Oh, fuck.
Oh, shit.
No, no, no.
I widen my eyes at the older woman, shaking my head slightly, willing her to look at me, to notice that I’m silently urging her to abort, abort, abort.
But she’s too focused on Paige. “Last month he said he’d finally confessed them to you. Do you have any thoughts on that?”
“What?” Paige says, turning to me with a mild frown. “What is she talking about?”
“Uh,” is all that comes out of my mouth. My leg falls off my knee, onto the floor. I feel flustered, like my brain is malfunctioning. Hot flames of mortification spark in my chest, shooting up into my face. I’m a fucking idiot. How the hell did I forget the fib I told Sharon about having come clean? Now I’m so fucking screwed.
“I’m sorry,” Sharon cuts in. “I must’ve misunderstood. My mistake.” Her voice is flat and agitated, not at all like her normally Zen self, and she’s clearly already caught on to what I did and is trying to fix it for me.
Too bad there’s no way Paige is going to buy it. Fucking shit.
“No, wait,” the love of my life says, sitting up straighter and sliding her hand from mine. “Wait. What extremes?” Her eyes zigzag between me and Sharon, eventually settling on me. “Logan?”
Yeah. I’m a dead man walking right now. Or sitting. Whatever. Inhaling deeply, I force myself to admit, “There’s some stuff I haven’t told you. Sharon thought I had because I lied to her so she’d stop asking me about it.”
“What stuff?” Paige inches away, eyeing me apprehensively.
God fucking dammit. I brush my hand across my mouth, rubbing. This is going to get ugly. Feeling like it might be my last chance to point this out to her, I say, “The thing is, it’s in the past. I mean, if you can forgive me for everything else—which I’m assuming you must think you can—that is, if you haven’t already—then you can forgive this, too—because otherwise you wouldn’t be here with me. Right?”
“Can you please just tell me what you did?” she demands.
Right. Closing my eyes, I draw in a fortifying breath. “Do you remember when Elliott was about a month old, and I took a day off work to give you a break and told you to go to the spa and relax?”
Her eyebrows knit. “Yeah?”
“I took him to a clinic for a paternity test.”
Her eyes turn wide, unblinking. “What?” she splutters. “You…what?”
“I just…felt like I had to be sure.” I hate my defensive tone, the wheedling and pleading I feel compelled to express. Hate that I have reason to offer excuses in the first place. “It wasn’t a big deal. They only swabbed the inside of his cheek.”
“Not a big deal,” she echoes, looking stunned. “You lied to me, hauled my too-young-to-be-vaccinated baby to what was probably a germ-infested clinic, and had them shove a swab into his mouth…for what? To feed your paranoia?”
I shake my head, my heart in my throat, pounding painfully. “I’m not proud of it, baby. It was a fucked-up thing to do. I’m sorry.”
I’m not surprised she doesn’t ask what the test results were. Of course she doesn’t. Unless she was abducted in her sleep and impregnated by aliens, there’s a zero percent chance Elliott’s not mine, and she knows that better than anyone.
I know it, too, though. Now.
I reach for her hand, but she snatches it out of the way, watching me with disgust. “So is that it? That’s all she meant about going to extremes?”
I’m so tempted to say yes. Unfortunately, Sharon used the plural, and Paige is too sharp not to have noticed.
“No,” I say, and I wonder if the calm that suddenly flows through me is one that a prisoner condemned to death experiences as his moment is approaching. It’s the peace of acceptance, of inevitability.
“The results of the test weren’t enough for me. So a few months later…” I clench my teeth, hard. “I had an investigator follow you.”
Her head jerks. Her jaw drops. Disbelief freezes her entire face. “Are you kidding me?” It comes out quietly, with no force behind it. Then it’s like she gets a surge of fortitude, and her volume skyrockets as she repeats, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can think to say. Sorry, sorry, so goddamned sorry.
A strangled sound comes from her throat. “Someone followed me?” she asks incredulously. “For how long?”
“A couple of weeks. Then he told me he was sure you weren’t cheating, and that was that.”
