Page 102 of The Wife Upstairs

I remind myself that when Bea opened the door to the panic room, there was a whoosh and a wall of flame. I remember the scent of burned hair, and a worse, darker scent, disturbingly like barbecue.

I remember that they found Eddie’s teeth.

But I also remember those teeth flying out of his mouth when I hit him, and so…

I wonder.

I like to think that they both survived. That they’re out there somewhere.

Maybe they’ve gone back to Hawaii. Or a more remote island, their own little beach somewhere.

I picture them on white sand, palm trees swaying overhead, just like I used to picture them when Bea was a ghost and Eddie was mine.

She sits there, smiling in the sunshine, her glossy hair pulled back from her face. Eddie is next to her. Not nearly as handsome as he once was.

I see Bea reach for his hand, see his fingers—thick with scars, raised red welts crisscrossing his skin—curl around hers.

We’re together now,she’ll say to him,that’s all that matters.Not the money, not the life they’d built, not the house that’s now just a black mark on all that green, green grass at Thornfield Estates.

And it won’t be a lie when she says that they’re better off now without all that, better off just the two of them, wherever they are.

It’ll be the truth.