Free A Circle of Wives by Alice Laplante Page B

alert aide. Since then, a security guard has been posted at the doorway to the pediatric oncology clinic and no one is allowed into the waiting area unless they have a child with them and a scheduled appointment.
    I give the reporters nothing, and still they have the facts. So delicious are these that even the LA Times has run with the story. As have Newsweek, Time, People, inTouch, and a score of less reputable magazines. I don’t listen to the messages on my voicemail inviting me to appear on Good Morning America, Morning Joe, and other radio and television shows. I think about my fellow wives, wonder if they’re talking. I haven’t seen any comment from either of them in the press after that first, disastrous, Chronicle piece—the hole in the dam that turned into the flood.
    It’s salacious stuff. People are repeating it in the elevators, in the break room of the hospital. There are sudden silences when I walk into the cafeteria, or past the nurses’ station. One poor out-of-the-loop orderly even whispered the gossip to me. “Did you hear?” he asked, to the amused horror of everyone around us, as I filled my coffee cup. “This doctor was married to three women! And one of them works here!” I managed an “Imagine that!” before someone hissed the truth to him. He turned bright red, but I didn’t resent his words. Only a handful of people at the medical center understood that John and I were in a relationship. Even fewer knew we’d actually gotten married. But with the press going wild, I’m resigned that everyone is privy to the most intimate details of my life.
    Then there’s the hush as I enter an examining room. The pity in the eyes of my patients’ parents. Pity—from them, who are going through so much themselves. There’s probably even a slight sense of schadenfreude there. I don’t blame them. I have to leave the hospital by a side door to avoid the reporters and photographers. I push through hordes and protect my face against the flashing bulbs when I get home to my condo in the evening. I stop seeing friends. I spend longer in the hospital every day so that all but the truly tenacious of the reporters have gone home by the time I emerge.
    These reporters are damn good at their jobs. They’ve found quite a number of people willing to talk. All anonymous, of course. Sources say. A source close to the subject. That some of my colleagues have no qualms about discussing me, dissecting me and my habits down to the tiniest minutiae, shouldn’t be as much of a shock as it is, given human nature. The reporters have ferreted out our favorite restaurant on Broadway. The vintage of the red wine we drank. That we occasionally attended the opera. Compared to what is being printed about MJ—Wife No. 2—what’s written about me is positively flattering. Highly respected. Quiet and hardworking. Can be a bit standoffish. But still, I flush when I read the purple prose describing our relationship, when I see how nothing has escaped scrutiny. Clearly deeply in love, they were often seen holding hands at the Three Roses coffee shop in the early morning before reporting for duty at the medical center. And: They were once caught kissing passionately in the parking lot. And: She drives a Prius, which was a little too small for his bulky frame, but they didn’t seem to mind being so intimately close with one another.
    It hurts to find out things about John from these media reports that I hadn’t known before. I was astounded to discover he had once been a passable jazz pianist. The photo used in the obituary was from an actual professional gig. He’d played in jazz bars throughout Chicago. Birdhouse. The Velvet Lounge. Andy’s. The John I knew eschewed music, turned off the radio when he got into my car, shook his head when I asked him if he’d like me to put on a CD at home. I thought he was tone deaf, even teased him about it. I offered to share some of my favorite recordings with him. Classical stuff. I