by Joy Fielding
“Don’t tell me to lower my fucking voice.”
“Do you want to wake up the kids? Do you want them to hear their mother swearing like a truck driver?”
“Do you want to explain this?”
“No, I don’t. I’ve been working my ass off all day and night. I don’t appreciate coming home to a bunch of crazy accusations.”
“Crazy accusations?” Chloe lifted the laptop off the kitchen table, waving the screen toward him. “Are you seriously going to deny this is a picture of you?” Please deny it! I’m begging you to deny it. I’ll find a way to believe it. Just say it’s all a big misunderstanding, that you can explain everything.
“What are you doing on a dating site?” he asked instead.
“What?”
“You heard me. Are you checking out guys behind my back?”
“Are you kidding me? You’re actually trying to turn this around?”
“You can’t troll these sites without being a member,” he said, moving quickly to the table, commandeering her laptop, and quickly tapping on the keys. Seconds later, Chloe found herself staring at the selfie she’d taken this morning and submitted along with a brief profile. Outgoing and curious. Loves kids and traveling. “Well, what do you know?” he said. “Look who we have here—looks like the pot calling the kettle black.”
Chloe fought to retain control, even as she felt the ground giving way beneath her. “I’m not the one who needs to explain anything.”
“I think you do.”
“Fine. I’ll explain. At least I can explain. I joined these sites this morning after some woman called to tell me you were on them…”
“Some woman being Paige Hamilton? You know how that bitch is always trying to stir up trouble…”
“Paige isn’t a bitch, and it wasn’t her. I don’t know who it was. It doesn’t matter who it was. What matters is that you’re on these sites, pretending to be single…”
“What matters is that you joined these sites to spy on me.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You don’t trust me, Chloe. You never have.”
“Don’t you dare make this about me.”
“You’ve always been insecure and needy, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work or try to please you, to reassure you…”
“This is your way of reassuring me?” Chloe brought her hands to her head, as if to keep it from exploding. The conversation was becoming increasingly surreal. “By looking for women online?”
“I can’t do this right now,” Matt said, turning away. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
“Don’t you dare walk away from me.”
“There’s no point in continuing this discussion now,” he said. “You’re upset, you’re irrational, you’re way overreacting.”
“I’m overreacting?” she repeated, her voice at least an octave higher than just seconds ago.
“I don’t appreciate being yelled at.”
“I don’t appreciate being lied to,” she countered.
“I haven’t lied to you.”
Chloe slammed the back of her fingers against the computer screen. “This isn’t you?” Please tell me it isn’t you. Find a way to make me believe this isn’t you.
The silence that followed was almost unbearable. “It’s me,” Matt said finally.
“Oh, God.” Chloe felt the tears she’d somehow managed to keep at bay now in free fall down her cheeks.
“Oh, babe. Please don’t cry,” he said, walking quickly to the table and sinking into the chair beside her. “You know I can’t bear it when you cry.”
“Why?” she asked when she could find her voice. “I don’t understand why.”
“I don’t know why,” he said, his own eyes clouding over with tears. “I swear to God, I don’t know. It started as a lark, a joke. This guy at work—Tony Marshall, you remember him, I think you met him at that cocktail party last year, he’s not the best-looking guy—anyway, it’s not important. But he’s on these sites, and he’s always bragging about the hordes of women he’s been meeting—all the ‘pussy he’s been getting,’ I believe was his delicate way of putting it—and I thought, shit, if he’s making out like such a bandit, how would I do?”
Chloe fought the urge to gag.
“So, I joined a bunch of sites, and right away I got all these responses from women saying they wanted to hook up.”
“How many?” Chloe asked. “How many have there been?”
“None,” he told her. “I swear. I never followed through with any of them.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. That wasn’t the point. Honestly, babe. I just liked the attention. I admit that I was tempted. Hell, I’m human. Who doesn’t want to feel desired? But then I thought of you and how sweet you are, and how much I love you. I thought of the kids and everything I stood to lose. And I couldn’t do it.”
Yes, Chloe thought. It makes sense. What he’s saying makes sense.
“I know it was a crazy thing to do. It was juvenile and risky and downright stupid. But I love you, Chloe. I would never purposely do anything to hurt you. You have to believe me.” He fell to his knees in front of her, his head burrowing into her lap, his shoulders heaving with the force of his sigh.
Chloe lowered her face to the top of his head, burying her lips in his thick brown hair, inhaling his masculine smell.
Combined with the unmistakable scent of another woman’s perfume.
There was no point in asking for an explanation. She knew he’d have one. One of the women at the office, he’d say, maybe even giving her a name, rounding out his fabrication with an amusing anecdote designed to make Chloe smile. Or maybe he’d say that it was the agent acting for the seller, the one he’d told her about months ago, they’d worked together before, the one who always stood too close and wore too much perfume. “You don’t remember?” he’d ask, looking wounded by her continuing suspicions.
“I think you should leave,” Chloe said, her voice so quiet it was barely audible. Had she said anything at all?
