My mother smiled at that. Roberta had a way with her, whereas I had more skill riling her up than calming her down. The other ladies laughed and started trying to one-up each other with stories about the awful people their kids were dating.
My mother took a closer look at the photo of Smith. “If he's so great, why's he not here with you?”
I sipped the wine. “I don't know if I ever want to see him again.”
Now I had their full attention.
“Start from the beginning,” my mother said.
“We're going to need a lot more wine.”
“I have another box chilling in the fridge.”
I took a deep breath and sighed. “You know, Smith's a real snob. He'd call this poor people food.”
Roberta took a Triscuit from the platter and topped it with marble cheese. “This is real people food. He probably eats foofy stuff like caviar on everything.”
“Not caviar, but he likes weird salads with beans and sprouts in them.”
“He probably has good breath,” Roberta said. “Rich people don't have that smell of decay about them.”
I thought back to kissing him. “You know, he does have good breath. Probably because he drinks tea instead of coffee.”
“What kind of tea?”
My mother gave her friend a dirty look. “For the love of Pete, just ask her what you want to know already.”
Roberta leaned in on her elbows. “Did you two have S-E-X?”
“Several times.” I glanced over at my mother to make sure she was not having a heart attack. She looked uncomfortable, but interested. “Pretty much non-stop,” I said.
She refilled her wine glass and waved her hand for me to continue, so I did.
Some of the women there I'd known my whole life, and others were newcomers to the group, but they all had something in common: way more life experience than me. Between the seven of them, there'd been ten marriages, nine children, and two grandchildren, plus countless broken hearts and shed tears.
That night, they were my friends, my sisters, my therapists, and my tribe of elders, all together.
It took nearly two hours to get to the end, to the final confrontation with Smith in the penthouse, and his confession.
In the silence that followed, they exchanged looks. My mother was pretty drunk by then, and barely following along—which was fine by me.
The first to pronounce judgment was Noreen, who had always been a little judgmental, usually commenting on the prices of things and what sort of activities other people let their children engage in.
“He violated his wife,” Noreen said. “I'll never read another of his books again. He sounds like a monster.”
Roberta, shaking her head, said, “Things happen within a marriage. Power dynamics and stuff. A man certainly can rape his wife, and some do, but I don't feel like that's what happened here.”
Noreen's lips scrunched as her face soured. “I guess we'll never know, since we weren't there.”
My mother turned to me, her eyes a little dazed, but focused. “Tori, did he ever strike you in anger? Did he ever make you do something you weren't comfortable with?”
“I don't think so.”
Her forehead furrowed. “Yes or no. Were you on drugs?”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “No drugs. And no, he never scared me, not until the last day. Today. Wow, it's been a long day.”
Roberta said, “A stillborn child can destroy even a perfectly-good marriage.” Tears formed in her eyes and streaked down her round cheeks. “After our first, there was another pregnancy. My sweet little angel only made it to seven months.”
My mother started to weep. “Berta, I didn't know.” She leaned over and wrapped her arms around Roberta.
“Not many people knew,” Roberta said, wiping her cheeks with a tissue. “We moved here not long after, and we didn't want to make people sad, so we didn't say. My angel girl didn't even have a name.”
“I'm so sorry to hear about your loss,” I said as the other women said the same.
“You know, I would have left Dale,” Roberta continued. “I would have left him alone with our son, gotten in my car, and just kept driving. Those months after were the worst part of my life, having to explain to everyone who asked about the new baby. If I'd have thought Dale could take the burden of being blamed, I'd have blamed him and just ran away from all the pain.”
Noreen said, “You wouldn't have done that. You wouldn't have left your son.”
Roberta cried harder, the dam busting open. “Yes, I would have. I went to the bank to take out some money, but there wasn't any, and the account was in overdraft, to the maximum. If I'd had even a hundred dollars, there's no telling how far I would have gotten.”
My mother kept patting Roberta's hair, rocking her. “It's all right now. You and Dale are happy together, so aren't you glad you didn't leave?”
Roberta sniffed, smiling through the tears. “He is the sweetest, most honest, kind man the world has ever known, and I'm blessed.” The other ladies smiled and exchanged knowing looks. Roberta looked straight up at me and said, “But at the time, I said some terrible things to that man. It was the grief talking. I'm so glad he found a way to forgive me.”
I pulled back from the table and took a load of dirty dishes into the kitchen while the other women talked and soothed Roberta.
I didn't know what to think now, about what Smith had told me. Had he really been as awful as he'd imagined, or had the grief colored everything? And if he'd been broke, like Roberta and her husband had been seventeen years ago, before Dale started his contracting company, would that have kept Smith and his wife together through the rough patch? Being wealthy would certainly make your life different. Did having wealth make it harder to have a relationship, because it was easier to walk away?
I had his ex-wife's name in my mouth, bitter on my tongue. “Brynn,” I said to myself in the empty kitchen. I'd known some Briannas and a Brie, but never a Brynn. The name sounded rich and stuck-up, and really blond—like, platinum blond. She probably grew orchids for fun, or had her staff do it.
The ladies in the dining room had cheered up, and the sound of laughter trickled into the kitchen.
Noreen called for me, telling me to get my “derriere” out there.
I came out with a glass of water in hand and joined them at the table. “I'm sorry I kept you all up so late.”
Noreen uncrossed her arms. “Tori, do you want to be with Mr. Smith Wittingham?”
“I don't want to be without him,” I said, surprising myself at how sure I sounded, considering I'd just taken a very expensive flight to get away from him earlier that same day.