“A good father wouldn’t cheat on his children’s mother,” Frank said. “Whatever you think of me, however much you hate me, it’s nothing compared to what I feel about myself. I did this to them.”
Josie could see his knuckles whiten as he gripped the steering wheel. The car wasn’t moving, though. They were sitting in front of their house.
Inside, a babysitter was watching the children, a teenaged girl from a few blocks over whom they both adored. The girls were probably playing Candy Land or Zingo! with the sitter right now. They’d have eaten the snacks Josie had set out—grapes and bagel chips and chocolate milk—and they would be happy.
Josie pulled down the visor and checked herself in the mirror. She rubbed concealer under her eyes and on the tip of her reddened nose. Frank’s skin was darker than hers; it didn’t reveal that he had been crying.
It was time.
Josie opened her car door. “Are you ready to go tell them?”
• • •
“Are you getting a divorce?” Zoe asked.
“No, no!” Josie said, wondering how Zoe even knew the word. “All we are doing is taking a break.”
“Why can’t Daddy just keep sleeping on the sofa? Isn’t that enough of a break?” Zoe’s eyes were pleading.
Frank bent over, his arms crossing his stomach, but he managed to smile reassuringly.
“I’ll see you every single day, Z-girl,” he said. “Every day, every night, every weekend. You too, Busy-Izzy. You’ll get sick of me. And my new apartment has a pool! You can come swim there.”
“I hate swimming,” Zoe said.
“Zoe! You love it,” Josie protested.
“Not anymore.”
“There’s also an elevator,” Frank said.
“For me?” Izzy asked.
“Sure, it’s for you!” Frank said. “You can push all the buttons. We’ll ride it up and down.”
They’d planned to take the girls to Benihana for dinner tonight, the place where chefs cooked your dinner on a sizzling grill right in front of you while flipping shrimp tails into their tall white hats and slicing onions with the speed and dexterity of magicians.
But Josie realized that felt all wrong. This wasn’t a celebration. They needed to stay here, hunkered down in the security of their home.
“Why do you and Mommy need a break?” Zoe asked. “When Izzy and I fight you make us stop!”
“I know, baby,” Frank said.
“It’s different with adults,” Josie said.
“It’s stupid and I hate it,” Zoe said. Her lip was trembling.
“We are a family,” Josie said. “We will always be a family.”
Zoe exhaled. Josie waited anxiously for whatever she might say next.
“Can I watch Backyardigans?”
Josie looked at Frank, confused. Did Zoe need a retreat from the intense emotions? Or was it healthier to make her continue talking?
“I think a little Backyardigans would be okay,” Frank said.
Josie reached out and stroked Zoe’s hair. “Okay,” she said. “Backyardigans it is.”
• • •
Neither of them left the girls’ sides for the rest of the evening. They ended up heating frozen chicken nuggets for dinner, then they all watched a Disney movie.
Zoe fell asleep before it ended, much earlier than her usual bedtime, almost certainly because of the stress the day had carried. Would she always be looking for signs that the separation was harming the girls? Josie wondered.
“I’ll carry her up,” Frank said. He gathered Zoe into his arms and headed for the stairs.
“How are you feeling, sweetie?” Josie asked Izzy.
“Good,” Izzy said, her focus on the screen. When the movie’s credits began to roll, Izzy went upstairs without protest. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, then changed into her footsie pajamas, all without complaint or delaying tactics. That was unusual, but perhaps she was worn out, too.
But when Josie tried to tuck her in, Izzy began to wail: “I want Daddy.”
“Okay, okay,” Josie said quickly. “No problem.”
She ran downstairs. Frank was unfolding his bedding and spreading it out on the couch. “Frank? She wants you.”
Josie went into the kitchen to make a cup of herbal tea. She was stirring a spoonful of honey into her mug and contemplating taking a Xanax when Frank reappeared: “Josie? She wants you now.”
