“So what do we have? Fake love? Ten years of nothing?” My voice was grating, probably too loud. I was furious at him, for cheating, and for doing it for such dopey, predictable reasons.
“I haven’t been happy for a long time.”
I rocked back in the chair like he’d shoved me. “You might have mentioned it. You know, just a little clue or two, during your years and years of misery.”
“When would I have mentioned it? You’re never home! And when you are home, you’re on the phone with one of your clients, and there’s always some kind of crisis. You don’t know me anymore.”
“I love you,” I whispered . . . even though at that moment I was not entirely sure that it was true.
He shook his head, a patient teacher instructing a slow learner. “No, Rachel, you don’t. You admire me. You need me. You like the things I do. But you don’t love me. You don’t know me. You don’t . . .”
“How about I don’t cheat?” I hissed. “How about when I promised to love you, in sickness and health, forsaking all others, I wasn’t kidding? How about I’d never fuck your boss?” Which was especially true, given that Jay’s boss was his father, a kind, avuncular man of seventy-six. “Oh, and also, how about if I did cheat, I wouldn’t be enough of a dumbass to use my wife’s OpenTable account to make my reservations!”
Jay sighed again. “I’m prepared to be fair,” he said.
“Oh, yeah? Well, maybe you’d better prepare to be broke, because I’m going to find the biggest shark in the tank and I’m going to take you to the cleaners.” Biggest shark in the tank. Take you to the cleaners. Where had I gotten these lines? Probably from one of the reality shows I loved, the ones Jay called my programs. Oh, no, we can’t go out on Monday, Rachel needs to be home for her programs. I’d believed he was just being playful. Only now I thought maybe his dislike hadn’t been feigned. There’d been things that had annoyed me about him, too, but I’d picked my battles strategically, refusing to fight about the petty irritations that went with living with another adult. I’d thought I’d been so smart, managing my marriage like it was another case at work, and what had it gotten me? My husband with another woman, looking forward to a long, happy life with my ex–best friend.
“Are you coming home?” I asked. My voice cracked on the last word, and finally, I could feel the tears, a scalding tide of them, waiting to wash through my numbness. “No, you know what? You’re not. You’re not welcome. You can stay somewhere else.” Then, with my back straight and my head held high and my gait a little strange because I was locking my knees to keep them from shaking, I’d walked out of the restaurant and then all the way downtown. The rain had tapered off to a light mist, and the smell rising up from the pavement was a blend of filth and urine and that wet, wormy scent that came from the ground after a storm. The urge to cry had receded; the rage had returned. My jaw was clenched, my feet came down hard with each step, stomping the wet pavement, and I glared at any pedestrian who blocked my path or tried to edge me out with their umbrella. I was furious at Jay for what he’d done, furious at myself for having missed all the signs, furious at Amy, who’d set me up with Jay in the first place and then decided she wanted him back.
But that wasn’t the worst part. For years, I’d told myself that Andy was my big mistake; that he, along with all the surgeries and everything that had gone with them, were the tests I had to pass so that I could meet the man I was meant to be with, and live the life I was supposed to live. But if my husband, that promised gold at the end of the rainbow, was leaving, then clearly I’d been wrong. What story could I tell myself now?
I’d found out about the affair on a Friday night, the start of one of the many long weekends that sending your children to private school guaranteed. The girls would be home Monday while their teachers attended some kind of enrichment. Jay texted me to say that he’d arranged for Adele and Delaney to spend the weekend with his father in Long Island. His brother, Ben, and his wife and their three-year-old daughter would be there, too, and there was nothing Adele and Delaney loved better than being the big girls when their little cousin was around. That weekend, before Brenda’s arrival, I only left the bed to pee and scoop the occasional swallow of water out of the sink. I couldn’t stop hearing the crap Jay had said, about soul mates and the thunderclap and how he finally knew how love was supposed to feel.
I could have told you, is what I should have said. I felt that way, once, but not about you. About Andy.