by Dina Silver
“I hardly know what to say to you. My anger has been festering for nearly two days. You have no idea how upset and disappointed I am. Do you? What could you possibly have been thinking? How could you miss the appointment and then ignore me for a whole day afterward!?” My voice rose at the end.
He threw his head back and began to walk toward the window. “I said I fucked up, and I’m sorry. I tried calling you yesterday, and you wouldn’t take my call, so I figured you didn’t want to talk to me.”
I stood up from the floor where I was folding clothes to better convey my rage. “Are you kidding me?!” I yelled. “We are not in high school, Tyler. This is a marriage, a partnership, a goddamned commitment! We’re having a child together, and you’re running around acting like one. I have never been so angry with someone in my life, and it kills me that it’s you of all people! How could you behave like this?”
“Don’t freak out at me; I got stuck in a conference and tried to call you, but you wouldn’t take my fucking call!” he yelled. Then he stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
I sat down on the bed, sobbing, thinking, this can’t be happening. We’d come so far and overcome so much together. Why was it breaking down during what was supposed to be our happiest time? Weren’t we supposed to be rubbing cocoa butter on my stretch marks and laughing over celebrity baby names as we chose the perfect moniker for our own little one? I was no good at living with hostility, and there was no way I could leave town with things like this between us. At that moment, I didn’t care about being right. I didn’t care about making a point and watching him suffer. I just wanted to move forward and make amends with my husband.
I took a hot shower and went downstairs to find Tyler in the kitchen, opening a box of pizza. He looked at me when I entered the room.
“This is ridiculous,” I started quietly. “I’m leaving tomorrow. Can we at least have dinner together?” I asked.
“I’ll be in the den,” he said over his shoulder as he left the room.
I sat at the kitchen island with my laptop and inhaled four slices of pizza without tasting a single bite. I hated arguing with Tyler almost as much as I hated following him around trying to make things right between us. I argued for a living and preferred to leave it at the office. Tyler was stubborn, and regardless of whether he was the instigator or not, he often made it seem like everything was my fault.
Once I’d finished eating, I joined him on the couch with my computer. While the noise from the TV was a welcome distraction, it also served as a reminder of how little we spoke to each other. At ten o’clock, Tyler’s phone rang, and he walked into the kitchen to take the call. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, and I could see him pause near the sink to finish his conversation. He didn’t return until he’d hung up.
“Who’s calling so late?” I asked when he returned.
Tyler took a sip of his beer. “It was Mitch. He and Hollis are in Atlanta, and he wanted to make sure I had the call times for tomorrow,” he answered. “The extras need to be there two hours early to get into makeup for the zombie cereal thing, and the three principal actors don’t need to be there until noon. Mitch wanted to make sure I had the correct schedule because he’s usually the one to send out the call sheets, and they need to be e-mailed tonight. So I’ve got to take care of it, and then I need to be on set in Hinsdale by six thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Mitch and Hollis are in Atlanta?” I asked. “What for?”
“I’m not sure. I think maybe his mom is sick. She lives there. They probably went there to see her,” he said, thumbing a message on his phone.
“His mom is sick?”
He looked up at me abruptly with an annoyed expression on his face. “I don’t know, okay? All I know is that he’s in Atlanta, and I have to get these call sheets done and get to bed.” He turned back to his phone.
I closed my laptop, grabbed my glass of water from the coffee table, and began to head upstairs. “I’m going to bed, too. My flight is at ten tomorrow morning, so I guess I won’t see you until Monday,” I said over my shoulder. “Good night.”
“G’night, Chloe, love you,” he said, looking over at me. “I’m sorry, I really am. Things are crazy at work, and I’m just…planning for this shoot tomorrow is really working me over. There are so many balls in the air, and I just want to make sure everything goes well.”
His eyes were heavy, and I could see that he was anxious to be left alone. I nodded and went to bed.
Tyler was gone by the time I woke up the next morning. The snow was still falling. I checked my flight from home to confirm that it was still on schedule, but by the time I got to the airport, it had been delayed due to the storm. Two hours later, it was canceled altogether.
I was about to call my mom when my phone rang. It was Rachel.
“My flight was just canceled,” I said as I picked up.
“I know, I just got an e-mail alert from the airline,” she said.
“I should have known, but this morning when I checked, it said the flight was still on time. Oh well.”
“Well, Kimberly James’s husband’s lawyer called this morning and asked to move the deposition to Monday, so at least you’ll be in town for that now,” she told me.
“Okay, tell him that’s fine,” I said, swallowing through a dry throat. I glanced at a clock on the wall and realized it was just about time for one of my ravenous hunger pangs to set in. I spied a Cinnabon and started speed walking.
“Do you want me to send a car back to come get you?” Rachel asked.
“No, thanks, I’ll just jump in a cab,” I said. “In fact, I think I’m going to bring Tyler his fridge today. We had a fight last night, and I’d like to do something nice for him.”
Tyler had come home a few times complaining that his soda had been stolen from the main refrigerator in their communal lunchroom, so I’d asked Rachel to order a mini-fridge for him a couple of weeks earlier. Robert had put it in my trunk, but I hadn’t had a chance to deliver it yet.