Josie hurried upstairs. “Iz? Mommy is here.”
Izzy lay in her small twin bed, rubbing her eyes. “Can I lay next to you?” Josie asked. She crawled into bed and began rubbing Izzy’s little back. “I love you, sweetie. Everything is okay.”
But Izzy abruptly pulled away and sat up. “Daddy!” she yelled.
Frank thundered up the stairs and appeared in the doorway in an instant. “What is it?” he asked.
“May Daddy come too, please?” Izzy was using her best manners, her most polite words, in an effort to bring her parents closer together. She was trying to fix her family in the only way her three-year-old mind knew how.
Frank approached the bed. “Jos—is it okay? I mean, I won’t . . .”
“There’s room on the other side of her,” Josie said. Her voice sounded choked and she hoped Izzy didn’t know why. She shifted over, pulling Izzy with her.
Frank climbed in slowly, turning sideways so he would fit on the narrow mattress. He reached out and took Izzy’s hand.
They lay like that, curled on either side of their daughter, for a long time.
* * *
Chapter Twenty
* * *
“WHAT WOULD YOU NEED to feel safe with Frank again?” Sonya asked.
Josie shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“Let me put it another way. What steps would Frank need to take to make you feel certain he wasn’t cheating on you again? You could say, for example, that Frank would need to let you check his iPhone every night when he came home from work.”
Josie wrinkled her nose. “I would hate that. I would feel like a prison guard.”
“So maybe not every night. But maybe whenever you felt like seeing it. You could simply ask Frank to hand it over, and he would need to immediately.”
“But aren’t relationships supposed to be based on trust? Okay, I just realized the irony in that comment . . . I guess what I meant to say is how could I have a relationship with Frank if I felt like I constantly had to check his iPhone?”
“No one expects you to suddenly start trusting Frank again, just like that.” Sonya snapped her fingers. “But if you wanted to, you could think about steps that might help you rebuild trust.”
Okay, Josie thought. She could play this game.
“I would need to be able to check his iPhone whenever I wanted,” Josie said slowly. “I think just knowing I could do it would help me feel safer. And I guess it would keep Frank from doing anything sneaky.”
“Anything else?”
The affair had happened during a trip. “When he traveled, I would want him to call me when he was in his room for the night. And I guess I’d be upset if he stayed out really late when he’s out of town.”
“Define really late.”
“After ten p.m.?” Josie posed it as a question.
“He’d need to be in his hotel room, and on the phone with you, by ten p.m. That would be your second condition.” Sonya was writing on her yellow legal pad.
“Actually, let’s change that to nine thirty p.m.,” Josie said.
“Done.” When Sonya looked up, she said, “It’s important to be specific. So rather than say, ‘I don’t want you to stay out late when you travel,’ you should say, ‘The latest I’m comfortable with you staying out when you travel is nine thirty p.m.’ ”
Josie nodded. She’d thought of something else. “And all the work events he goes to—I’d want to attend more of those with him.”
Fun night. Let’s do it again soon.
“That woman I told you about, Melissa—
I’d want to be around whenever there’s a work function that they both attend. I don’t know if I’ll ever know what happened, but that message still bugs me. Is that fair?”
“Absolutely,” Sonya said.
“Okay,” Josie said. “Well, as long as we’re at it, there is one more thing.”
It was a physical reminder that made her feel ill every single day. It must be a reminder for Frank, too.
“He’d have to get rid of his car and get another one,” Josie said. “He was with her in it. I can’t ever get in that car again. I can’t sit where she sat when they were out on their little date.”
Sonya didn’t react, predictably. Josie wondered what it would take to spark one in her.
“Number five, get rid of his car.” Sonya finished writing and looked up. “Is that all?”
Josie thought about it. “More stuff might come up. But yeah, that would be for starters.”
Sonya put her pad in her lap and leaned forward. “Let me ask you one more question. I want you to think carefully before you answer it.”
