“My scar!” I screamed. “How could you have never asked about my scar?”
He sat in silence, watching me with wary eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was low and uneven. “I knew it had to do with the divorce, and you never want to discuss the divorce.”
“You never wanted to know where it came from? Your own wife? It never occurred to you that it was a source of pain and sadness and regret? You never wanted to know what it represented? To make me tell you, no matter how much it hurt me?”
“Of course I wanted to know, but whenever I bring up the divorce you turn frigid on me.”
“It scares me to think,” I said quietly, “that you might’ve taken her side anyway.”
“She didn’t mean to hurt you.”
My eyes crept up to his. “You knew?”
“Your mom told me once. She and your father had an argument, you jumped in the middle and she stabbed you by accident. And that’s what prompted the divorce. You can’t blame her for assuming that you’d already told me.”
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“And I don’t get how this relates to sleeping with another man. Are you trying to tell me that – ” he glanced down at my side, staring daggers at the scar just underneath my t-shirt. “That he asked? And you told him?”
“He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He knew it was painful, but he wanted to take some of that pain away.”
“Well, this just keeps getting better. Are you – this guy, David, do you have . . . ?”
My breath caught as I waited for his question. I didn’t know how I would tell him the truth, but if he asked, I would do it. I would find the strength to tell him that what David and I had had wasn’t just physical.
But instead he shook his head and looked away. “Never mind.”
“Never mind?” I asked.
“It hurts that you would share something like that with him, but you didn’t with me.”
“I know. And I am so, so sorry.”
“You say there were problems between us, but I didn’t see them. I thought, like a fool, that we were happy.”
“We are happy. But it doesn’t change the fact that everything is moving too fast for me, and I want to slow down.”
“Well, this is certainly one way to slow things down.”
I tried to hide the relief in my sigh. “So can we? At least until we sort all of this out?”
He was quiet for a long time. “It’s like you’ve put this . . . void in my chest. As if something’s gone missing, something that’s supposed to go right here.” His hand clapped over his heart. My breath caught audibly, and he turned his head to me. “Emptiness. Blackness. That’s how this feels.”
Tears burned in my eyes, but I blinked them back. “I understand,” I whispered.
“How could you understand?” he asked simply.
Because I, too, had lost something. And sometimes I thought my hollow chest might collapse from the weight of my grief.
He looked away again. “None of this is fair. I don’t know what I did wrong, that you’re saying and doing these things to me.”
~
Our conversations continued that way throughout the weekend. I thought I might suffocate from the apartment’s stale air, but consistent rain kept us indoors. Hours passed as I stared out the grey window, waiting for the next stream of questions. We were in his courtroom now, and I was on the stand.
He wanted to know how David and I had ended up in a hotel room the second time. And whether or not I had spent the night afterward. Reliving the details cheapened the experience. It made everything seem so dirty, when it had actually been its own kind of beautiful.
He continued to remind me that it wasn’t fair, that he didn’t deserve it, that he hadn’t done anything wrong. All things I accepted with an apology. He threatened to go see David.
It was easy for us to forget during working hours; we had no choice. But as soon as he picked me up, our masks came off. After the first couple nights, I didn’t think things could get worse, but as his shock wore off, he became more upset. I did my best to make things right by answering his every question and playing the role of honest and transparent wife.
He invited me back to bed on Tuesday. It was what I had wanted until he said the words aloud. I wasn’t ready, so I told him so. ‘How are you not ready?’ he had asked.
As weeks went by, his questions became more creative, more intrusive. But I felt that I owed him the truth, no matter how hard it was for both of us. I wasn’t sure what I feared more: that he might ask about my feelings for David, or that he might not. The question never came. I didn’t know if it was because it never occurred to him – or because he was afraid of the answer.
CHAPTER 23
ONE SOGGY, WINTRY MORNING in November, Bill came to the couch not long after sunrise. Deep sleep had eluded me lately, so I woke easily when the cushion dipped under his weight. He looked as puffy and tired as I felt, but his eyes narrowed on me. He stuck his hand between my legs.
I flinched and began to protest. His gaze was unnervingly fastened on me as he tugged gently on my underwear. “If you can do it with him,” he said quietly, “you can do it with me.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that. I thought about his words as I searched his face. It wasn’t until he stripped and climbed on top of me that I realized what he was after.
I swallowed. “He didn’t.”
He exhaled with closed eyes. He was positioned over me, but somehow not touching me. “I need this. I think. I’m revolted, but I also want you. Bad.” He dropped his head into my shoulder. “I want you,” he repeated, kissing my neck.
“We’re not in the right place.”
He dropped his weight on me, and I thought I felt his shoulders heave. “I want to come inside you,” he said in a watery voice.
“Not this way,” I said. “What if I was to get pregnant?”
He drew back and looked at me with red eyes. “And that would be so bad,” he whispered.
“I don’t want to bring a child into the world like this. I know you don’t either.”
