His words tug at my heart. Does he truly mean it, though? I can’t know for sure if I’m talking to my Nathan, or the impostor I’ve been living with recently. “It isn’t that black and white.”
“Sure it is. Go be with Bell. Kiss her for me. But tomorrow, first thing, come home. Ginger and I will be waiting.” He hangs up.
I lower the phone and breathe in the cold night air. My heart and my head war, but the worst part is, neither even knows which side it’s on. One second, my heart craves Finn’s warmth, his safe embrace, while my head tells me he’ll never be what Nathan is. The next, I’m thinking of all the reasons to walk away from Nathan, who hurt me on purpose, while in my depths I know—my heart beats for him.
I go back inside just as Andrew is trying, unsuccessfully, to get Bell into bed. “Come on, kid. It’s a school night.”
“But Aunt Sadie is here,” she cries. “It’s a special occasion!”
I stand in the doorway, watching them. Bell could be enough for me, couldn’t she? I love her like my own daughter. I don’t have to put myself through the agony each month of not being able to conceive. With Nathan, it would be a battle. He wouldn’t go down easy. With Finn, though, we’d have Marissa, and to him, that’s enough. I ache for my own Bell or Marissa, but not everyone gets what they want. And I’m the closest thing Bell has to a mom. Shana abandoned her, and when Bell’s old enough to understand that, Bell will need me more than ever.
I take over for Andrew and read Bell a story. By the time I finish, she isn’t asleep, but at least she’s no longer yelling. I close her door and meet Andrew in the kitchen, taking a barstool at the island as he pours me red wine. The fact that my bad-boy brother owns wineglasses makes me strangely proud.
“So what really happened to Ginger?” he asks, sliding the drink across the island.
“A casualty of Nathan’s and my epic fight this morning,” I say. “She cut herself on some glass, and Nate rushed her to the vet.”
He raises his eyebrows, pouring himself bourbon. “You and Nate fight epically? Since when?”
I look into my glass, no idea where to begin. How to even start. Andrew and Nathan are close, and Andrew doesn’t get close to anyone. They’ve been brothers for years now. I don’t want to take that away from him any more than I want to confess what I’ve done.
“When was the last time you saw Nathan?” I ask.
“A couple months ago.” He cocks his head. “No, wait. July fourth, actually. Has it really been that long?”
I nod, glancing up at him. “Weird, right? He loves coming over here, but the last few times, he’s had excuses not to.”
Andrew leans his elbows on the island. “I get it. He’s busy with work.”
“Not too busy for Bell.”
He concedes with a nod. “True. He’d drop anything for her. Too busy for you, then?” he guesses.
I shake my head. “We’ve been having problems, but it isn’t because of work.”
“Problems? Meaning?”
“He started acting different a few months ago. Almost overnight, he became distant and cold.”
Andrew spins his glass on the counter and says what I predict he will. “Cold and distant—that doesn’t sound like Nathan.”
“I know. I haven’t mentioned it, because I kept hoping it would get better. But up until today, he barely spoke to me for months and wouldn’t tell me why. Knowing the kind of couple we were, you can imagine how hard it’s been for me to be iced out.”
“Yeah,” he says. “The Nathan I know barely leaves you alone. You know that thing about putting on your own oxygen mask in an airplane before you help the person next to you?”
I nod. “He’d put mine on first. Always.”
“Exactly.” He sips his drink. “So what happened today?”
“I found out why he’s so upset. He knows about the abortion.”
Andrew freezes everything but his mouth, which drops open. “From seven years ago? How?” His eyes widen. “I didn’t tell him. Who else knows?”
“It’s stupid,” I say, sighing. “I looked up some stuff about abortions when we decided to stop trying to get pregnant. I think he was out of town that night, and I was drowning my sorrows in wine. I never hide anything from Nate, and I guess it just didn’t occur to me to erase my history. I’m not sure I would’ve, even if I’d thought about it.”
“And you told him it was his?”
