Mrs. March awoke in her bedroom. Though the heavy curtains were drawn, she sensed it was now evening. George sat on his edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands. The room was dimly lit and he sat in shadow, and she doubted, at first, that he was there at all. She slowly lifted the bedsheets and found that she was still in her day clothes. The rips in her flesh-colored pantyhose looked like scarred lacerations across her legs.

Her movements alerted George, who turned his head. When he saw that she was awake, he stood up and walked to her side of the bed, as she pushed herself up to lean against the headboard.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

A sudden anger at George flared within her, but she wasn’t sure why. She untangled herself from the bedsheets and stood up, teetering a little.

“Honey?” said George.

She walked to the bathroom and turned on the light. In the mirror she could see that her jaw was only slightly puffy. Nothing that a bit of ice couldn’t help, she told herself, and just in time for the party tomorrow. The rest of her face, however, was a blow: the skin on her chin was flaking off; her powder had faded, revealing several blemishes; rivers of black mascara streaked her cheeks.

“Honey?” George called from the bedroom. She peered out at him through the doorway. He stood at the foot of the bed, hands in his pockets. “I think we need to talk. About what happened today. About what you saw. About everything, really.”

She already had begun to retouch her face, wiping at the mascara with a moist cotton ball, then covering a pimple scar with an ample slathering of foundation.

“Listen,” George insisted, “you were completely out of it when you got home, so I’m not sure what you saw, or what you think you saw, but the truth is, I’ve been having an affair.”

She stopped in mid-dab, powder puff halfway to her face. As if in solidarity, her heart, too, felt like it had stopped beating to listen to George’s words. She felt George’s gaze on her, but she did not turn her head to look at him.

“I’ve been seeing someone for a while now,” George said. “And you caught me—us, I mean—this afternoon, and I’m terribly sorry that you had to find out this way. I thought you’d be back later, I …” He shook his head. “Or, I don’t know, maybe I wanted you to find out. The subconscious mind is a funny thing, isn’t it?”

Mrs. March lowered the powder puff to the sink.

“I’m so sorry, honey. I really am. At first I brushed the whole thing off as a fling, a physical thing, a midlife crisis if you will. But I’m afraid I … I have developed real feelings for this woman.”

“Gabriella?” she said, tentatively. Her voice came out low, gravelly, so different from its soft timbre that she glanced at the mirror to check that it was really her.

“No, it’s not Gabriella,” said George. “She’s a woman who works for Zelda at the agency. She’s been interning for a while—”

“A temp?” Mrs. March said, in more of a screech this time, throwing her compact to the floor and stepping into the bedroom. “You mean to tell me that you’re having an affair with a temp?”

At her exaggerated pronunciation of the word, a fleck of spittle landed on George’s face. The fact that he seemed almost relieved by her visceral reaction angered her even more. She wished she could return to her elegant apathy, to retouching her makeup without an ounce of feeling, without an ounce of weakness, emulating her mother’s graceful insouciance, which she had never seen break. But she couldn’t rebuild the wall, which only enraged her further.

“I’m sorry,” said George. “I really am. I’ve been so unfair to you. But …” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “we’re in love.”

Mrs. March pressed her hands, curled into fists, to her temples, and squatted, fearing that she was going to be sick. What came out of her instead was a rumbling, guttural moaning. “No, no, no, no, no … you SWINE!” she said. Then, worried the neighbors could hear, she said, more quietly, “You swine.”

“I know, I know, it’s unjustifiable, so I’m not going to even try to justify it, but I am going to say that in the last few years you have been distant and I have tried—”

Here she stopped listening, while her mind revised all the instances where George might have been cheating, rather than killing women. Was it possible? Could it be? Surely this was just an excuse—a perfectly plausible one—to cover up what he had done.

“Those times I told you I was with Edgar at his cabin and instead I was—”

“What?” she hissed, her sore gums throbbing. “Like when?”

“A few times. Like before Christmas, when I came back empty-handed … the truth is I was right here in New York, at the Plaza—with Jennifer.” Mrs. March shuddered at the name. “I’m not proud of it, you know, wasn’t proud of it then, either. That’s why I came back early. I wanted to tell you then. I almost did.”

It was all beginning to make terrible, screaming sense. George’s stained shirt—lipstick, not blood. George’s odd looks—conflicted, not threatening.