“Excuse me?” She laughs, her eyes glittering with disbelief. “So this guy was somewhere nearby wherever I went? With a camera? Ready to catch me in the act?”
“Yeah. That’s how surveillance is usually done.” I hear myself say it, realize it sounds kind of snarky, and so I offer her a taut, apologetic smile. Like that’ll disarm her.
I’m a moron. An asshole. Probably soon to be a divorced moron and asshole.
Across from us, Sharon is observing with hushed solemnity, a crease on her forehead. Motherly concern.
“Who was the investigator?” Paige asks, sounding suspicious.
My stomach roils. Forcing myself to meet her eyes, I say, “Does it matter?”
Her expression turns steely. “Who. Was. He?”
My face prickles. This is the final nail in my coffin, the death knell, and I can’t get a word out.
But I don’t need to.
She’s already figured it out.
“Oh, my God,” she breathes out, realization transforming her countenance into a horrified rictus. “You didn’t. You fucking didn’t…dare. How—” She exhales again, almost panting. “Tell me who it was. I need to hear you say it.”
Sitting up, I lean forward and rest my elbows on my thighs, rubbing my face with both hands. Wincing, I mumble between my fingers, “It was my dad.”
With my eyes squeezed shut, I hear her gasping like she’s choking, can feel the couch cushions bounce and then the ease of tension telling me she’s no longer sitting down.
“You crazy, lying, selfish, spoiled piece of shit!”
Every word feels like a kick in the nuts, producing agony and nausea and light-headedness. Never before have I heard that tone in her voice, that edge of near hysteria. Still covering my mouth, I look up at her, but she’s no more than a blurry outline, because my eyes start swimming with tears.
“Paige,” Sharon begs. “Try to take a breath.”
“No,” my wife spits out, and through my fuzzy vision, I see her whip around toward the other woman, pointing accusingly. “No, he lied to you, too. Don’t try to get me to calm down. I’m not calming down. Don’t sit there and act like this is normal, and I’m the one who’s being unreasonable!”
“I didn’t say that,” the therapist answers calmly.
“I mean, have you told him that it’s okay?” Paige rages on. “That he can be excused, because he had a cheating and absent mom? Because if you have, you suck at your job! This is not normal. It’s not okay.”
I blink, clearing the liquid from my eyes, and while I swipe irritatedly at the drops on my cheeks, I can finally see my wife standing there with her hands clenched in fists, her face flushed a dark, angry pink as she glares at Sharon and says, “And don’t give me that crap about it being in the past. There has to be a limit to the level of crazy that it’s possible to recover from. And he—” Now she points at me, her finger stabbing repeatedly in my direction. “He’s way over that limit.”
“Honestly,” Sharon retorts, “that’s not a judgment you’re qualified to make, Paige.”
“Whatever,” my wife snaps. “I’m definitely fucking qualified to say I don’t want him in my life anymore.” Turning on me, she snarls, “We’re done. You’ll be served with divorce papers.”
“Paige—” Sharon urges as my wife snatches her purse off the couch and makes a beeline for the door. Before I can draw breath, she’s gone.
Automatically, I get to my feet, staring at the door as I stand there at a lo
ss for what to do. Should I go after her? Will that be helpful? Does that even matter? Don’t I at least need to try? What am I telling her if I don’t follow her, don’t think it’s worth even trying to talk to her?
“She’ll calm down,” my therapist says from her chair. “In the meantime, give her some space.”
The command gives me pause, has me peering at the little woman with my mouth slightly agape. Giving orders is so far removed from how she usually communicates with me, it’s somewhat jarring. And significant.
“Yeah,” I comment, feeling dazed. “And she’ll still be furious.”
Sharon gives me a look as if she’s saying I’ve made my bed.
Which I most definitely have. Fuck.
“Sorry I lied to you,” I offer with a twist of my lips.
She waves me off. “Hazard of the trade. Same as yours, I’m guessing.” Looking up at the clock on the wall, she says, “Well, we still have quite a bit of time left, so we can keep going if you like?”