“He knew. I guess he picked up some clues over the years, but didn’t put it together until he saw that.”
“Wow.” He blows out a breath. “Considering how badly he wants a kid, he must be . . .”
“He actually seems okay about that part,” I say thoughtfully. “He was more pissed that I hid it from him this long and that I didn’t trust him enough at the time to let him be there for me.”
“That’s understandable,” Andrew says. “But I’m not sure it’s enough to give you the silent treatment for so long.”
“I know. I think there’s more to the story we didn’t get to.”
“How’s that possible? What could’ve been more important than finding out?”
I drink more wine to bolster my confidence. “You know what Nate means to me. How perfect our marriage was.”
“Was . . .?”
With Andrew, it’s best to be straight. “I’m leaving him.”
He sets down his glass, straightening up. “What’re you talking about?”
“It got to be too much, and—” I stop. Confessing the truth about Finn isn’t any easier. It might even be harder since Andrew values loyalty above all else. I’m not sure he’ll understand.
“So that’s it?” He stares at me. “It’s just done? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I just—lost faith in him.” I roll my lips together. “He knew how hard it was for me to open my heart to him, and then when I wasn’t expecting it, he stomped all over it.”
Andrew is quiet a few moments. “It’s hard for me to imagine Nathan doing that,” he says slowly, “but if that’s really how you felt, then I can understand why you’d want to pull back.”
We look at each other a long moment. Shana didn’t even bother to put his heart through the grinder. She just left it behind without a second thought.
“But,” he says, “now that you two know what the problem is, you guys can fix it. Get counseling. Whatever. You’re too good together to let a few months shake you.”
“We could have if things’d been different. If he’d told me sooner, or if I’d come clean before he found out. But it didn’t work out that way, and while Nathan was busy doing everything in his power to stay away from me, someone else was doing the opposite.”
Andrew tilts his head. “What do you mean ‘someone else’?”
“There’s a man—Finn. He moved in across the hall a few weeks ago, and . . . he and I have become close. Really close.”
Andrew narrows his eyes. “How close?”
I glance down.
“Sadie,” he says. “Seriously?”
I pinch the glass stem between my fingers and think of Finn back in his apartment, filling it with furniture for me. Or will he wait, so we can pick it out together? There’s no question I’ll have to leave everything behind. “We’ve crossed the line,” I admit. “I’m having an affair.”
Andrew puts his elbows back on the counter and scrubs his hands over his face. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, then pushes off the island and goes for a bourbon refill. With his back to me, he says, “Please tell me Nathan knows so I don’t have to keep this a secret.”
“He knows.”
He looks over his shoulder. “That’s why you’re here. He kick you out?”
“The opposite. He wants me to come home.”
“Course he does.” Andrew returns across the counter from me, his forehead creased. “The guy would take any amount of shit to be with you.”
I frown. “I don’t know about that. You haven’t seen him lately.”
“Please,”
he says wryly and with a scoff. “The way he feels wouldn’t change overnight. However pissed he is, however betrayed he feels, his love runs deep, man.”
I shift on the stool. “Well, he hasn’t been acting that way, and I’ve had enough. He made me feel like real shit, Andrew. Imagine how lonely I must’ve been to turn to someone else.”
“That’s no excuse.” He looks down at his drink, torn. He’s loyal, but he’s also fair. “You know it’s not. How did it happen?”
“To be honest, I don’t even know.” I swallow and put my hands in my lap. How did the affair start? It was as if I stumbled on a pebble and slipped down the side of a cliff. “It’s not like I went looking for it. He made me laugh when I was sad. We got to talking, and then it just . . . happened.” I pause. “It’s okay if you want to take Nate’s side.”
“I don’t want to take any sides,” he says, looking thoughtful as he takes a sip. “I’m just trying to understand it from both perspectives.”
I scratch my neck. Conveying my struggle in one conversation feels impossible, and I’m not sure I’m doing a good job. “Do you think I’m being selfish?” I ask. “Or that I’m a bad person?”
