The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie

by Freida McFadden

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.

Do you really need…” She picks up a box from the cart. “Lice shampoo?” Oh my God. I did not realize that was lice shampoo! Although now that she mentions it, there is a drawing of a dead insect on the bottle. I thought the insect just meant the shampoo was all natural. “Oops,” I say. “You’re absolutely right. I don’t need lice shampoo. So I’ll just put that back…” But Eliza isn’t listening to me. She is looking through the other items in my cart, and now her fingers are resting on the bottle of prenatal vitamins. She lifts her eyes, which are wide with slightly clouded lenses. “Alice, are you…?” “Oh my gosh!” I clutch my chest in a show of fake surprise. “Prenatal vitamins? I thought those were just regular women’s multivitamins! What a stupid mistake! They should really label them better!” “It says prenatal vitamins right on the label in big pink letters,” she points out. I try to laugh. “I just saw vitamins.” “And it says for baby brain support.” “I should really read the labels more carefully, shouldn’t I?” “And there’s a picture of a pregnant woman on it!” I yank the bottle of prenatal vitamins out of Eliza‘s hand, hoping to finally shut her up. “You know what? I’ll go put these back. And the lice shampoo. Can you watch my cart please?”

And we definitely buried him. I distinctly remember standing by his grave, surrounded by friends and relatives, dabbing the tears from my eyes with a lace handkerchief. I remember his coffin being lowered into the ground. And we buried him in a normal cemetery. We didn’t bury him in some special pet cemetery where he would come back to life after a week or two, carrying a terrible curse.

How many children was my husband planning to have with this woman before I found out about it?

The director of the psychiatric ward is my father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former college roommate. He’ll do whatever I want him to do—trust me.”

Because I had never killed anyone before, I decided to hedge my bets. I mixed hemlock into the orange juice that he drank every morning. I ground up some deadly nightshade to add to the milk he poured on his cereal. I put a banana peel on the top step of our steep staircase. But in the end, it was the cut brake line that did him in.

took precautions to keep it from happening.” I let out a wretched sob. “I put LED lights in every closet, but I still got pregnant. I don’t understand it.” She cocks her head to the side. “LED lights?” I nod. “I read online that if you have LEDs placed, they are over ninety-eight percent effective in preventing pregnancy.” Poppy stares at me for several beats, a confused look on her face. “Do you mean… IUDs?” “What’s an IUD?” “An intrauterine device. A doctor inserts it into your uterus, and it is used to prevent pregnancy.” Wow, that makes so much more sense than the lights. Stupid Google search.

When we hired Willie, I told Grant that I had done a background check, and that was the truth. I’d discovered his prison record, and that was the very reason I hired him—so that if there was any suspicion about Grant’s death, it would fall on our ex-con houseman. “But I never thought he would hurt Grant.” I allow tears to spring to my eyes, laying it on thick. “And besides, despite the terrible thing he did, he put in his time.” “He did do a terrible thing,” the detective says. “I’ve never met anyone who had over thirty overdue library books before.” I grab a tissue from the box on the table and dab at my eyes. “I mean, two or three, yes, I can see how that could happen. Over ten would be bad enough. But over thirty?” “I know.” He sighs. “It’s the sort of thing you only see once in a lifetime as a cop, and you hope to never see it again.”

“Yes, I was suspicious too,” Mancini says. “That’s why I checked him out. And it turns out Willie has an airtight alibi for the day your husband was killed.” My heart does a jumping jack inside my chest. “He… he does?” He nods. “Yes. He was playing in a Quidditch tournament all day up in Vermont. It was filmed. There’s no way he could have been responsible for Grant’s accident.” “What?” “It’s true.” “Wait. So Quidditch is an actual sport?” I ask incredulously. “And they film it?” “That’s right, Mrs. Lockwood,” he says solemnly. “Do they use broomsticks?” “They do.”

