Slip of the Tongue

by Jessica Hawkins

  “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.”

  Instinctively, I cross my arms over my stomach. Nathan isn’t the only one who wants this for us. Andrew has been pushing me for a while to get deeper into this subject. “You and Shana barely touched, and she got pregnant,” I say. “I’m sorry, but you don’t know what it’s like to feel so empty when you want nothing more than to feel . . . full. And then to be reminded of that monthly. Daily.”

  “I see. So you’re finally admitting you want it again?”

  I blink several times. Of course that’s what he’d get when I’m trying to explain something else. “I meant before. When we were trying. Now, I’m still unsure I want it at all.”

  “So, what’d the doctor say? You’re definitely infertile?”

  I pinch my eyebrows together, my mind running over our last conversation at Halloween. I never said I’d get tested. “What doctor?”

  “Exactly,” he says, pumping his fist like he just schooled me. “You don’t even know what the deal is, and you’re flipping out. Listen to me. Step one—find out if there’s a problem. Step two—go from there. You can’t skip over the first step.”

  I swallow audibly, feeling warm just at the idea of seeing my gynecologist about this. “It’s not that simple.”

  “How come?”

  “Because . . .”

  “Because being a pussy is easier?”

  I gasp. “Andrew.”

  He chuckles. “It’s true, isn’t it? You’re scared to find out the results, so you won’t go. You’re scared to disappoint Nate, so you’re going to give up. Just like when we were kids, and you hid under the fucking bed while Mom and Dad fought. It was cute then. Not anymore.”

  I clamp my mouth shut, sufficiently schooled. Andrew makes it sound so simple, but knowing the truth could change everything—not just my marriage, but my life. Am I ready for that? Could I ever be?

  “She’s a lot like you were, you know.” Andrew admires his daughter. “Sometimes, I look at her and see you. I tried to protect you as long as I could. And when I get scared or worried about her and the future, it comforts me to know how well you turned out. Even if you are a fucking pussy.”

  I want to be mad at him for forcing me to confront things I’d prefer to keep buried, but I’m not. In the comfort of his home, surrounded by two of the three people I love most in the world, all I can do is laugh along with him.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Nathan asked me to come home in the morning, but I don’t. I call into work again and stop by my gynecologist for an overdue visit. He tries to turn me away without an appointment, but after talking to Andrew, the truth can’t wait. Nathan and I need to have an honest conversation about what we want, and to do that, I have to know if I can even give him a baby. Eventually, Doctor Harris takes pity on me and squeezes me in between patients.

  And once I’m finished there, that’s when I go home. With my duffel bag slung over my shoulder, I get off the elevator on the sixth floor, stop at Finn’s apartment, and hesitate. I can’t bring myself to knock. Finn is beautiful, sexy, kind. He’s a father, a lover, a real man. He will never be Nathan, though.

  I rap my knuckles and wait. Standing in front of 6A isn’t the same as it’s been the last few weeks. There’s no buzzing in my veins or brimming possibility. Finn comes to the door eventually, in the same manner as always. Hurried, caught off guard. He’s sweating, which makes me wonder if the heater broke again. I don’t ask. It’s not my business.

  His gaze drops to my duffel bag, and then he looks at me, his eyes greener than ever and round with excitement. I can’t get myself to speak and kill that in him. I hesitate too long.

  “Sadie—” His face splits with a grin. He grabs me, pulling me in, pressing me to his warm, damp chest. His heart beats hard, undeniable. He sighs into my hair. “You’ve made me the happiest man. I was in Connecticut yesterday, but I’ve been at it all day today, putting furniture together, unpacking boxes.”

  It’s a killer hug, one to obliterate any before it. My body is stiff, though—and my decision solidifies. I might’ve thought I could love him as second place, but I can’t. These aren’t Nathan’s arms around me. Maybe over time, they’d come close, but that�
�s not enough for me.

  Almost imperceptibly, Finn’s grip on me loosens. And then he lets go. He draws back and this time, he takes a beat to study my face. His eyes roam, and his lips—the ones I could look at, touch, kiss all day—they droop at the corners.

  “Finn—” I start.

  “Ah, fuck,” he says with a step back. He grabs the hair at his crown in a fist. “Wait. Whatever you’re about to say—”

  “Don’t?” I ask. “That won’t make it less true.”

  “Sadie.” He comes back. Takes my shoulders. Puts his face close to mine. “You don’t have to stay in a bad marriage. Divorce is scary—trust me, I know. We’ll do it together, though. We will be each other’s support.”

  “What are we going to do, Finn? Live here, with Nathan across the hall?”

  “We’ll go anywhere you want. Rome. Paris. The Lower East Side. I don’t care.”

  “It won’t work.”

  “Come inside.” His eyes flicker between the elevator and my apartment door. “Let’s talk.”

  “I’m not going in there.”

  “Why not?” He gets excited, his veins cording his forearms. “Because you’re afraid of what’s between us? If we can’t be alone together, that means something.”

  “That’s not the reason,” I say. My attraction to Finn still lives, but suddenly, my love for Nathan locks over my heart, strong, protective. Finn checks the hallway again. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it. I, on the other hand, don’t bother to look. If Nathan comes out now, I’d rather get caught on Finn’s doorstep than hide inside his apartment.

  “Nathan knows.”

  He pauses, blinking at me. “What?”

  “I told him.”

  “I—” Finn blows out a breath and leans his hands against the doorframe, gripping it until they’re red. “I wish you’d discussed it with me first.”

  I want to run into my apartment, disappear from this spot, or at the very least, close my eyes against the hurt in his face. I have to face him, though, and I can’t leave any room for misinterpretation, because there’s no room for him in my heart. “There wasn’t anything to discuss,” I say. “I wasn’t planning on it.”