A Wife’s Sisters, Both Real and Imagined

After mourning her ex’s death for a week in bed, my wife leaps out of bed one day a completely different person. And I mean, an utterly different person. I’ll make it simple: she had an alternative personality living inside of her, and this new woman was going to be taking over for a while. Her name was BW (her full name being The Black Widow), and she was (in my wife’s inner world) my wife’s fraternal twin sister. They were very different. I had to quickly adapt to the situation and learn how to deal with BW, who wore her hair and clothing differently and was on occasion unstable.

My Wife and the Stairs

I’d been married to my wife for seven years. Our marriage was going pretty well, though it had gotten rocky in parts. One day, my wife started going for “long walks” at night by herself. She said she needed to clear her head and walk by the waterfront. Right away I didn’t buy it – she would dress a little too nice for a night walk. When she would come home, she would avoid coming to bed right away, but when she eventually did, I could smell alcohol on her every time. I quickly surmised that she must be going to one of our many local neighborhood bars, so I resolved to follow her one night.

It wasn’t very difficult to follow her. One night, after she left our apartment, I listened for the elevator bell – as soon as she was on the elevator, I shimmied down the back stairwell (we were on the fourth floor) and managed to make it to the back of the building quickly. I knew if I didn’t hurry, I might lose her. But I moved swiftly, and spotted her leaving the front of the building, and she didn’t spot me back – her back was turned to me as she headed towards what I knew was the nearest bar in proximity to our apartment.