I lay here looking up at the ceiling and listening to the rain, echoing in my head, thinking of what all my friends have told me.

My life couldn’t be better. Pregnant with my first child and happily married to a man I love and who loves me in return. I don’t get out very much, but enough to satisfy me. Eric gives me my freedom and delights in the children’s stories I write. I love writing for children but I have never before been able to spend much time on it. In the past, I’ve had to write romance novels to get by. But Eric insists I go after my dreams. He won’t have it any other way. It seems like perfection.

Well, almost. About a week ago, I had a complication with the baby. I had to stay overnight at the hospital for observation. Eric couldn’t be there because he was drowning in paperwork from a case. We were both incredibly worried for the child, but everything turned out all right in the end. Eric was incredibly sweet about it.

Eric usually leaves for the office at exactly seven o’clock every morning. I am usually up with him, making breakfast or reading a new book or editing a story. Usually, if I am reading, I stir my cup of coffee with my free hand, holding my book in the other. The warm brown liquid swirls like melted chocolate in the thick white mug. Eric smiles at me and straightens his blue tie with the black ink spots that I bought him once. "You can never have too many ties," he says. He gives me a quick peck on the cheek and leaves for the courtroom. Another day, another case, another client. I sigh and continue reading, writing or editing.

I never doubted Eric, not once in my life have I doubted him. I never doubted him when he came home from one of his office parties one night with the scent of lilac perfume on his jacket. He told me it was from a drunken woman he helped into a cab. And our friends had vouched for him, as well, calling the girl ‘Caroline.’

Laura comes by at around twelve thirty every day for lunch. (The school is near my house. Eric thinks it’s better for the baby.) She talks with me about various subjects and complains about middle school students before she realizes she has a class. If she does not have a class, she usually stays a little longer and reads excerpts from my stories. Sometimes she’ll ask for a copy when they’re published. Her son will love them, she says.

I never doubted Laura before. Eric had introduced me to her and her husband when we got engaged. All my friends live across the country in Boston. Laura was my first real friend in Seattle. She was my bridesmaid at our wedding. But she had always been Eric’s friend before she was mine.

Stephen and Eric usually come home together at around six or seven o’clock, depending on the day. Stephen makes small talk about the weather and asks what Laura and I talked about today. Sometimes I tease him and say how she suspects he’s goofing off at the office or some other nonsense. He laughs, knowing I’m joking. I can never lie well. Then, he’s off and I have Eric alone again.

I never doubted Stephen before. Like his wife, he was kind and as honest to me as he could be. He was Eric’s best man at our wedding. He and Laura were the first we told when I became pregnant. They were thrilled and had one of those little husband-wife arguments about the ‘surprise’ baby shower they were to throw us. But, like his wife, Stephen was Eric’s friend first and foremost.

I never doubted any of my other friends before, most of whom I met through Laura or Eric. They seemed compassionate enough.

And yet, I doubt them all now. I do not doubt that Eric was ‘helping’ that girl Caroline, but not in the way he says he did. I do not doubt Stephen speaks the truth as he knows it when I ask him of Eric’s whereabouts, but he does not speak Eric’s truth. I have no doubt Laura believes it when she tells me she knows that Eric only has eyes for me, but she does not know this for a fact.

Eric had attended an office party. Only employees and their significant others were allowed to go to this party. I did not go because I was feeling ill. But I know this. There is no woman called Caroline in Eric’s office.

Or perhaps I am overanalyzing things, as Eric says I do so often. Perhaps Caroline was someone else’s date who became a little tipsy and Eric had to help her on her feet. Perhaps Laura is right when she laughs at my insecurities about Eric. Perhaps Stephen knows best when he says all authors have outrageous imaginations, especially those that write for children.

It’s just… It’s all too surreal. Everything seems too perfect. It’s as if I’m one of those happy little housewives from the fifties who cleaned the house with one of those old-fashioned vacuum cleaners while their husbands slept with their secretaries. It’s as if I’m a child’s doll, living in a plastic dollhouse. There’s no conflict, no plot, no conclusion… Just the same chapter repeating itself on the page over and over again throughout the book.

But there is, it seems, a catharsis.

Finally, I pull myself up from our blue couch. Lost in my thoughts, I accidentally knock over my coffee, staining our white carpet.

"Damn!" I say, as I run to the kitchen to get a cloth. I look for paper towels, but realize we’re out. Eric and I don’t like to grocery shop. Cursing again under my breath, I sigh and give up. The stain’s already there. What’s the point of trying to get it out or hide it when the ugly brown will always come through?

I shake my aching head and decide to go get some aspirin from upstairs. Climbing the green carpeted stairs, I notice our wedding picture. How happy we were then. My father had died a few months before and I had so longed for everything to be perfect. But not this perfect. Not plastic perfect.