“Sorry to hear that. What were you fighting about?”
“It’s not worth getting into. But he’s been ridiculously stressed out about this commercial he’s working on. I know he’ll be on set in Hinsdale all day, so I’ll bring it by his office while he’s not there. It’ll be a nice surprise for him when he gets back.”
“That’s sweet of you,” Rachel said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to send a limo?”
“I’m sure, thank you. The fridge is in the back of my car, so I’ll just jump in a cab and head home first. I should be in the office by three,” I said. “See you then.”
On the ride home I called my mother and told her my flight had been canceled. Her reaction was the same as if I’d told her I had eggs for breakfast. As the cab pulled onto my street, I noticed our cleaning lady’s car parked in front of the house. She wasn’t due to come until Monday.
“Karina?” I called out as I entered through the side door. “Hello, Karina?” I shouted up the front stairs a second time.
She appeared at the top of the stairs wearing rubber yellow gloves. “You coming home today?” she asked me.
“No, what are you doing here?” I knew her to be on time, but never three days early.
“Tyler, he text me and ask if I come today.”
I shook my head. “When did he do that?”
“Yesterday morning.”
We stared at each other with nearly the same bewildered expression.
“It’s okay?” she asked.
I nodded, confused, and got in my car.
By the time I arrived at Tyler’s office, I was beaming with excitement. But first I needed to find one of the guys from his office to help me with the large box. I parked in front of the building, left my hazards on, and started walking toward the revolving doors. The sight of Mitch stopped me in my tracks.
“Hey, sexy momma,” he greeted me with a hug as I froze.
I took a step backward and nearly tumbled off th
e curb. “I thought you were in Atlanta with Hollis?” I asked him, confusion setting off fireworks in my head.
“Atlanta?” he said, looking equally baffled. “Why would I be in Atlanta? We have the Brain Berry shoot this weekend,” he said and put his arms straight out in front of him to mimic a marching zombie.
A deadly chill ran through me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
My chest tightened and my breathing intensified as snippets of last night’s conversation with Tyler began flashing through my head. I struggled to recall the specifics and make sense of it. Had Mitch even called him last night? My “pregnancy brain” had failed me on more than one occasion, but there was no doubt in my mind that Tyler had told me Mitch and Hollis were in Atlanta. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to include details regarding Mitch’s mother’s health and the urgency of getting the call sheets out to the team before morning. When I had talked to Hollis the day before, she hadn’t mentioned it, but if his mother were ill that would certainly be reason enough for them to head down there at the last minute. I gently clutched my stomach and decided against asking about his mother.
“Whoa, you okay?” he asked, sensing my discord and reaching out to touch my shoulder.
I nodded and looked down at my trembling hands. “I’m…I’m…it’s just morning sickness.”
“You poor thing,” Mitch said. “Tyler’s upstairs. Why don’t you go lie down?”
My head jerked up. “Tyler’s upstairs?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, narrowing his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”
I nodded.
“All right then, I gotta run. See you later.”
“See you,” I said. I continued to stand motionless outside the doors that led into Tyler’s office building. He’d lied to me, and every ounce of my being knew he wasn’t hiding anything good. There was no congratulatory gift in his trunk for me. No velvet box waiting on the kitchen counter next to a vase of roses to greet me upon my return from Florida. Something was very wrong. I took the elevator to the third floor and walked straight past Megan at reception as she attempted to greet me. Tyler was right where Mitch said, yet not where he was supposed to be. He looked at me like I was one of the zombies.
“Hi,” he said, standing up hastily. “Are you okay? What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
His eyes fluttered as he ran his hand through his hair. “I work here,” he said.
Was he really going to toy with me? “I thought you were supposed to be on set all day in Hinsdale.”
“I’m on my way there now,” he replied.
I locked eyes with him for a moment before he glanced down at his desk. “I just saw Mitch downstairs and asked him how his trip to Atlanta was.”
Tyler fumbled with his computer and put his keys in his front pocket while I stood across from him, resisting the urge to heave a stapler at his head. “Do you have something you need to tell me, Tyler?”
“No.”
“Are you serious? I just bumped into Mitch, and he assured me he was nowhere near the state of Georgia this week.”
He shook his head. “I never said he was in Atlanta.”
My eyes went wide. “Have you lost your mind? Yes, you did say that; you even went so far as to tell me his mother was sick, remember? It was just last night!” I screamed. He went to close the door.
“Are you sleeping with someone?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why was Karina cleaning the house today?”
Tyler walked back to his desk chair. “I have no idea.”
“I was at the house a half hour ago, and she told me you asked her to come today. Let me guess, she’s lying too?”
He said nothing.
“What the hell is going on? Are you cheating on me?” I asked, incredulously. “Answer me!”
“No!”
My mind began to race, as memories of other questionable activities came to mind. Like why his phone bill and credit card statements didn’t come to the house anymore. And why Hollis had replied, ‘Oh, it hasn’t been too bad,’ when I commented to her about our husbands’ many late nights lately.