I consider it, but only for a second. At some point I definitely want to talk to her about all the messed-up shit I’ve learned since my last appointment. Such as my mom being dead—which I still haven’t figured out how I feel about—and the fact that I have a sister and, worst of all, my dad possibly being a goddamned wife beater. Jesus Christ.
Now’s not the time, though, while I’m still reeling from the sudden implosion of my marriage that I had thought was on the mend. All the other issues pale in comparison. “No, that’s all right,” I say to Sharon, and even though I don’t really owe her an excuse or explanation, I still add, “I need to call my dad and tell him she knows.”
Which is true enough.
As I leave the office, lumbering numbly down the stairs, it hits me like a wrecking ball: I’ve lost her.
Put a lid on it.
Lights out.
Do not resuscitate.
RIP us.
Chapter 29
Paige
My hands feel shaky and numb as I grip the steering wheel, turning swiftly out of the parking lot onto the street that runs past Sharon Lorentz’s office building. Heart hammering painfully in my chest, my pulse racing, I just start driving, having no idea where I’m going, not giving a shit. My mind splits in half, one part going into autopilot, steering and minding traffic, and the other part is miles away, stuck in a frenzied loop of rage and disbelief and misery.
What the hell is wrong with him? I thought I’d figured it out, thought I believed that he’d moved past it all, that it was a temporary obsession and he’d clawed his way out of it. But that was before I knew just how deep of a death spiral he’d plunged into. There’s a huge difference between what I thought his paranoia had driven him to—his suspicious attitude, the way he talked to me like he was a prosecutor and me the defendant—and the stuff I just found out he did.
It’s not only that I feel violated, grossly mistrusted, and deceived about who he is and what he’s capable of. I can’t believe he did something like that to me, yes, but he also did it to Mike. And to our kids, indirectly, by tearing us apart, creating uncertainty and confusion for them.
And then I became the bad guy, when I’d had enough and decided to end it. The unfairness of it all sends fresh flames of fury burning through my veins.
Well, I’m done now. I’m exhausted—drained and dispirited. I have nothing left. The final thin thread connecting me to that man has been severed, and now I need to focus on me, my kids, and our welfare and future.
Which means it’s time to set the ball rolling.
I spot a strip mall on my right up ahead, and flipping on my blinker, I brake and take the sharp turn into the driveway. Finding an empty spot under a tree at the far end of the lot, I pull in and stop, letting the engine run. Then I dig my phone out of my purse, find Beth in my contacts, and hit the Call button.
She answers on the fourth ring, her voice sounding brisk and chipper. “Hey, babe. What’s up?”
“How soon can you have the divorce papers ready for me to sign so you can file them?” I ask, watching the tree branches a couple of feet above my windshield, the way the leaves dance and sway in the breeze.
“Uh-oh,” my friend says slowly. “What happened?”
“I fucked him.” The words feel like they wrest themselves from my chest, making a wild escape, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because I feel like that’s why I’m here right now. If I hadn’t succumbed to that temptation, I wouldn’t have let him back in, wouldn’t have allowed him to seduce my mind as well as my body into thinking I could have him back in my life.
“Nooo—” Beth whines, a mournful protest.
“And we talked,” I go on, my phone pressed to my ear, “and things were going well. I mean, I thought maybe we’d be okay and that I wanted him back. So we just saw a counselor together, to get another perspective on it, you know?”
“Okay…?”
“Turns out there was stuff he’d never told me, and he was never going to tell me, except his therapist accidentally gave it away.”
As succinctly as I can, because I don’t want to drag out the rehashing of Logan’s lunacy, I tell her the details of what he did. I can’t help the images that flash in my mind as the words pour out, though: Mike’s nondescript SUV following me, parked and waiting while I ran errands, his big camera with its zoom lens ready in his lap.
What a tedious task that must’ve been for him. The most thrilling part was probably when I took Elliott to Mommy and Me Yoga and my father-in-law got to watch all those women in their tight yoga outfits, hauling their baby carriers around, Starbucks cups in hand, rings under their eyes, and hair in buns that were unintentionally messy.
