The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie

by Freida McFadden

“Have you ever heard of the author, Freida McFadden?”

“She writes psychological thrillers. The kind with short chapters and lots of twists that are shocking but also kind of completely out of nowhere.”

My job is to make you happy, and if I’m doing it right, you should never have to work.”

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.

It was like a tiny atomic bomb had been planted inside every single molecule of my body, and during that kiss, they exploded simultaneously. I had been kissed before but never like that. He had feared that he might get in an accident if he failed to kiss me, but after that kiss, I didn’t think I’d be able to think of anything else ever again for the rest of my life.

I was one of his possessions, and he would never give me up. No, there was only one way to escape my marriage, and that was if one of us was dead.

I discovered those two blue lines on the pregnancy test. I had successfully killed my husband, but he had managed to leave a piece of himself behind. I was only relieved that our child would be spared having that man as her father.

After killing my husband twice, I don’t need that reminder anymore.

I sleep like the dead after burying my husband in the backyard. I thought I would be plagued by restless dreams of zombie husbands scraping their way through the dirt and shuffling into my bedroom, hungry for brains. I thought I would be waking up in a cold sweat, a scream on my lips. But instead, I get the best night of sleep I have had in years—not one zombie-husband dream. I don’t wake up even once, and when my eyes finally crack open, the sun is already high in the sky. For the first time in a long time, I am truly free. And it feels fantastic.

WOW 😂😇

impossible. I killed my husband and buried him—twice. Well, the first time I killed his brother, but the second time it was most definitely him. Yet here he is, showering in our bathroom like nothing ever happened.

I definitely buried somebody last night. I didn’t dream it.

Now I can see the photograph in its entirety. And I finally realize what I am looking at. I had thought it was a photo of two brothers playing together. But instead of Grant and Brant alone, the full image reveals there are actually three little boys. Oh my God. Identical triplets.