“This could have been faked,” I say. He plucks the photo from my hand and gingerly places it within the folds of his wallet. “So you say. But look at me, Alice. Do you really need a photograph to prove to you that I am identical to your late husband?”

“She…” He squeezes his eyes shut. “She doesn’t like Nickelback. And I…” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I love them. There—I said it. Nickelback is my absolute favorite band of all time, and my own wife can’t stand them.”

I gasp. Grant killed his first wife too? I am stunned. When he told me about how they sailed out to the middle of the sea on his private yacht on the night of their third wedding anniversary and she slipped and fell off the deck with no witnesses, leaving him her vast fortune, it sounded so innocent.

“But…” I scrutinize the woman I thought was my best friend, from her yoga pants to her baggy T-shirt. She looks surprisingly real for a person I am hallucinating. I’m sort of impressed with my brain right now. “But you’re not real. You’re all in my head.” “I’m what?” “You’re a figment of my imagination,” I clarify. “I fabricated you as a way to deal with my husband and his obsession.”

“Um, excuse me?” She plants a hand on her hip. “I just saved your life by hitting your homicidal husband on the head with a shovel, and now you’re repaying me by telling me that I’m not real?” “But you’re not,” I insist. “So how did I hit Grant on the head with a shovel?” I drop my gaze to my own palms. “I must’ve hit him on the head with that shovel. Somehow.” Poppy rolls her eyes. “Okay, and what about those five casseroles I brought you?” “I must have made them myself.” “How about the times I drove you to the mall, and we went shopping together?” “I must’ve been driving.” “What about when I made that huge charcuterie platter for book club, with all those little prosciutto roses I spent hours shaping?” “I guess I made the charcuterie tray and shaped all those roses myself.” Poppy gives me a look, and I shrug helplessly. “I’m sorry. Believe me, I genuinely wish you were real. But I went over to your house a few hours ago, and…” I gesture out the window at the colonial-style house where the old woman had turned me away. “There was somebody else living there. She told me that there had been a Poppy living there many years ago, but she died in a fire.” Poppy gawks at me. “Alice, seriously? You know I live in the house on the left, don’t you? That’s Mrs. Hubbard on the right, and she is completely confused half the time.” “What?” “Oh my God.” She blows out a breath between her teeth. “This is why it’s annoying that I am always the one coming over to your house. Maybe if you c...

Poppy and I spend the next two hours burying my husband in my backyard. All I have to say is that I am super sure she is not imaginary, because there is no way I could have done it on my own. I find an extra shovel in the garage, and we dig a hole large enough to throw Grant’s body inside. We dig through the soil to a depth of about three feet, hoping it’s enough to keep the animals away.

“Alice,” she says, “you’re holding your breath.” “I am?” “Yes, you are.” “Oh my gosh!” I clasp a hand to my chest. “I hadn’t even realized it! Thanks for letting me know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Alice?” she cries as she shakes something in my face. I frown at her. “What are you talking about?” Then I realize what she has in her hand. It’s the pregnancy test that I threw in the trash. “How come you didn’t tell me?” “I did tell you!” I might be forgetting things, but I remember our conversation. “I told you I was pregnant.” “Pregnant?” She looks down at the test in her hand and then back at my face. “Alice, this is a Covid test.” “What?” I gasp. “How could that be?” “It literally says Covid-19 Ag right on the test!” “It does?” Wow, maybe it’s time for reading glasses. Poppy lets out a huff. “You didn’t really think this was a pregnancy test, did you?” “Well…” I chew on my lower lip. “I was in a hurry, and I wasn’t thinking straight. I just grabbed one of the tests that showed the two blue lines on the box. I did think it was a little strange that I had to swab my nose to check for pregnancy.” Huh. It looks like those LED lights worked after all. I can’t believe I’m not really pregnant. I wonder why I was so nauseous—I guess it was the tea. Poppy grits her teeth. “Oh my God, I cannot believe you have Covid.” “Now that you mention it, I did have a little bit of a runny nose and sore throat…”