“Why doesn’t your cell phone bill come to the house anymore?” I asked him.
“Because the company pays for it now.”
“No, they don’t. I still see the canceled checks online. I just don’t see the bills. Let me see your phone.”
“You’re not going through my phone.”
“Then let me see the phone bills.”
“I don’t have them.”
I shrugged calmly. “Fine, then I’ll subpoena your phone records when I get back to the office.”
I watched him sink slowly back down in his chair. He glanced at me, then looked away and thought hard before speaking. “What do you want me to say?” he asked.
“I want the truth, because right now I don’t believe a goddamned word that’s coming out of your mouth. You have sixty seconds to tell me what’s going on, and why you’re lying to me before I leave here and subpoena all your calls and texts for the past six months. And you know I’ll do it.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“Then give me your phone.”
Whether his back was up against a wall or he was trying to prove something to himself, I don’t know, but he handed me his phone. I held it in my hand, not quite sure what I was going to find and then slid my thumb across the screen to unlock it. I tapped the phone icon and a list of his recent calls popped up. I scrolled through them. Many of the names I recognized from his work. Some were nicknames. Some were just numbers. Only one was a woman.
“Who’s Morgan?” I asked.
“A friend,” he said too quickly for my taste. His expression was nervous, but I could tell from his body language that he was trying desperately to appear indifferent. His hands were shoved in his pockets, his shoulders slumped, and his eyes were darting around the room.
“Why have I never heard her name before?”
He shrugged.
Did he really want to be cross-examined by me? Was he seriously going to put me through this? I may have been emotional and hormonal and high-strung, but I was no fool. He had to know that by now.
“Do you think I should believe you?” I asked.
“You should believe what you want.”
“Do you think you’re acting like someone who has nothing to hide?”
“I’m not one of your clients.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said, keeping my gaze fixed on him. The entire left side of my chest had begun to cramp up, and the pain was unbearable. It took every ounce of mental fortitude not to double over as I stood in front of my beautiful husband and dodged the ugly lies he was throwing at me. My subconscious was fighting with reality, making it hard to concentrate. I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him. I needed to know that what he was saying was the truth. But deep down, in the pit of my stomach, I thought, He’s cheating on me.
My knees buckled, and as I reached for a chair, he scrambled toward me. I smacked him across the face with the back of my hand as I sat down. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I mumbled.
Tyler stepped back and began pacing.
I caught my breath before speaking again. “Who is she?” I asked. “And do not make me ask twice.”
He didn’t make me ask twice, but he did make me wait for an answer. “She’s a makeup artist, and she’s just a friend.”
“I didn’t realize you wore makeup,” I said, and he had the nerve to roll his eyes at me. “Well, I can’t think of any other reason you’d need to talk to a makeup artist so often. How long have you known her?”
“I don’t know, maybe a month or so,” he said.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t remember the first time you fucked the makeup artist and cheated on your pregnant wife. I want to know exactly how long it’s been!”
Tyler said nothing. My hands were shaking. I had no idea how to process the horror film that
I was starring in. All I could think about was my baby. Our baby. Had I become a single parent in that instant? Why in God’s name would he ruin everything we’d worked for?
He finally spoke. “We met a while back, on a shoot for Gatorade, and then I saw her again a couple months ago at the Burger King gig,” he said, wiping his brow. His eyes shifted back and forth from me to his cell phone, which I’d placed back on his desktop.
“And when did you begin sleeping with her?”
He didn’t answer me or deny anything. He just sighed. When his phone buzzed, alerting him to a text message, he lifted his head and reached out to grab it, but I got to it first. I heaved it at the wall behind his head and watched it shatter into pieces.
“Goddamn it, Chloe!”
I was unfazed. “Answer my question before your laptop suffers the same fate. When did you begin having sex with Morgan the makeup artist? Was it before or after we got our test results? Were you fucking her the day after we celebrated the pregnancy or the day before? Did you tell her all about what a wonderful father you’re going to be?” I stood, disgusted, and grabbed my purse. I turned to leave, and then paused with my back to him and my hand on the doorknob. “Next time she’s sucking your dick, tell her it’s a boy,” I said and walked out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I ran outside and around to the side of his building, then collapsed on the ground and vomited. Dirt and gravel dug into my palms and knees as I spit and sobbed and caught my breath. I managed to get inside my car and drove four blocks before pulling over. Tears and snot and sweat drenched the front of my shirt. My body convulsed as I thought about Karina at the house, scrubbing the bathtub on Tyler’s insistence. Had he planned to bring that woman into our home while I was in Florida? Of course he did, you stupid, clueless fucking idiot! In one fell swoop my husband had turned me into my mother. A delusional, heartbroken, insecure woman looking for a crutch.
Sitting in the car, I cried for myself and for my mom. In a matter of minutes my confidence, my intelligence, and the future I’d envisioned for myself had been ripped from my grasp. I wanted to drive my car into a brick wall. I hated myself for feeling that way and for letting that happen. How could that have happened?! I threw the car door open and vomited two more times on the side of the road. Saliva dripped from my chin.