Andrew lifts one corner of his mouth. “You mean like Satan? I’m still deciding . . .”
I roll my eyes. I’d punch him in the arm, but he’s too far away. Even though he’s smiling, I see the darkness in his eyes that was often there after Shana left. “I’m sorry if this brings up old stuff.”
He runs his tongue along his upper teeth. “I was just thinking about how far I’ve come since then. I was so angry with her for the longest time, but now . . . I’m not sure how I feel.”
I study my brother. Watching him struggle wasn’t easy. He’s always been strong, and he’s had more than one opportunity to follow in my dad’s footsteps and drown his emotions in alcohol.
“I can still be angry with her, right?” I ask.
He laughs. “It took me years to figure this out, but Shana probably did the right thing. We weren’t planning to get pregnant, and she wasn’t happy being a mom. At the time, I told her that didn’t matter—she’d gotten knocked up, and we had to grow up and deal with it. But remember how much Shana and I fought? I don’t want Bell to grow up like—”
“Us?” I finish. It makes sense. He’s always been a protector. When our parents fought, before Andrew was old enough to drive off, he’d distract me. He’d become a one-man zoo, mimicking animal noises. When he got desperate, he’d cover my ears and make funny faces at me until it was over. I haven’t needed my big brother in a while, but I realize, maybe that’s why I’m here.
He sighs. “If Shana’d stayed and been miserable, Bell would’ve picked up on that. And my baby’s a blessing, not a burden. I’d kill anyone who makes her feel otherwise.”
“So you’re telling me if Shana walked in the door right now, you’d have nothing to say to her?”
“Enough about me.” His mouth slides into a sinister grin, and I know—he’d definitely have some things to say to her. “Listen, you have to be happy to make Nate happy and vice versa, you know? Maybe that means sometimes you’re selfish, and sometimes you’re the opposite. Got to put on your own mask first.”
“You’re probably right, but I worry Nate puts himself second too much. And I let him.”
“So tell him that.”
“He thinks I’m selfish or I love him less because I don’t know his favorite pastry or the kind of flowers he likes.”
“That stuff has never been important to you. But it is to him.” He looks me over. “It doesn’t mean you haven’t been a good wife, though. I see how you take care of him too.” He cocks his hip. “When mom says things around Nathan about his job, like that she thinks it’s bullshit he serves food to people who ‘expect handouts for their bad choices,’ you go crazy defending him. Do you think he even cares what mom thinks? No. But you turn into a rabid dog.”
I frown. “Okay, but no matter what, I’ll never be him. He used to bend over backwards for me on a daily basis. He doesn’t forget a single date that’s important to me. And when I’m sad, he knows exactly how to cheer me up. It’s like he knows what I need before I do.”
Andrew rolls his eyes. “Come on—Nathan’s human. He has flaws too. You know that, right? If anything, these past few months have opened you both up to what’s wrong in your relationship, and I think that might be a good thing.”
“How could it be? We’ve been putting each other through hell.”
“The man puts you on a fucking pedestal. And you do the same to him. It’s about time you knocked each other off, because now you’re on the ground where you should be. And that’s the foundation you need to build on, not some lofty idea that you can’t be happy if you aren’t perfect.”
“I don’t think that,” I say defensively.
“Yeah, you do, and I get it. You don’t want to be our parents. Neither do I, which is why I work so hard to be the opposite of dad. But just because we fuck up now and then doesn’t make us them.”
I stare at him. I’ve always prided myself on my perfect marriage. Nathan knows it too. Have I built him up so much in my head that he thinks he needs to live up to that? Could I ever love Nathan any less because of his flaws? No.
I thumb the faint lipstick stain I’ve left on the wineglass. “I don’t know what to do, Andrew.”
“You love him, Sadie.”
“So much. I just feel like he took advantage of that, which is something I never thought he’d do. It makes me wonder how much he’s changed.”