“Please,” he said, kissing my cheek and putting his hand back between my legs.
I grabbed it. “I’m not ready.”
I could see him thinking, fighting his need. He sat back on his calves, still hard, and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Am I crazy to want you? I fantasize about it, but I don’t want to want you.”
“It’s normal to feel confused.”
“You told me you screwed him without a condom.”
“I did, but . . . he pulled out.”
“It took me years to get you to do that with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry that you did it or sorry that you told me?”
I looked away, seeing no way that answering the question would help anything.
“It’s lucky you didn’t catch something,” he continued, “knowing that filthy piece of shit.”
I nodded, remembering the embarrassing ordeal of Bill marching me to the gynecologist to get tested. But deep down I knew that David wouldn’t put himself or me in that position. It had never occurred to me that he might, because I trusted him.
“Is this because of him?” Bill was asking. “Is that why you won’t have sex with me?”
“No,” I said, taken aback.
“But you’re still there. What do you need to get over him?”
“Nothing,” I said emphatically. “It’s over.”
“I just don’t think I believe that.”
My nostrils flared. “I’ve been completely open with you. I let you read my e-mails, my text messages. I tell you where I am all the time. This will never work if you don’t even try to trust me.”
“It’s going to be a long time before we get back there.” He went to the bedroom and shut the door. I knew he wasn’t coming back, so I turned on my side and closed my eyes until it was time to get up for work.
~
The
re was ringing. I blinked. How long had my desk phone been ringing? Bill was the only person Jenny would patch through without notification. I wasn’t surprised; he called frequently these days. Still, I braced myself. He had only dropped me at work an hour earlier.
“It’s me,” he said before I even spoke. The two somber words were enough to remind me that I was the source of his constant pain. “They’re sending me to take depositions in St. Louis for the rest of the week.”
“No,” I objected. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Well, you don’t really get a say in what I do right now.”
“I’m serious. I’m putting my foot down. You can tell the Specters that I won’t let you. We need to spend this time together.”
“It’s been over a month, and you won’t even sleep next to me.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. We can’t be apart right now.”
“What, are you worried I’ll revenge fuck someone else?”
The receiver slipped from my hand, but I caught it before it hit the ground. My mouth, however, hung open through the silence that followed.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a minute. “I didn’t mean that. I would never . . .”
“I just think you should stay,” I said gently. “You have to stay.”
“Honestly, I could use some time alone.”
“Then I’ll go to Gretchen’s for a few nights. You can have the place to yourself.”
“I can’t say no, you know that. I leave tonight.” There was a hesitation on the line. “Look, I meant what I said before. I don’t think we can move forward if you’re still talking to him.”
“I’m not, you have to believe me.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t. What do you need to end this? Closure?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing to end.”
He sighed. “Liv, please. Your demeanor hasn’t changed, which leads me to believe there’s still something going on.”
“I don’t understand what you want me to do,” I said, although I feared that I did.
“While I’m gone, end this for good. I don’t care how. If you e-mail him, CC me. If you go see him, take Gretchen with you. It’s not an excuse for a last hook up.”
“I refuse to play this game.”
“It’s no game,” he said calmly. “I have to know that this won’t happen again. You still haven’t said anything to Lucy, have you?”
“No, but at some point we have to – ”
“I won’t be made a fool in front of my friends – or my family for that matter. Nobody else needs to know about what you did, end of story.”
“Okay,” I relented.
“I have to go. I’ll call you from the airport.”
I was still staring at the phone long after he hung up. There wasn’t anything going on. But he was right not to trust me. Late nights were my time with David. As I fell asleep and as I dreamed, he was there. I swam in his brown eyes, pressed my cheek against his stubble or touched his hair. His hair – I could not forget the way his hair felt in my hands; so shiny and smooth like the obsidian rock it resembled. The pain was still acute, like a knife wound, but at night it was soothed by the memories.
~
The empty apartment I came home to wasn’t much different than it had been the past month. There had been an emptiness there since the morning of my confession.
I flipped on all the lights, suddenly not wanting to be alone. I turned the television on. It was always on ESPN, the only channel Bill watched, and the barking sounds of some sporting event were comforting.
I sat in front of it with a bowl of Cheerios, scooping them onto my spoon and then watching them slide off the tip, back into the milk. I looked at the call history of my cell phone. Several missed calls from Lucy, unreturned. One from my mother – a conversation so heinous to even think of that I hid the phone under the nearest pillow.
But even from under there, she judged me. Her insecurity was almost something I could touch as a child. She was so convinced that my father was cheating on her that he might as well have been. It ate away at her. If she ever found out what I’d done, she would surely disown me. So be it, I thought. I wouldn’t take it back for all the love she’d always denied me.
