“So you could live with it,” Amy says. “But it isn’t what you want?”
I say an emphatic no, it isn’t what I want.
“Do you ever think about divorce? What it would be like?”
I say no, not really. I tell her my thoughts mostly consist of how to get through the day.
She stares at me, perfectly still, a wax therapist statue.
“But if we got a divorce, I think it would be fairly amicable. I don’t see us fighting over money or things. Over really anything,” I say, talking quickly now, words spewing out of me. “Except maybe time with Harper…though I would be willing to share custody fifty-fifty. I think that’s only fair, really. To him and to Harper. He’s such a good father—and she loves him so much….I think she’d be resilient….It would kill my parents, though. And his. Especially mine. Our friends would be shocked, too….Everyone thinks we have the perfect life. Once we have that second child, that is.” I stop suddenly, Amy familiar with the controversy over a second child.
“Have you made any progress with that?” she asks.
“No. I’m still not ready,” I say, the statement suddenly ringing hollow, the word ready a farce. You get ready for a vacation, or a job interview, or a move. You even get ready to actually give birth to a baby. But do you really get ready for pregnancy? Especially a second pregnancy? Or do you just take the leap and do it?
As if reading my mind, Amy asks the exact question Nolan posed to me. “Do you think you’ll ever be ready?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think so. At some point. Maybe.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to have sex this morning?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m on the pill….I didn’t want to have sex with him this morning because I didn’t want to have sex with him this morning.”
“Fair enough.”
“But regardless…I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having just one child.”
“Of course not.”
“There are actually advantages to being an only child,” I say.
“Certainly,” Amy says, knowing a smoke screen when she sees one. I wait for her to call me on it, get back to the real subject at hand, and when she doesn’t, I’m almost disappointed.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I say, knowing that it has nothing to do with the pros and cons of being an only child.
“Okay,” Amy says, nodding, her hair swinging again. “I was wondering whether you love Nolan….”
The question, veiled as a statement, is so simple that it catches me off guard. Yet my answer is easy, automatic. “Of course I do. He’s a good man. A great father,” I say, thinking that we’ve covered these points exhaustively—along with our history, the fact that Nolan was Daniel’s loyal and kind best friend. That he was there for me and my family. That now he is my family.
“Yes,” Amy says. “I know that you love Nolan and care for him as a person and a partner and the father of your child. But are you in love with him?”
I stare at Amy, feeling rankled over what, for years, I’ve told myself is an adolescent distinction. The fact that my heart doesn’t race over Nolan, and I never feel overwhelmed by lust, and I don’t melt when our eyes meet across a crowded room (hell, I seldom even look for him in a crowded room), doesn’t mean I don’t love him or that I’m not committed to our marriage.
Yet deep down, I know what she’s asking me, just as I know the answer, and have since that day in the dugout. It is an immutable fact, the same as Daniel being dead, impossible to change simply by wishing things were different. So I finally make myself confess the truth. I am telling my therapist, but as these things go, I’m really telling myself.
“No,” I say aloud. My voice is soft and low but clear and very, very certain. “No, I am not in love with my husband.”
chapter thirteen
JOSIE
I’ve never understood precisely what Murphy’s law is, but I’m pretty sure it applies when I finally break down and go out with Pete the PT for the second time, this time to Bistro Niko, an upscale French restaurant, wearing the same dress and shoes I had on at Open House, and spot none other than Will and Andrea Carlisle, enjoying a cozy steak dinner. It doesn’t help matters that Pete just got a self-proclaimed bad haircut that approaches a buzz, and is wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt, the combination evoking a door-to-door missionary. Nor does it help that Will is sporting my favorite look—jacket and no tie with jeans—along with a sexy five o’clock shadow.
As the hostess leads us right past their table, I avert my eyes, praying that we’ll go undetected, but then hear Andrea calling my name over the dull din of diners. With Pete trailing behind, I stop abruptly, feign surprise, and say, “Oh, hey there!”
“Hey!” Andrea says as I notice that she got her hair colored, the grays eradicated, her rich golden highlights fully restored. “Nice to see you again!”