For some reason, Josie’s stomach tightened, even though Sonya’s expression was as kind as ever.
“If Frank promised to do all of those things, would you feel able to give him a second chance?”
Josie leaned back. She tried to consider the question as deeply and honestly as she could.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”
“Scared of . . . ?”
“Scared I might start to love him again. And then, if he cheated again, what would happen to me?”
Sonya regarded Josie thoughtfully. “You think that you’d be completely destroyed if Frank cheated again.”
“Yes!” Josie felt almost angry. Wasn’t it obvious?
“But why?” Sonya asked. “He didn’t destroy you this time, did he?”
• • •
On the Saturday that Frank was to move out, Josie arranged to have the girls stay with Karin.
Frank wasn’t going to take much, other than his clothes and toiletries and a few odds and ends. Still, his belongings would require a few trips to the apartment.
Josie had thought about staying at Karin’s while he packed, but something compelled her to return home after she dropped off the girls. Perhaps it was because if this were truly the beginning of the end of her marriage, she needed to witness it.
She found Frank on his side of the closet, folding clothes and putting them in a Hefty trash bag.
“Frank, you can take a suitcase,” she said.
He looked up. He was sweaty, despite the chill in the day, and his hair was tousled.
“I have a duffel bag,” he said. “But I could only fit all my T-shirts in it. Trash bags are fine. You guys might need the suitcases.”
She watched him for a few moments as he turned back to work. Then she reached for an armful of suits and carried them down to the back of his Honda. She laid them on his hood while she folded down the rear seats, then she went back upstairs for another armful.
His car: a reminder.
“You don’t have to do that,” Frank said. He’d moved on to his shoes by now.
“I don’t mind,” Josie said.
She looked down at the suits in her arms: another reminder. Which ones had he worn when he’d gone out with Dana?
Frank’s trunk was nearly full, so she loaded her second armful into her car.
They finished the clothing within twenty minutes. Then Frank walked over to the bureau.
“Is it okay if I take this?” It was a framed photo of him with the girls on Christmas morning a couple of years ago. Frank was wearing a Santa hat, and both girls were on his lap.
“Of course,” Josie said.
Christmas: he’d been seeing Dana this past one.
She watched as Frank found a towel from the linen closet. He carefully wrapped the picture in it before tucking the bundle inside his Hefty bag.
The emotions battering Josie felt so huge and overwhelming that she yearned to freeze right here, in this moment, until she amassed the strength to keep moving again. But she couldn’t. The girls needed to be picked up in a couple of hours.
“You should take another towel,” Josie said. “Here.” She reached for a second one and added it to the bag.
“I think that’s it . . . Oh, my mugs,” he said, almost to himself. They went downstairs, Josie holding the railing for support as she descended.
“Do you want any pots and pans?” Josie asked as Frank retrieved his mugs from the cabinet. “Or, um, silverware?”
“Nah,” Frank said. “I think all of that comes with the apartment.”
“Okay.” His belongings looked so meager. One duffel bag, two trash bags, and the suits.
Josie looked around, trying to think of what else he might need. Frank would be back tonight to have dinner with the girls, she reminded herself. But that didn’t make this moment feel any less like an ending.
Frank went to the closet and pulled out his down coat, which he stuffed into one of the bags. He slipped on his dressier work coat.
“I’ve got some of your clothes in my car, so I’ll follow you there,” Josie said.
“Thanks,” Frank said. “I’ll, ah, meet you outside. Give me a second?”
“Sure.” Josie put on her coat and slowly walked back out to her minivan, turning on the engine to warm it up. She glanced back at the house, as if seeing it anew. It should look different today, she thought, which reminded her of how on that first day, as she’d waited for Frank to come out of Starbucks, she’d wondered whether he would look any different.