“What?” His head jerked up.
“I want you to leave,” she said, more adamantly than before. She stood up so abruptly that Matt almost fell over. “Now.”
“Chloe, this is crazy. You’re being…”
“Irrational?”
“I don’t get it. I thought…”
“You thought you got away with it,” she said simply. “Again.” She took a deep breath. “I love you, Matt. Despite everything. Some part of me probably always will. But you were right. I don’t trust you. And I don’t believe you, no matter how hard I try or how much I want to. You’re a liar and a cheat, and as much as I’ll probably hate living without you, I’ll hate myself even more if I let you stay.”
Chloe watched Matt’s hands ball into fists at his sides and braced herself for the full force of his fury. But there was only silence. Was he going to hold firm, refuse to leave? she wondered as he turned on his heels and disappeared up the stairs. Would she find him in their bed, already asleep, when she grew tired of waiting and joined him? Would she create a scene or just crawl in beside him?
She felt his heavy footsteps pacing the floor above her head, heard him rummaging through the closet in their bedroom. Less than five minutes later, she heard those footsteps hurrying down the stairs, and watched her husband stride purposely past her, overnight bag in hand. She heard him mutter something under his breath as he pulled open the front door and vanished into the night.
It was only after the door slammed shut behind him that his words reverberated back to her: “You’ll be sorry.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The lawyer’s office was located on the ground floor of an old two-story redbrick house on Portland Street, normally a five-minute drive from Chloe’s Binney Street address, but taking almost tw
ice that time because of continuing roadwork in the area. It seemed that all of Cambridge was under construction, the ubiquitous orange-and-black pylons that lined the streets and interrupted the flow of traffic starting to feel more like a permanent installation than a temporary inconvenience.
The bus for day camp had picked up Josh and Sasha just before nine, and Chloe had spent the rest of the morning, as she had the previous morning, combing through the list of divorce lawyers online. She finally settled on Pamela Lang, partly because she liked her photograph, partly because her office was in the area, and mostly because, of the half dozen family law practitioners she’d already tried, Pamela Lang was the only one who could see her before the end of the month. Matt hadn’t so much as phoned since he left, and already Chloe was second-guessing her decision, wondering if she’d done the right thing. It was important that she see someone soon, before she had a chance to change her mind.
Not that she couldn’t change her mind, she reminded herself as she left the white Hyundai that Matt had bought her for their last anniversary at the end of the street and pushed her way through a stubborn curtain of late-July heat toward the lawyer’s office. Even now she was hoping that Matt could come up with an explanation that would somehow redeem him, convince her that he would never stray again. Maybe he would agree to marital counseling, something he’d rejected in no uncertain terms in the past. “We don’t need some stranger meddling in our lives,” he’d told her the first time she’d suggested they might benefit from counseling. “There’s no problem we can’t solve ourselves. We just have to be honest with each other.”
Which was exactly the problem. He wasn’t honest.
“He’s a liar and a cheat,” Chloe whispered as she pushed open the heavy oak front door and stepped inside the dark wood, air-conditioned foyer. She wiped the perspiration from her neck and pulled at the waist of her red-striped sundress, standing for another minute outside a second door, this one made of translucent glass. Pamela Lang and Richard Fogler, Attorneys-at-Law was painted across the rippled glass surface in swirling black cursive.
Fighting the urge to flee, Chloe opened the door and stepped inside a small waiting area, where a middle-aged receptionist with bright orange hair and huge, round, black-rimmed glasses sat behind a large oak desk, leafing through the latest issue of InStyle magazine.
“You must be Chloe Dixon,” she said with a smile so wide that it exposed both rows of teeth. “We spoke earlier. I’m Trudy. Come in. Have a seat.” She motioned toward four navy-blue chairs propped against the ecru-colored wall, her smile so persistent that Chloe felt obliged to return it. “Pamela’s running a little late, but she should be back any minute.”
Chloe automatically checked her watch. Her meeting with the lawyer was scheduled for one o’clock and it was past that already. The camp bus would drop the kids off at three and she couldn’t be late getting home. Josh was already suspicious that something was wrong.
“Where’s Daddy?” he’d asked at breakfast, the same question he’d asked yesterday.
She’d lied and said that Daddy was very busy at work, but there was only so long she could keep using that as an excuse.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Trudy asked.
“No, thank you.” Chloe checked her watch again, more for show than necessity. Several minutes later, she checked it again. She glanced back at Trudy, who was still smiling as she flipped through the pages of her magazine. “I’m sorry,” Chloe began, not sure what she was apologizing for. “But my kids get home at three o’clock and, obviously, I have to be there.” She held up her left wrist and pointed at her watch, an oversized Michael Kors that Matt had bought her for Christmas.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Trudy said, her smile as big as ever. “Pamela’s meeting ran longer than she expected. And the traffic…you know…with all this construction…I’m sure she’ll be here any minute.”
“Maybe I should come back tomorrow,” Chloe said after another ten minutes had passed.
