All Chapters of A Secret Kept By My Wife: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

"Mason, what does it mean when a woman stays up half the night just sniffing a pillow?" I asked.The sound of a thermos lid unscrewing echoed across the line.My colleague, Mason Hughes, took a loud sip of his tea and smacked his lips."What kind of pillow?""Brand new. I haven't even slept on it once.""Then she's not sniffing you."No kidding.I was crouching in the hallway of my apartment building by the fire hydrant, my back pressed against the freezing tiles.What my wife, Alice Carr, had said under the moonlight still stuck in my throat like a fishbone. "Your dad's scent is fading."Dad was cremated 11 months ago."The thing is," I said, keeping my voice down, "she says it smells like my dad."For once, Mason went dead silent for three whole seconds.This was a man who had been cleaned out by three divorces and could usually never keep his mouth shut for more than two seconds."Your old man's been gone for almost a year.""Yeah.""Then who the hell is she actually

"Chamomile, lavender, valerian root, and passionflower."Mason read the lab report word by word, like a judge delivering a criminal verdict."They're all herbs used for calming the nerves. Leon, Alice has been slipping this stuff into your milk every single night to knock you out."The report didn't explicitly say "sleeping pills", but looking at the components made my fingers go completely cold."It's just for relaxation. Maybe she just wanted me to rest well—""Rest well?" Mason's voice shot up, drawing looks from across the room. He quickly dropped back to a harsh whisper."She doesn't want you to rest well. She wants you dead to the world. If you're not completely knocked out, how is she supposed to get up in the middle of the night to sniff that pillow? How is she supposed to make those calls? How is she supposed to do all the things she doesn't want you to see?"I gripped the report, the paper crumpling into a tight ball inside my fist.I took the afternoon off.Sitting

I demanded, "Alice, give me the other half of the paper."By the time I rushed back from my hometown, it was 2:00 am.Pushing the door open, I found the living room completely dark.Alice was sitting on the couch, her knees together, her hands folded neatly in her lap.It looked like she had been waiting in that exact position for hours."You went to see Mom?" she asked."You knew I would.""Yeah.""Then you know what I came to ask."She didn't answer right away.When she switched on the table lamp, the light caught her eyes. They were bloodshot.Not the kind of red from a fresh cry, but the dry, raw kind that was left behind after crying for hours until all the moisture was gone."Sit down first," she said."I won't. Give me the paper.""Leon, listen to me first.""You drugged my milk, sniffed pieces of my dad's clothes in the middle of the night, went to the funeral home every month to swap them out, got my mom to play along with you, and kept me completely in the dark

"Do you want to go see Dad this weekend?" Alice asked very carefully.The moment the words left her mouth, she lowered her head to clear the table, as if it didn't matter whether the question got an answer."Yes," I replied.The hand she was using to stack the dishes paused for a beat.I asked, "How many times have you been there?""I go there every Saturday.""Every Saturday? But you told me you were going—""Shopping." She stacked the bowls into the sink and turned on the faucet."You don't like shopping with me anyway, so you never asked to come along."Every Saturday, rain or shine, I hadn't gone once.We set out at 7:00 am on Saturday.It was an hour-and-a-half drive into the mountains.The cemetery was halfway up the mountain, lined with pine and cypress trees. The morning mist still clung to the ground.Dad's grave was in the third row, toward the right.His name and the dates of his birth and death were carved into a gray headstone.The vase in front of the stone

"Mom, I want to hear everything about Dad from the day he was diagnosed. Don't hide a single detail from me," I said.The reception wasn't great, and Mom's voice drifted in and out through the static."Do you… really want to hear it?" she asked."Yes."She fell silent for a brief moment.I heard the sound of a window closing from her end, blocking out the wind outside.Mom started, "Your dad was diagnosed last year—no, three and a half years ago. Liver issues. Late stage.""Why didn't he tell me?""He said that there was no point. You two were fighting at the time, and he said if he called, he'd just get chewed out.""I wouldn't have—""You would have." Mom's voice was flat, but every single word hit its mark."You and your dad fought for over 20 years. He had never outtalked you, nor managed to put together a coherent argument.""Did he refuse treatment?" I asked."He did. He said there was no point wasting that hard-earned money. Your aunt tried to convince him. Your unc