I told him to go. I wanted him to go. But I still hate him for listening to me, for not staying and making me fight. I hate him for walking so calmly toward the door, and for the look on his face as he turned back toward me, his lips parted, as if he had one last thing to say. I waited for something profound, some indelible sentiment that I could replay in the hours, days, years to come. Something to help me make sense of what had just happened to me and our family. Yet he didn’t speak—perhaps because he changed his mind and thought better of it. More likely because he had nothing to say in the first place. Then he disappeared around the corner. Seconds later, I heard the door open and then shut again with a definite, final thud—the sound of someone leaving. A sound that has always made me fleetingly sad even when I know they’ll be coming right back, even when it’s a houseguest I am ready to see go. So it shouldn’t have surprised me that that moment and the eerie calm that followed were worse than the actual moment of Nick’s confession.
And there I stood, alone, dizzy and breathless, before turning to sit on the couch, waiting for the rage to overcome me, for the uncontrollable urge to go destroy something. Slash his favorite shirts or smash his framed Red Sox memorabilia or burn our wedding photos. React the way women are supposed to react in this situation. React the way my mother did when she smashed my father’s new car with a baseball bat. I could still hear the sound of glass exploding, see the carnage that remained in the driveway long after my father came to sweep and hose down the crime scene, how those stray shards glistened on sunny days as a reminder of our fractured family.
But I was way too exhausted for revenge, and more important, I wanted to believe that I was too good for it. Besides, I had children to feed, practical matters to attend to, and it took all my energy to head for the kitchen, set the table with the kids’ favorite Dr. Seuss place mats, prepare two plates of chicken nuggets and peas and mandarin oranges, then pour two glasses of milk, adding a dash of chocolate milk. When everything was ready, I turned toward the stairs, noticing the chicken breasts I had begun to thaw just before Nick came home. I put them both back in the freezer, then called the names of my children, listening to the sound of rapid footsteps. It was a rare, immediate response, especially for Ruby, and I wondered whether they detected the urgency and need in my voice. As their faces appeared in the stairwell, I realized how much I did need them—and the intensity of that need scared me and filled me with guilt. I remembered how much my mother needed Dex and me in the aftermath of her divorce, the burdensome weight of that responsibility, and said a quick prayer that I would be stronger. I reassured myself that my children were too young to understand the unfolding tragedy in their lives—which felt like a small consolation, until I realized that this was a tragedy in itself.
“Hi, Mommy,” Frankie said, blanket in tow, smiling at me in mid-flight down the stairs.
“Hi, Frankie,” I replied, my heart aching for him.
I watched Ruby bound down the stairs, past her brother, peering into the kitchen and asking me in an ironically accusatory tone, “Where’s Daddy?”
I swallowed hard and told her that Daddy had to go back to work, wondering, for the first time, where Nick had actually gone. Was he at work? Was he driving aimlessly around? Or had he gone back to her? Maybe this was the result he wanted all along. Maybe he wanted me to make the choice, to play my hand like this. Maybe he assumed I would be just like my mother.
“Was it an emergency?” Ruby pressed, furrowing her dark brow, exactly as her father does.
“Yes. It was,” I told her, nodding, then shifting my gaze back to Frankie, who looks nothing like his father—a fact that I suddenly found comforting. “Okay, then! Let’s wash hands,” I called out merrily, forging ahead with our evening, on some sort of bizarre autopilot, pretending that it was any other ordinary day. Pretending that my life—and theirs—hadn’t just been shattered and smashed like my father’s Mercedes, so long ago.
***
Later that night, I am curled up in a fetal position on the couch, wondering how I have managed to keep it together for so many hours, not shedding a single tear, even mustering a lighthearted bedtime story for the kids. I want to believe that it speaks volumes of my character, the core of who I am as a person and mother. I want to believe that it shows I am capable of being brave in a crisis, dignified in the face of disaster. That I am still in control of myself, even though I am no longer in control of my life. And maybe, in part, that is all true.
But more likely, I am simply in shock—a feeling that doesn’t begin to recede until now, as I pick up the phone to call Cate.
“Hey, girl,” she says, the sounds of Manhattan in the background—cars honking, buses grinding to a halt, a man shouting something in Spanish. “What’s going on?”
I hesitate, then listen to myself say the words aloud.
Nick cheated on me.
And it is in this instant that my new reality comes into sharp focus. The reality that Nick is, and forever will be, one of those men. And by virtue of his choice, I have become one of those women. Cheater and victim. That’s who we are now.
“Tessa. Oh, my God . . . Are you sure?” she asks.
I try to answer but can’t speak, the dam of tears finally breaking.
“Are you sure?” she says again.
“Yeah,” I sob, hugging a box of Kleenex to my chest. “He told me he did it . . . Yes.”
“Oh, Tessa. . . Shit,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”