“I’m afraid she’s fully booked for the rest of this week, and she’s away all next week at a conference,” Trudy said, checking her boss’s schedule on her computer. “I could give you something the week after that.”
“No, that’s too late.”
For the first time, Trudy’s smile threatened to disappear. “She really should be back any second. Is there someone you can call…for your kids?”
Well, I can’t very well call my husband, Chloe thought. “Hi, hon. It’s me. I’m stuck at the divorce lawyer’s and I was wondering if you could go back to the house I kicked you out of and look after the kids till I get back.”
And she couldn’t call Paige and impose on her again. Besides, with the traffic, it was unlikely Paige could get there in time anyway.
Which left only one option. “Dear God,” Chloe moaned, punching in her mother’s digits on her cellphone.
Jennifer Powadiuk lived in a small apartment off Harvard Square, just minutes away, although her heavy schedule of dance competitions across the country meant she was rarely there. Chloe had no idea if she was even in the city, not having heard from her in six weeks. (Came in second in the tango competition in Tampa, read her last email. Should have won.)
“Please answer,” Chloe whispered as the phone began ringing. She pictured her mother staring at her caller ID, trying to decide whether to pick up. After six rings, her mother’s breathy whisper came on the line: “Out tap-dancing my little head off. But do leave a message. Preferably one that’s X-rated.”
Chloe sighed, about to click off when her mother came on the line. “Chloe? Is that you?”
“Where are you?” Chloe asked, hearing chatter in the background and the clinking of glasses, which meant her mother was likely at a bar, regardless of what city she was in.
“What can I do for you, Chloe?” her mother asked, ignoring the question.
“Are you in town?”
“Yes. I don’t leave till Friday.”
“Where are you going?”
“Toronto. There’s an international polka competition—”
“Look, Mom,” Chloe interrupted, once again glancing at her watch. She didn’t have time to listen to her mother’s upcoming agenda. “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Yes, of course. Why else would you be calling?”
Really? Chloe thought. You have the nerve to sound indignant? You’re trying to make me feel guilty? You, who were never there, who never…She stopped. Now was not the time to start recounting her mother’s failings. “I was wondering if…Look, I’m stuck somewhere and I might not be able to make it home by three o’clock when the kids get back from camp. I was hoping you might be able to come over…”
“Of course,” her mother said. “I’ll leave now.”
“Really?”
“You needn’t sound so shocked, Chloe. I love those children, and I don’t see near enough of them.”
Whose fault is that? Chloe asked silently, deciding not to voice that thought out loud. “Thank you,” she muttered instead, opting to leave well enough alone. “I’ll try to get home as fast as I can.”
“No need to rush. I assume my key still works?”
“It still works.” Something else she’d have to do before the end of the week, Chloe realized: change the locks.
“Good. Then I’ll see you later.”
“Thanks again,” Chloe said, but her mother had already clicked off. “Well, well. Will wonders never cease,” she said, shaking her head.
“You found someone?” Trudy asked.
“My mother,” she said, amazement clinging to her voice.
“Mothers are the best.”
Chloe nodded, although she didn’t buy it. Maybe mothers like Joan Hamilton. Not mothers like Jennifer Powadiuk. Still, maybe age was mellowing her. Maybe she really did love her grandchildren, despite no
t seeing them very often. Would Josh and Sasha even recognize the woman who’d be there to greet them when they got off the bus?
Yes, her mother could be charming. Yes, she could be funny and even sweet on occasion. When the occasion suited her. When she could use it to her advantage.
Remind you of anyone? Chloe thought.
“Dear God, I married my mother,” she whispered, the realization forcing the words from her mouth with such force, she started choking.
“Oh, dear,” Trudy said. “Can I get you some water?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine.” Chloe cleared her throat. Clearing her mind of such unwelcome thoughts wouldn’t be nearly as easy.
She heard the door open behind her.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” a woman said, appearing in front of Chloe, hand extended. “I’m Pamela Lang. Thank you so much for waiting.”
Chloe stared into the kind face of a woman perhaps a decade her senior, her brown hair streaked with gray and pulled into a tightly secured bun at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a navy jacket over a matching skirt and white blouse, seemingly impervious to the summer heat. Chloe felt immediately safe.
Pamela Lang indicated her inner office with a sweep of her hands. “Shall we get this show on the road?”
Chloe rose to her feet. By all means, she thought. Let’s get this show on the road.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He was waiting for her when she returned home almost two hours later.
Chloe closed the front door, hearing the television blasting upstairs. “Mom?” she called, walking toward the living room. “Joshy? Sasha?”
It was then that she saw him. He was sitting on the plum-colored sectional, his feet stretched toward the navy leather ottoman between him and the large-screen TV on the opposite wall. The look on his beautiful face was one of barely concealed contempt. “Nice of you to finally put in an appearance,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she asked her husband. “Where’s my mother?”
“Last I saw her she was passed out in Josh’s room.”