“Is that what you’re going to do?” she asks.
I shrug, feeling as forlorn and bitter as she looks, “I don’t know,” I say. “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well, I can’t start over,” she says, shaking her head sadly. “I just can’t... I guess I’m not that strong.”
I look at my friend, overwhelmed with confusion. Unsure of what April should do. What I should do. What a strong woman would do. In fact, the only thing that I am certain of is that there are no easy answers, and that anyone who says there are has never been in our shoes.
***
And now it is Christmas Eve and I am driving through the dark, mostly empty streets, watching snow flurries dance in my headlights. I have another hour before I can go home and have already exhausted my errands: buying a few final stocking stuffers for the kids, returning the sweaters I bought for Nick, stopping by the bakery to pick up the pies I ordered only minutes before Nick returned from his walk in the Common—including the coconut cream he dared to request the day before, knowing what he knew.
I try not to think about this, try not to think about anything as I weave my way through the public gardens, turning onto Beacon, then over the Mass Avenue Bridge. As I reach Memorial, my phone rings in the passenger seat. I jump, wondering whether or maybe even hoping that it’s Nick—if only so that I can ignore him once again. But it is not Nick; it is my brother, who does not yet know what has happened. I tell myself not to answer because I don’t have it in me to lie, and I don’t want to burden him on Christmas. But I can’t resist the thought of his voice—the thought of anyone’s voice. So I slip on my headset and say hello.
“Merry Christmas!” he booms into the phone over his Usual background din.
I glance at the Hancock Tower, its spire aglow with red and green lights and wish him a Merry Christmas back. “Got your card today,” I say. “What a gorgeous photo of the girls.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Rachel gets the credit on that one.”
“Obviously,” I say, smiling.
“So what are you guys up to?” he says, sounding the way you’re supposed to sound on Christmas Eve—buoyant, blithe, blessed. I can hear Julia singing the kitschy version of “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” her voice high and off-key, and my mother’s bell-like laughter, as I envision the sort of scene I used to take for granted.
“Um . . . not too much,” I say as I drive across the Salt-and-Pepper Bridge, back into Beacon Hill. “Just. . . you know . . . Christmas Eve.” My voice trails off as I realize I’m making no sense at all, not even putting a proper sentence together.
“You okay?” Dex asks.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, knowing how revealing this statement is, and that there is no turning back now. But as guilty as I feel for tainting his night, I feel a sense of relief, too. I want my brother to know.
“What happened?” he says, as if he already knows the answer. His voice is more angry than worried, the one thing absent from Cate’s reaction.
“Nick had an affair,” I say, the first I’ve used the word, having decided only a few hours ago, in the bakery, that even “one time” constitutes an affair, at least when there is emotional involvement leading up to it.
Dex does not ask for details, but I give a few anyway, covering Nick’s confession, that I kicked him out, that I have not seen him since, and that, although he has a few hours with the kids now, he will be spending Christmas alone.
Then I say, “I know you’re going to want to tell Rachel. And that’s fine. But please don’t say anything to Mom, I want to tell her myself.”
“You got it, Tess,” Dex promises. Then he exhales loudly and says, “Dammit.”
“I know.”
“I can’t fucking believe he did this.”
His loyalty, so fierce and unwavering, makes my eyes water, my heart ache. I tell myself I can’t cry. Not right before going home. Not on Christmas Eve.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say as I pass the Church of the Advent where families are mingling on the sidewalk, a service just over or one about to begin.
“Can I call him?” he says.
“I don’t know, Dex . . .” I say, wondering what good could possibly come from it. “What would you say?”
“I just want to talk to him,” he says, making me think of a mobster going to “talk” to someone with a pistol tucked into his waistband.
I drive along Charles, its storefronts closed and dark, and say, “There’s no point really . . . I think I’ve made my decision.”
“Which is?”
“I think I’m leaving him . . . I don’t want to live a lie,” I say, thinking of April, suddenly deciding that her way is not an option for me.
“Good,” he says. “You should.”
I am surprised by his definitive answer, especially because of how much he has always liked Nick.