keep it?” she asked quietly.

Did I want to keep it? Of course I wanted to keep it. Then a cold chill slipped up my spine. What if Shelly talked Ash out of keeping it while Lynn was gone? What would happen to our child? Shelly could be very persuasive. She was conniving and vindictive. She was devious.

“I want it. And you. And everything.” I kissed her cheek, but the cold grip of fear still clutched my heart.

“I love you, Mason, but…I don’t know.”

I needed to act. I needed to do something. I held her face in my hands and I kissed her. “I need for you to know that I love you so much,” I said to her.

“I love you,” she said again. Like I hadn’t heard her.

“And I hope you can forgive me for what I’m about to do.”

She stepped back, her brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

“I love you so much, Ash.”

“Mason, what are you doing?” She took another step back from me.

I took a moment to plan it in my head. I would sing out the words, and then she would punch me. I would be hurt. Lynn would come back to save me, just like after the car accident.

“Don’t be crazy, Mason,” Shelly warned from behind me.

She hadn’t seen crazy yet. I was a man possessed by fear. By grief. By insecurity. And I needed my wife back.

I began to sing very softly. “Come out…come out…wherever you are…”

I made sure there was a tiny, playful little lilt to my voice.

I watched as Ash’s face transformed. As fear overwhelmed her. As the past came back to haunt her. I saw it all flash across her face in the space of a heartbeat.

What I didn’t see ahead of time was the knife that lay on the counter. Had I seen that before I started to sing, I might have planned a little differently.

As I waited for the first blow to strike, I sang out again, “Come out…come out…wherever you are…”

Ash turned and picked up the knife. She lifted it above her head, and brought it down with deadly precision. I felt the slice of my skin, like a knife slicing butter. The pain nearly brought me to my knees.

“No!” Shelly screamed from behind me, just as another blow from the knife hit my skin. I sank to my knees as Shelly knocked the knife from Ash’s hand and pushed her to the floor. She covered Ash’s body with hers.

“Don’t hurt her,” I said. “Take care of her.”

“I’ve spent my whole life taking care of her, Mason!” she screamed.

She worked to calm Ash, to stop her flailing, trying to stop her from getting to me as I bled out on the floor, the red of my blood staining the white tile floor, slipping into the cracks between the tiles.

Shelly was still trying to calm Ash as my eyes closed.

This wasn’t at all how I’d hoped this would go.