“But you said,” said Mrs. March, pointing her finger at his stupid face, his stupid tortoiseshell glasses, “you said the police asked you about that girl who’d disappeared. You said there were flyers all over the place. You said the police were there and asked you about her. About Sylvia.”

George shook his head, his eyes moist. “I don’t even know what I said. I wanted to admit it all, right there in the hallway. But I didn’t because, well … because the funny thing is, you seemed to know I was lying, and it got to the point where I almost felt like you would rather I lie to you than go through a scandal. I know how important appearances are to you. But I’m tired of pretending. Aren’t you?”

She gasped at this, her heart hammering so hard that she pressed a hand against her chest for fear it would burst through her ribs.

“I didn’t know what we were playing at anymore. It didn’t seem honest,” he continued.

“But, but …” Mrs. March pulled at her hair with both hands, squeezed her skull in her fists. “What about the newspaper clipping?” she said. “You had an article … in your study. About Sylvia Gibbler.”

“That was research for my next book,” said George. Then, as if remembering something, he asked, “Did you take that from my study?”

“Oh, stop pretending, George. Stop pretending.” She laughed. “You knew Sylvia. You signed her books for her. She had signed copies of your books, George!”

“What? But how would you …?” His frown faded. “What did you do?”

Mrs. March thought fleetingly of the night-shift doorman and how kind he’d been to her, and how he had to have known about George’s mistress, had witnessed George kissing her as the elevator doors closed or placing his hand up her skirt as she climbed into a cab. How he must pity her! She paced in circles, distracted by this acute embarrassment. What would become of her now? Mrs. March pictured herself coming home to an empty apartment. Would she manage to keep this one? Or would she have to move? Would she have to raise Jonathan alone? Though he’d surely choose his father, as would their entire circle, most of whom were George’s friends to begin with. She could see herself at the supermarket, avoiding everyone—or everyone avoiding her—and she almost split open right there and then on her bedroom floor.

But there was still a chance, she told herself, that he was guilty of the greater crime. He had hidden the newspaper clipping in his notebook—Jonathan could attest to that—and the signed books were on display in Sylvia’s room—Amy Bryant could confirm. Then there was the proximity of Edgar’s cabin to the body. It was all too much of a coincidence not to be investigated. She could take this information to the police. She could destroy him, even if he wasn’t convicted. “I know you killed that girl, George!” she growled, shaking a finger in his face.

George raised his eyebrows in surprise. “What the hell are you talking about?” he said, his lowered voice trembling slightly. “You’re scaring me.”

“You killed that poor defenseless—”

“Listen, I know I’ve hurt you, but I want to help you. For your own sake, for Jonathan’s sake—”

He raised a hand to touch her, but she leaned back out of reach. “You are not going to end me,” she spat, her jaw jutting forward, her lower teeth bared. She pushed him and ran to her side of the bed, contemplating throwing herself through the window. George put his hand on her shoulder. She screamed. He tried to reason with her. She pushed him again, looking for an exit—any exit—as she tugged at the curtains, considering strangling herself with them.

“This doesn’t have to be the end of the world,” George said, over the keening moan pouring from her throat. “It can be a new beginning. We weren’t happy. We deserve to be happy. We can have it all. Just not with each other.”

She shoved and shoved him, clawing at his face, swatting off his glasses. When he bent down to retrieve them, she pushed him again. He fell to the floor. She slapped at the walls, wailing, and as he picked himself up and made his way to her, arms outstretched, cheeks bleeding, her ears began to ring. George started talking but he was on mute now—all she could hear was her own paused breathing, loud and enveloping.

She glanced over to a corner of the bedroom, where she met her own eye. Another Mrs. March was standing there, in her fur coat, pantyhose, and loafers, arms hanging limply. Next to her stood the naked Mrs. March from the bathtub, breasts sagging, dripping onto the carpet. Followed by Mrs. March in her nightgown, beaked Venetian mask clamped tightly over her face, her eyes blinking through the cutout holes. And then, the blood-drenched Mrs. March she’d spied on through the window, her mouth slightly agape, her eyebrows buried under the blood. A Greek chorus of Mrs. Marches, all standing before her in a neat row in her bedroom. Silently, simultaneously, they pointed at George. Mrs. March looked over at him. He was gesticulating as he spoke, glancing at the floor, adjusting his glasses.

She looked back at the Mrs. Marches. In unison, they raised their right hands to their faces, covering their eyes. Mrs. March smiled, enjoying the game, as she followed their lead and she, too, lifted her right hand, and cupped it over her eyes.