He threw out his back helping the deliverymen carry that pine dining room table I purchased while he’d been traveling, the one my mother-in-law can’t stand. The one I’m pretty sure James never liked either. It was heavy and awkward, and he raked one of the legs on the doorframe as they were carrying it inside. He caught my eye as I directed the man holding the front toward a nook just off our kitchen, his eyes blazing with annoyance—that I’d made yet another purchase without consulting him. And I shot him an angry look and shrugged, because I made money too. I had a right to spend it. And don’t you dare imply that because I don’t make even half what you do on my teacher’s salary, I don’t have a right to buy this table. Another reason the damn thing means so much to me. It has always made me feel stronger to have it, even though it was brought into our house during a low point.
He’d traveled fourteen days the month I bought it, and I’d been lonely. And I was tired of him telling me to get a hypoallergenic dog (he was allergic) to keep me company. And I was sick of having dinner with my sister and her husband and my nieces and nephew and feeling sorry for myself as they passed around their perfect bowl of quinoa pasta with basil and fresh tomatoes and perfect sautéed broccoli and garlic and talked about their perfect days. I’d end up drinking half the bottle of red wine I’d contributed to the meal, missing my husband and sad we didn’t have a family of our own to sit around the ginormous pine table I’d just purchased.
As James and the deliverymen set it down on the gleaming travertine in our kitchen, James let out a cry and fell to the floor. Let’s just say his embarrassment over his back collapsing in front of two twentysomething men—with their proper weight belts and wide eyes, who could’ve carried it without his help—didn’t bode well for the already fragile state of our marriage. We didn’t speak for two days. I think about those arguments now—the ones where we’d be in a battle of wills, not talking, daring the other to be the first to give in—and realize we’ll never have one again.
I guess you won, James.
“Did you read the emails?” Nick interrupts my thoughts.
I nod, thinking back to the hours I spent poring over them like they were going to explain everything. My husband’s words still lingered. I miss you. Can’t wait to see you. Can’t stop thinking about you.
The old James was splayed across the pages. His flirtatious banter. His sexy talk. His persuasiveness. He’d been just like that with me in the early years. He’d write naughty notes and stick them in random pockets of my clothing until I eventually found them—sometimes months later. And Nick was right: there was no indication they’d loved each other. And as dangerous as I knew it was to latch on to hope, it had given me some. Maybe it had just been a casual thing. Just maybe.
“And?”
“You were right. It helped.”
He gives me a look, waiting for more.
“It was just flirtation. Early stuff. Maybe their relationship didn’t mean anything?”
“Maybe,” he agrees. But I know we’re thinking the same thing. It probably did.
“It did hurt like hell to read them, though,” I add, thinking about how I called Beth and read some excerpts to her—specifically about the eyes. How she listened as I howled into the phone. I don’t want to go back to that place right now. I can’t. I already feel gutted—he never said anything like that to me about my appearance. He called me pretty and sexy, but never pinpointed a certain body part or characteristic that he obsessed over, the way he had with her. It made me feel plain in comparison.
“I know,” Nick says, and we fall into a silence for several minutes—an unspoken agreement to stop talking about them.
Nick is the first to break it. “Here’s that list I was telling you about.” He hands me his phone, where he’s made his notes.
Westin Ka’anapali
Concierge
Maui Jeep Rentals
Restaurants
Sightseeing
Chopper ride
Snorkeling
Whale watching
Surf school
Booze cruise
Horseback riding
Officer Keoloha
Kuau store
The road to Hana?
“James wouldn’t ride a horse,” I say after scanning the list, thinking of a conversation we had when we were first dating. It was one of those nights where we talked into the early-morning hours about everything, from pet peeves to favorite foods. When we got to the part about things we’d never do, he said horseback riding without even a moment’s hesitation. I laughed, thinking he was joking because of his matter-of-fact attitude. I’d suddenly had an image of him saddled on the back of a thoroughbred, ambling along a path, and wondered what could be so bad about that. Then a shadow crossed his face, and he told me he was serious, that he simply wasn’t a horse person. It was obvious there was more to it than that, but I didn’t press. I never wanted to press James. About anything. Only later, after he’d drunk too many whiskeys, did I find out that his brother had loved horses—and that after his brother had died at the age of five, James could barely even look at one without feeling the loss all over again.
“I don’t mean this the wrong way.” Nick pauses, and I can tell he’s trying to be careful about the next words he chooses. “But isn’t it fair to say that you might not have known your husband as well as you thought you did?”
I think about the last morning I saw him, before we got into the fight. How I’d been lying in bed when he got out of the shower, and I studied him as he brushed his teeth—marveling as I always did that he actually took the full two minutes to clean them and never skipped flossing afterward. He had one of our taupe towels wrapped around his waist—the one that had hung on the hook in our bathroom until I finally threw it into the wash when I packed for Maui last night. I thought to myself, He looks good. He looks really damn good. I should get my ass to the gym more often, like he does. Or try running again. And I was about to suggest that when he got back from Kansas we should sign up for a 5K I’d seen advertised at our Starbucks, when he yelled, “Goddamn it, Jacks!” His towel fell to the floor as he stormed into the bedroom and stood at the end of the bed, glaring at me in all his nakedness. And then I saw the pregnancy test in his hand. But instead of saying I was sorry, I fought back. I wish I could’ve known that none of it was going to matter. But I had no clue. No fucking idea.
“Yes, that’s fair,” I finally say to Nick. “I obviously did not know my husband at all.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DYLAN—BEFORE
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Dylan asked, chewing on her lower lip as she watched James. He’d barely spoken since they’d met at the security line at LAX. From the moment he’d removed his belt and put it in the white plastic bin next to his wallet and loose change, she could see it on his face—he’d fought with Jacqueline, again. Dylan preferred not to refer to James’s wife—even in her mind—by her nickname. It seemed wrong, like more of a betrayal. She knew how ridiculous that sounded. She was already sleeping with the woman’s husband; what did it matter if she said her name? But, to her, it was one small thing she could do. She only wished she could ask James to stop using it. Hearing his wife’s name slip easily—too easily—from his mouth made Dylan conjure the image of her that day in the restaurant—her full lips, dark eyes, silky hair.
Dylan knew she was a teacher. And she sometimes imagined her standing in front of her classroom while wearing a smart black pencil skirt and slowly trailing the loop of the z as she taught her fourth graders cursive. Was she patient? Kind? Strict? Dylan would try to escape these thoughts, because she didn’t want to think about Jacqueline as a real person who had feelings. Dylan preferred to live in the bubble that she and James had created. And there was no room inside of it for reality.
“Yes, I’m fine,” James finally said through gritted teeth, the muscles in his neck tightening.