I notice now for the first time a girl in the picture that I don’t recognize. She’s in the background, which probably explained why I never saw her there before, but it bothers me. She’s tall and blonde with bright eyes, completely the opposite of the plain, petite brunette Eric married. Completely contrasting my white gown with her black dress. Who wears a black dress to a wedding anyway?

My migraine reminds me of my reason for climbing the stairs in the first place. As I enter our room, the phone rings, but I don’t bother to pick it up. The machine answers instead.

"Felicia, honey, you must be out with Laura or something. I’m afraid I’ll have to work late tonight. This case is really important, sweetheart. One of our biggest clients has been sued for fraud. Let’s hope it’s not legitimate, otherwise I’m not getting paid. Ha! Just kidding, honey. Well, see you tonight! Bye!"

I find myself staring at our black telephone, Eric’s words echoing in my ear. It’s the third night in a row he’s been staying late, each with a different excuse. You’d think a Yale graduate would have the intelligence to at least stick with the same client for more than a day.

The dreary day outside catches my curiosity and I approach the window and look outside with a sigh. The rain falls from the gray clouds in torrents as it drums on the roof like the staccato notes of a well-played violin. I take a deep breath and the moist freshness of the air seems to clear my head slightly. The rain is so beautiful at times. Even in a place like Seattle where storms are common, a nice spring rain is still a welcome sight.

Unfortunately, the pounding in my head is louder than the pounding of the rain and I am forced to remember the aspirin I traveled up here to find once more. So many distractions in life!

Rubbing my temples, I enter the master bath and grope for the light switch. I walk over to the ivory sink and medicine cabinet, throwing it open to reveal shelves of medication and makeup (though most of my makeup I keep under the sink.) My hand fumbles for the aspirin bottle and I accidentally knock over a lipstick. Cursing under my breath again, I pick up the cosmetic and look at the color.

"Plum brandy…" How confusing! It’s such a dark color. I usually wear light colors like watermelon. I don’t even remember buying a ‘plum brandy.’

Groggily, I push thoughts of cosmetics to the back of my mind as I tap two white aspirin pills onto the palm of my hand and swallow them with a gulp of water. I stumble back into the bedroom and smile at the image of myself in the mirror. My hair is tied back in a bun that seems to be falling apart and my overly large blue T-shirt is hanging half-in, half-out of my black shorts. I suppose it’s not one of my prettier moments. But my eyes are as sharp as ever. Eric said he married me for the piercing brown mystery my eyes held. I don’t think they’re all that mysterious. But they are perfect for noticing things.

By the mirror I catch my hairbrush and decide to fix my hair. As I pick it up, I notice alien yellow strands caught in the bristles of the brush. I scowl at it. I’m the only one that I know of that uses this hairbrush and only one of my friends has blonde hair and that’s Lisa. But Lisa rarely visits and never brushes her hair with my brush.

My head begins to clear because of the aspirin and I recall the dark red lipstick I found in the bathroom. My scowl deepens. Blonde strands in my brush, dark lipstick in my medicine cabinet, Eric working late, me away from the house for a night at the hospital.

I close my eyes slowly, the migraine returning despite the medication and marvel at my stupidity. I’m surprised I hadn’t noticed it before. Of course, no one is that dedicated to working late unless there was something he wasn’t telling me. And of course, there has to be something he isn’t telling me. I have so many questions… What kind of man would take advantage of his wife’s infirmity like that? What kind of a man could do that while worried about injury to his first born? Maybe he needed comfort and security. Why couldn’t he get it from me?

I find myself sinking into our bed, staring straight ahead of me, not knowing what to think. The picture of that blonde at our wedding comes to mind. The young, bouncy woman who seemed to be enjoying herself a little too much. Perhaps she had a little too much wine and stumbled into the wrong reception. Perhaps Eric had to ‘help’ her get back on her feet. Perhaps she is the Caroline they say was at that office party the other night.

I shake my head to rid it of the images of that woman in the wedding picture. Instead, I rub my stomach with my hand and whisper soothingly to my unborn child, telling him or her that everything will be all right.

"Hush, little one, Mommy will do the right thing."

And I intend to. But first…

I pick up some scissors and walk into the hall and down the stairs until I approach the wedding picture, hanging on the wall. Calmly, I take down the picture and take it out of the frame. I take the scissors and artistically cut off most of the left side and upper left corner until the blonde ‘Caroline’ no longer soils the picture and the memory. Satisfied, I place the picture back into the frame and smile at the happy couple, just married.

I return to my room again and sit on my bed. I stare out the window at the rain for a moment, listening to its rhythmic music and hoping it’ll soothe me. When the rain does nothing, I finally decide to pick up the phone and dial the number to Eric’s work.

"Eric honey? Felicia. You will come straight home tonight at 6:00 and if you come a minute later, I’ll tell Caroline that the ring on your finger is not decoration… Oh, I think you know very well what I’m talking about… Yes, I do think we need to talk."

END