I Died The Day My Husband’s Girlfriend Did A Magic Trick. Chapter 02
The moment Caius and Leo left, the wounded look on Josephine’s face disappeared.
She walked up to the box and looked down at my body.
“Don’t blame me, Meredith. You were in my way.”
She ran a finger through the blood on the edge of the box and smiled softly.
“Even if someone investigates, this will just be a performance accident.”
“After you’re gone, I’ll take good care of Caius and Leo for you.”
Only then did I understand.
This was never an April Fools’ joke.
It was a murder she had planned all along.
I rushed at her, hitting, shoving, clawing, but my hands passed through her body again and again.
Josephine lifted her foot and kicked my exposed head, knocking it back into the box.
My face struck the cold, hard metal wall inside.
She turned and fetched a wide roll of packing tape, then crouched and began wrapping the box, again and again.
The only sound backstage was the sharp rip of tape.
She sealed every crack.
Soon, even the blood on the outside was hidden.
Then she flagged down a passing stagehand.
“The props in this box are broken. It can’t be used anymore. Could you please send it to the waste station to be thrown out?”
The stagehand agreed and carried the box away.
I followed, watching as he threw the box into a garbage truck’s compactor.
My body was now mixed in with moldy cardboard, rotten food, and dirty plastic bags.
The truck bed slowly lifted.
The box slid deeper into the trash.
In the darkness, the snakes were still wrapped around me.
I knew what would happen next.
The box would be crushed. My body would be processed with the rest of the garbage. In the end, nothing would be left.
I drifted back to the stage.
The lights were still bright, the music still playing.
Josephine had already fixed her makeup and returned to the spotlight as if nothing had happened.
In the audience, Caius and Leo watched her and clapped.
She smiled and called down from the stage, “For my next trick, I need a male volunteer. Caius, would you come up?”
Caius immediately stood and walked onto the stage.
He and Josephine worked together perfectly.
Their banter was easy, their movements familiar, and the audience kept applauding.
Watching them, I felt only a hollow emptiness.
In seven years of marriage, Caius had never even been willing to watch a movie with me.
But today, he was willing to spend an entire day helping Josephine with her talent show, and he had even invited friends specifically to watch her perform.
After the show ended, Leo held Caius’s hand and said, “Josephine is amazing. She’s so much better than Mom.”
“I wish she were my mom.”
Caius looked down at him and smiled.
“Do you really want Josephine to be your mom?”
Leo didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
Caius said nothing more, only patted his head.
I lowered my gaze.
I carried Leo for nine months.
When he was born, I nearly died on the operating table from an amniotic fluid embolism.
Afterward, my body was a wreck, and I battled postpartum depression.
Later, because he was always in poor health, I quit my job and stayed home to take care of him.
And now, the child I loved more than anything had just said he wanted someone else to be his mother.
I looked at him and said softly, “Leo, you’ll get your wish very soon.”