But it was just the same two-story, redbrick house they’d brought Izzy home to from the hospital, the same house that had witnessed birthdays and snow days. Zoe’s scooter leaned against the side of the front steps, and an old plastic tube of bubbles was under the bare forsythia bush on the side of the yard. Josie kept meaning to pick it up and bring it inside, but by now it had been there for so long that she’d almost stopped noticing it.
Her eyes drifted up to the second level. There was a silhouette in one of the windows. Frank was in Zoe’s room.
Josie squinted and leaned her head closer, trying to see what he was doing.
He was just standing there.
• • •
The apartment was nicer than Josie had imagined. It was on the second floor of a tall, narrow building located about a half mile away from their home. Bright African artwork decorated the walls, and a colorful screen separated the bed from the small living and kitchen area.
Josie hung up Frank’s suits in the closet, wincing at the loud clink of the hangers against the metal rod. The apartment was so clean and still, so unlike their bustling home.
“We should have brought you some coffee for the morning,” she said. “You can get that when you come over tonight.”
“Or I can just run to the store,” Frank said. He lifted a shoulder. “No big deal.”
She watched as Frank reached into his Hefty bag and unwrapped the photograph from the towel. He glanced around the room, then set it on the kitchen counter, where it could be seen from nearly any angle.
“Do you need some help with . . .” Josie gestured to the bags. She couldn’t just stand still, as she’d wanted to do earlier. Now she needed to keep moving, to stay ahead of her emotions.
“No, no, I’ve got it,” Frank said.
“Okay.” She wondered whether the apartment reminded Frank of the place he’d lived in when they’d first met. That apartment was bigger, a one-bedroom with a decent-sized kitchen. The first time Josie visited, Frank had offered her a choice of beer or tap water. When he’d gone to get ice for her water, she’d seen only a single Hungry-Man dinner entrée in the center of his freezer, as if it were on display. For some reason, it had struck her as hilarious.
He hadn’t learned to cook for himself. He’d done it for their children.
She looked at Frank with his rumpled T-shirt and Hefty trash bags. Her insides twis
ted. She was still furious with him, but she ached for him.
“Josie . . . I want you to know I’m going to do everything I can to become the man who deserves to be with you,” Frank said. “I’m not ever going to give up on us.”
“Can you . . .” Her throat closed up and she couldn’t continue.
“What?” Frank asked quickly. “I’ll do anything you want.”
She wiped her eyes. “I want to give you a hug. But that’s all I want it to be.”
Frank nodded. “Okay.” He took a deep breath.
She moved toward him slowly as he opened his arms. She stepped into them and he squeezed her tightly. After a few seconds, he released her.
“Was that okay?” he asked.
It was the first time they’d touched in two months. Josie had stayed in the present; she hadn’t thought about the way he might have embraced Dana. But she doubted she’d ever be able to make love with Frank ever again without the intrusion of Dana. His affair hadn’t just ruptured their marriage; it would be a wrenching interference in their future intimacy.
She didn’t see how she could ever reconcile with Frank.
But she could do this: “Do you want to come with me to pick up the girls?” she blurted.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Frank said.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-One
* * *
WHEN SHE WAS SIX years old, Josie had nearly drowned. She had only patchy recollections of that early summer afternoon, perhaps because the incident had terrified her so deeply that she’d suppressed some of the details. Her parents had told her the story enough times that she could almost claim it as her own faded remembrance, though.
They’d been visiting Josie’s father’s parents in Florida. Grandpa Sam and Grandma Jocelyn—whom Josie had been named for—had enough money to retire to Palm Beach and live in a three-bedroom condo right on the beach, with a terrace overlooking the Atlantic.
They rarely stepped onto the sand, however. Instead, they sat in lounge chairs under big striped umbrellas at the pool. Her grandma Jocelyn’s favorite thing was to play cards with her friends—games that sounded exotic to Josie, like canasta and rummy—and her grandfather listened to baseball games on a radio and kept score on a special notepad he filled with slashes and dashes and numbers.
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