I took a bite of cereal and swallowed. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume of the game up to a deafening level. The ceiling shook as the upstairs neighbors banged on their floor. My jaw clenched; my nostrils flared. I launched the bowl across the room, finding comfort in the way it shattered against the wall, splattering it with milk. “How could you, David?” I screamed into the apartment. Hot tears spilled over my cheeks. But God, how I fucking missed him.
I planted myself face down on the couch and cried into a pillow. I didn’t even care about the Oak Park house or why he’d done it. I just wanted more, more anything. More of his touch, more of his eyes on me, more rides in his car, more fucking, more walks, more reflections.
I didn’t know how to go on without him. I compressed the pillow in my grip and cried harder. Did he ever care or was it all just a game? Even through my anger, I knew the answer: there was no faking what we’d had. The force we’d given in to was one thing. But he’d purposely driven a knife through my marriage by buying that house. That was a side of David I didn’t know. It was the same David from the masquerade ball. The type of man who slept with women for sport, stringing them along until he didn’t need them anymore.
“It’s too much,” I insisted, biting into the pillow. Bill had my love and respect, but he no longer had my heart. I’d left it in David’s office, at his feet, and I didn’t care if I ever saw it again. I didn’t deserve it. I deserved to cry, deserved to die right here in this black hole, on this horrible, shit-colored couch, because of what I’d done. And because I would do it again. I had fallen from a strong, capable woman into a weak, piddling mess, and I hated myself.
“David,” I begged. “David, David.” How could I have risked everything for you? How could I have ruined a life for you? And how can Bill and I ever be happy again in my black hole?
Clenched into a ball on the couch, I admitted that it was because I needed David. That there was something stronger than the two of us, forcing us together. We’d made mistakes, we’d made decisions that could never be changed – but we belonged together. And now I would have to live the rest of my life knowing that I was separated from the person I was supposed to be with. And knowing that as much as he had pushed me away that night, I had pushed him back.
It wasn’t something that could be remedied – the damage was done. People didn’t just leave their husbands on a hunch that they’d met their soul mate. I realized that that was never an option, no matter what David had thought. He and I were destined to be together, but destiny had torn us apart.
~
When my phone rang from under the now damp pillow, I almost sent it in the direction of the cereal bowl to shut it up. But instead, I extracted it and, sniffling, answered.
“Now is not a good time,” I told Gretchen.
“Bill called me.”
“What? What did he say?”
“He asked me, in a very clipped tone, to keep an eye on you while he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He shouldn’t be involving you. You’re the only person who knows though. What did you say?”
“I told him to fuck off.”
I smiled barely. “No you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t, but only because you need me around right now. What the hell is he thinking? Are you really going to see David?”
“Of course not. You know it’s really over. But I can’t tell Bill about the house. He would flip.”
Her tone changed. “Maybe you should go see David.”
I sighed. “No. I just can’t.”
“Are you all right, really? I can tell that you’re crying.”
“I’m – ” I stopped before the word ‘fine’ left my mouth. I wasn’t fine, not in the least. “No. I’m dying, Gr
etchen. It just keeps getting worse and worse. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life.” There was dead silence on the line, and eventually, I continued. “I’m so hurt and angry. At David, at myself. At Bill.”
“Bill?”
“I need him now, and he needs me. But he left. Without him here, all I can think about is David. I feel,” I paused when my voice cracked, “like I’m slipping, and there’s nothing to grab onto.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said fervently. “I’m coming over.”
“No,” I insisted. “You don’t have to.”
“I will be there in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up.
I fell immediately back into my couch. When she arrived, she let herself in, looking concerned as she peeled her trench coat away. She ran a hand over my hair with sadness in her eyes. She wiped the spoiled milk from the floor and the walls. She turned off the television and helped me into my pajamas. I wanted to stay on the couch, but she forced me into the bed I’d come to fear. She held me as I cried myself to sleep, shaking for David like an addict.
~
It’s only a shadow, but it is as real as the bones in my body. If I stop moving – if I look behind me – it will consume me. But it’s already here, inside me, waiting. It’s been waiting; waiting to pounce, waiting for the end.
“It’s okay,” I hear. “You’re safe now. I’m here, and nothing can touch you.” I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, I am safe in his arms. David strokes my hair and tells me it’s okay to cry. My chin quivers. My eyes water. It was just so sad. So profoundly sad. My grief was bottomless, but it’s over now.
I opened my eyes to the same blackness of my dream. Everything was still at that lifeless hour. The shadow from my dream was there with me, because it was part of me. Underneath my head, the pillow was a cloud; beside me, Gretchen was warm. But it felt like the end. And that night, a piece of me died.
CHAPTER 24
THUNDER SOUNDED SUDDENLY, ripping me from my trance. Looking around the bedroom, I saw our life together – a framed wedding photo on the bookshelf, Bill’s dirty socks just inches from the hamper, a coffee table book about the Chicago Bulls I’d given him for our first anniversary.
Come Alive (The Cityscape Series) Page 22