Sheesh.
Seriously, though. Was he satisfied just waiting outside at times like that? How could he be sure the yoga instructor wasn’t a hot young guy that I was getting down and dirty with in the supply closet? With my baby carrier by our side?
Sloppy, Mike.
When I’m done, Beth is silent for a heartbeat or two. “You’re shitting me,” she utters flatly.
“I wish.”
Her breath whooshes loudly over the phone speaker. “He asked his dad to do it?”
“Yes,” I say, closing my eyes and massaging between my eyebrows, where it feels like a headache is brewing.
“What the hell?”
“Exactly.”
“Who does that?” my friend muses in disbelief.
“My husband,” I reply glumly. “Apparently.”
She pauses again. “That’s insane.”
“I know.” For some reason, my own words suddenly reverberate in my head, spoken to Mia just a few days ago: He’s kind of messed up. I still love him.
The first part is definitely true. I thought the second part was true, too. My heart squeezes, stealing my breath.
“Do you think I’m overreacting?” I ask Beth, chewing on my bottom lip.
“Babe, I wanted you to file ages ago,” she responds at once, her tone sharpening. “No, you’re not overreacting. Fuck him. You don’t need this shit in your life.”
Damn right I don't. Enough already.
“So how soon can you do it?” I ask.
“Sunday night?” She sounds apologetic. “I’m actually done with work for the day already. The kids and I are going to Legoland with my parents this weekend, and my mom would kill me if I worked, so I’m not even bringing my computer.”
“Okay,” I say, swallowing my disappointment, because I was hoping this would be a matter of hours, not days. “That’s fine.”
“I’ll text you when I’ve emailed you the docs so you can sign them online, and then I can file right away.”
“Thank you.”
My friend pauses, draws a breath. “Are you okay? I mean, I can cancel my trip, and we can meet up. You know I’m here if you need me.”
“Oh, no. I’ll be fine,” I reassure her, even though I’m not, and I won’t be anytime soon.
She seems doubtful and keeps p
ressing for a while longer, but I insist that I’ll be okay, and so we say goodbye and disconnect.
So that’s done then.
Now, what?
It’s a quarter past ten. I have a consultation in less than an hour. God. That sounds like the last thing I want to do right now. I know I need to just suck it up and be professional, but I’m not sure I’m capable. Truth is, I’m a mess. My thoughts keep bouncing all over the place, my focus is shot. How can I listen to potential new clients sharing their story with me when all I can think about is my own problems?
With heaviness in my chest and queasiness in my stomach, I do something I’ve never done before. I dig through my emails, find the number I need, and make the call to say I have to postpone. We reschedule for first thing on Monday, and the lady thankfully doesn’t sound at all upset, but that doesn’t help much, because I’m plenty upset on her behalf. Letting people down is not my MO.
So now I have almost four hours until I’m supposed to grab my kids from their nanny’s house. The evening stretches out before me. I’ll make dinner and try to get them to eat it. Or I can take them out somewhere and pretend I’ve got everything under control while the little monsters do everything they can to prove otherwise. Takeout is probably the best option.
Afterward they’ll wreck the house as usual, making mind-boggling messes in the blink of an eye, and I’ll try to hang on to my sanity until bedtime, after which I’ll have space to breathe again. Sitting in my house, where every room and every piece of furniture holds memories of him and what we used to have together.
I can’t do it. Can’t, don’t want to, might actually have some sort of breakdown if I’m forced to.
What are my options, though?
I’m not dumping them on Logan. That would require talking to him, and that’s not happening. Just the thought of hearing his voice right now makes want to break something. Preferably his face.
What about Miranda? My mind shies away from the idea immediately. She’s watched them overnight before, but always at my house, and she has her family visiting right now. I can’t even bring myself to ask, because she’d feel obliged to say yes, and that would be a crappy move on my part.
Mend (Waters Book 2) Page 36