Infidelity
Page 20
“Does that mean you’re glad it happened, then?”
“The affair?” Tamara laughed and put her glass down on the table with some force. “No one wants their husband to sleep with someone ten years younger than them.” She laughed lightly.
“Of course not.”
“But yes, I’m glad it’s over. I was growing tired of . . .”
“Taking care of him?” Ronnie stopped herself. “Sorry. I have a nasty habit of finishing people’s sentences.”
“No. It’s okay. You’re right. I was tired of being the better one.”
“Do you think you were?”
“Of course not. But we all have our roles to play and they get exhausting after a while.”
“I can sympathize with that. And I’m very sure Aaron feels the exact same way.”
“Ronnie, you are nothing like Charlie. Charlie is a child. There was a time he couldn’t even ride the subway. You can’t even comprehend what it’s like to be with someone like . . .” Tamara paused, realizing that of course Ronnie could understand. “Well. Maybe you were better at it than I was. A better person than I am.”
Tamara is good.
“It was just new and it was just something else. An escape. I was no better. Just different. He loved you. He loves you. He’ll always . . .”
“I don’t need you to say that. I know that. He just wanted you more.”
“But he didn’t. He wouldn’t leave you. He refused.”
“Did you ask?”
“Not at first. But then it was all I could think about. Every day. I think at first you think you can cope with it. You can handle the fact that there’s someone else.”
“Um, sorry, but I think in this case you were the ‘someone else.’”
“Fair. Yes. I just mean . . . who he goes home to. That he shares a bed with. That is his whole world.” Tamara laughed bitterly at this comment but Ronnie gracefully chose to ignore her. “You accept all that. But then it settles in that you will never completely have him. And you get greedy.”
“It’s strange, he was a much better husband the year the two of you were . . .” Tamara stopped herself. She couldn’t bring herself to finish and Ronnie didn’t push.
Ronnie changed the subject. “How is Noah? I mean, now that Charlie is gone?’
“You know, I want to say he’s not coping very well, but with Noah you can’t tell. He’s always not coping well. And in some ways, he does seem calmer now that Charlie is gone. I don’t want to say that Charlie was a bad father. He was a really good father. But he was always so wrung out. I feel like Noah knew it. Didn’t like the energy. I think Noah is more intuitive than people give him credit for.”
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to you, Ronnie. Charlie told me. About you being sick.”
“I appreciate that. It was Aaron who wanted to have children, anyway. For me it was all wrapped up in expectation.”
“Where you’re so focused on what everyone else wants that you can’t even figure out what it was you wanted when you started.”
“There must have been a time when things were good between the two of you. The three of you. A time you look back on,” Ronnie said. She knew full well she was reaching for something positive, some sort of happy snapshot she could hang up so she could feel like Charlie had redeeming qualities. That he wasn’t the monster who was attacked by her Rottweiler in her front hall.
“Marriage is strange like that. You can’t really understand it unless you’re in it. The feelings of right now always seem to be magnified. They overshadow everything else. Now, I can’t even remember a time when we were happy.”
“He used to talk about how happy you were. How lucky he was.”
“You’re lying. I appreciate it, but you are.”
“No. It’s true,” she said, even though she was.
“He was happy. With you. He found someone new to take care of him when I grew tired of it. I was never happy. But I think I knew, deep down, there was someone else that was—we weren’t even sleeping together anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Ronnie said, bowing her head slightly. The waiter arrived with their meals, both pasta with bolognese sauce on account of the fact that Ronnie was so nervous she was only able to repeat Tamara’s order. While he ground pepper on their meals and offered them parmesan Tamara looked away awkwardly, and when he left she looked directly at Ronnie.
“The sex. How was it?”
“Tamara, don’t. You don’t want to . . .”
“Yes I do. Was it passionate? Was it rough? Did he . . .”
“It was good. Yes,” Ronnie said meekly.
“Do you miss it?”
“Please, don’t.”
“All right. Do you miss him?”
There was a long pause between them, their plates steaming, their glasses approaching empty.
“More than anything.”
( ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS )
Thanks to the wonderful folks at ECW for their investment and care, especially Jen Hale and Jen Knoch for their invaluable editorial commitment and direction. I’m additionally eternally grateful to Samantha Haywood for being a patient and supportive agent and friend, without whom so much of my work wouldn’t be possible.
Thanks to the Banff Centre for offering a refuge for the completion of the manuscript, and to Jared Bland and Robert J. Wiersema for selflessly reading early drafts and offering invaluable editorial guidance. Thanks to the wonderful team at The Walrus, who over the years have become more like family than colleagues, and to Mark Medley at the National Post for his generosity and faith.
I’m forever indebted to Dani, Nat, and Panic for the kind of loyalty and friendship I never before would have believed possible, and to my parents for their unwavering support, even when they were unsure what path I was on.
And as always, thank you to Spencer, who with each passing day proves to be the best decision I ever made.
( ABOUT THE AUTHOR )
STACEY MAY FOWLES is a writer and magazine professional living in Toronto. Her first novel, Be Good, was published by Tightrope Books in 2007. This Magazine called it “probably the most finely realized small press novel to come out of Canada in the last year,” and film rights have been optioned by Federgreen Entertainment Inc. In fall 2008 she released an illustrated novel, Fear of Fighting, and staged a theatrical adaptation of it with Nightwood Theatre. The novel was later selected as a National Post Canada Also Reads pick for 2010. Her writing has appeared in various magazines and journals, including The Walrus, Maisonneuve, Quill & Quire, Taddle Creek, Hazlitt, and Prism. She has been anthologized in Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, Yes Means Yes, and PEN Canada’s Finding the Words. Most recently, she co-edited the anthology She’s Shameless: Women Write About Growing Up, Rocking Out, and Fighting Back. She is a regular contributor to the National Post books section, and currently works at The Walrus.
Copyright © Stacey May Fowles, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental
Published by ECW Press
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Fowles, Stacey May, author
Infidelity : a novel / Stacey May Fowles.
ISBN 978-1-77090-433-0 (ePUB)
Also issued as: 978-1-77090-432-3 (PDF); 978-1-77041-141-8 (PBK.)
I. Title.
PS8611.O877I65 2013 C813’.6 C2013-902483-2
Editor for the press: Jennifer Hale
Cover and text design: David Gee
Scissors: © RedDaxLuma/DepositPhotos
Author photo: Lisa Kannakko
The publication of Infidelity has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and by the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,681 individual artists and 1,125 organizations in 216 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.8 million. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.