Andrew reaches across the island for my hand. Once, that would’ve made him uncomfortable, and he still has a hard time letting people close, but having Bell has made him softer with those he loves. Not that I’d ever say that to his face. “I know it’d be easy to walk away,” he says. “It takes more guts to stay. You can fight against him while you fight for him. The marriage will come out stronger.”
I inhale a shaky breath. Andrew’s been single for three years. What does he know about relationships? More than I realized, maybe. Nathan said he wouldn’t let me go. I don’t want to be let go. And I don’t want perfect if it means he’s unhappy. I’d rather have him, damaged and flawed, than anyone else. Andrew’s right—it’s not easy or pretty, but it’s the truth. I’d never forgive myself if I don’t fight for him, and living that way wouldn’t be fair to Finn. He’d always be in Nathan’s shadow.
Andrew winces. “Are you going to cry?”
I laugh a little, and a tear slips out of the corner of my eye, but he has the good sense to ignore it. “No.”
“Good.” He comes around the counter. “If Bell can hold it in, so can you.”
I push him in the chest. “You don’t seriously shame her into not crying!”
He grins back at me as we take our drinks into the living room. “I don’t even have to. She told me the other day that crying’s for boys.”
We laugh, and Bell comes sprinting out of her bedroom. There’s a picture of Sleeping Beauty plastered on her pink nightgown. I’m grateful that despite her tatted-up, hard-hearted mechanic of a father, she’s still as girly as she is. She shouts, “I won’t go to bed. I won’t. Aunt Sadie is here. I need girl time.”
Andrew falls onto the couch with a palm in the air. “Jesus Christ, kid. Fine. Stay up all night and fall asleep on the beam tomorrow. See if I care.”
She’s already jumping onto the cushion between us. She chatters for a good ten minutes, and I wish Nathan were here. He’d hang on her every word. Bell winds down like a toy, her words slurring and her eyelids drooping. She lays her head in her dad’s lap and her feet in mine. In the middle of a story about lecturing the class bully, she passes out.
“How’re things here?” I ask, nodding at her. “How’s Bell?”
“Perfection. Kicking ass and taking names, as usual.”
I expect nothing less from her and no smaller response to that question from him. “School?”
“Her teachers stop me
nearly every day to tell me how well she’s doing.”
Slowly, I raise my eyebrows at him. I don’t think Andrew’s that dense, but I will gladly point it out. “You don’t seriously believe that’s why they stop you.”
He shrugs, settling back into the couch. “They want to talk about how great my girl is, I’m happy to let them.”
“They’re trying to get your attention, dummy.”
He shrugs. “Whatever.”
“Don’t whatever me.” That Andrew has permanently removed himself from the market is a disservice to women everywhere. Aside from the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing he’s got going on, he’s also smart, quick on his feet, and a stellar dad. His business is successful too. He won’t hear me, though, and I wish he’d take his own advice, but he’s content to live out his days doting over Bell. “You know I’m not giving up. What’s the latest girl update?”
“I have a special one in my life.”
“Besides Bell. What happened with that date you had last weekend?”
He sighs with exasperation. “For the last time, it wasn’t a date. I went over to her house in the middle of the day to look under her hood. That’s all.”
“And what did you find?” Like Bell, I thin my lips into a taut line to keep from giggling. “Under her hood?”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “A busted carburetor. The thing was ancient. Float valve wasn’t shutting off the flow of fuel—”
I wave my hands to stop the assault of words I don’t understand and don’t care to. “All right, all right. I’ll back off. For now.”
Andrew looks down on Bell, stroking her hair. “Have you given our conversation over Halloween any more thought?”
“About switching to almond milk?” I quip. He gives me a look that says everything. I know what he wants to hear. “How can I even think about that while my marriage is imploding?”
“Are you kidding? Now’s the time to think about all this shit. To figure out what you really want, Sadie. What’s most important.” He pauses to let his words sink in. “You’d be a good mom.”
Slip of the Tongue Series: The Complete Boxed Set Page 33