When it became clear that the matter wasn’t up for debate, Jason wanted to be the one to explain it to him. We finally decided to speak to him together.
We started by assuring him once again that his father was innocent of the allegations against him. Jason began to lay out Kerry’s motive for discrediting him, but it was too much detail for Spencer to absorb. He knew we were both in his room, standing above him as he was perched on the edge of his bed, for a reason. Something bad was about to happen. He didn’t need excuses. He needed to know that his world was safe.
“The police will have evidence that links your father to this woman,” I finally said. “Physical evidence. But what she’s saying about him isn’t true.”
His confused expression was quickly replaced by disgust. “You mean he cheated on you.”
Jason reached for Spencer, but he jerked away. “Get out.”
Jason blinked, searching for words. My son, however, knew exactly what he wanted to say. “Get out! Get out of this house. Get the fuck out of my room!”
I wanted Jason to argue, to stay here until our son found some way to live with the news. Instead, he turned and walked away. I heard footsteps on the stairs. Part of me wanted to follow him, but Spencer needed me.
“He’s not going to leave the house, Spencer. He lives here. We all live here together, and that’s not changing. At least, not right now.”
He asked how I could be so calm. “Why aren’t you more pissed off? He cheated on you. He’s ruining everything.”
I told him that marriages were more complicated than he could understand. I was letting him think that maybe I had known. Maybe I wasn’t the duped wife after all. “Obviously, your father and I have some things to talk about. But the number-one issue right now is this woman. She’s taking a consensual situation—”
“An affair, Mom. He had an affair.”
“Okay, an affair. She is taking their affair, and she is using it to accuse your father of a horrible, horrible thing. The most terrible thing one person can do to another. You understand that, right? Cheating on me, lying to us, it’s not okay—at all. It’s awful. But she was an equal partner in that. She knew your father had a wife and son. And now she is making up a disgusting crime. And she’s doing it out of greed. Your father has been trying to expose her company’s corruption. And instead of helping him, she saw a chance to make him look bad.”
“I can’t believe you’re defending him. You’re the one who follows all your little rules and routines so our life can be ‘good and boring.’ And now he’s blowing it all up, and you’re going to pretend that everything’s fine?”
“Trust me, Spencer. It’s not fine, and this isn’t easy for me. But, believe it or not, as much as Jason screwed up, he’s actually still the good guy in this situation. This company—”
“You just called him Jason.”
I didn’t see his point.
“You always call him Dad, or my father.”
“He’s that, too. Always, Spencer.”
“What if I don’t want him to be anymore? I’ll change my name again. He never even adopted me. You might be married to him, but I’m not.”
“Spencer, I am begging you. Please try to be on his side for the time being. If this case goes away, we’ll talk about how to move on as a family from there, okay?”
“I’m not on his side, Mom. I’m on your side. You promised when you married him, it would always be you and me, no matter what.”
I said that to him right before we got in my parents’ car to head to the wedding. I didn’t think he remembered. He was still so young.
“And I would never make that promise if I hadn’t meant it. But right now, Spencer, Jason’s side is my side. And our side. If he goes down for this, everything falls apart for all of us. Do you understand that?”
He nodded. He had tears in his eyes, but I could tell that his acceptance of the situation was real, at least for now. I had never given Spencer a reason to doubt my judgment. I was running on earned trust for the time being.
I was about to close his bedroom door, but he had one more question for me. “Did you know about her? That other woman?”
“Not now, Spencer.”
I wasn’t surprised to find the rest of the house empty, or that Jason’s phone was turned off when I tried to call him. This is what Jason did when he was upset. He walled himself off.
Colin knocked on the door about an hour later. I knew my entire face looked bee-stung from crying.
“I’d ask if you’re okay, but that would be pretty stupid, huh?”
I was already half a bottle of Cab down in the living room. I walked to the kitchen, retrieved a fresh glass, and split the rest of the bottle between the two of us from the sofa.
“He’s at your place?” I asked.
He nodded. Again, Jason was predictable. Colin’s apartment, across the street from Union Square Park, was where he usually went when he needed some space. He even had a spare key, supposedly in case Colin locked himself out, but I knew he’d used it the few times we’d gotten into horrible fights.
“So did you know?” I didn’t need to specify the subject of my question, or was it the object? I always got the two confused.
“About this woman specifically? No.”
“But you knew something. You knew there was someone.”
“I wondered a couple of times. He told me to mind my own business.”
“Sounds like a confession to me,” I said, taking a big sip from my glass.
“Not necessarily.” I let the silence fill the room, hoping—or maybe nervous—that he would say more. “To be honest, I think I was worried he’d accuse me of having selfish reasons to pry.”
“Why would that be selfish?” I asked, looking away.
“To hope that maybe there were problems between the two of you.”
I swirled the wine in my glass. The night before Jason and I got married, the three of us were drunk on Indian Wells Beach, hours after it was supposed to be closed. Jason stripped down to his boxers and jumped in the water, leaving Colin and me alone by the lifeguard stand. He had told me that he was supposed to go to Susanna’s party that night Jason and I first met. “I could’ve met you first. But I hooked up with a bartender at Nick and Toni’s and no-showed at the party. Guess you dodged a bullet and got the good one instead.” We had never talked about that moment again.
“He says it started three months ago,” I said. “The affair.” The word felt so old-fashioned.
Colin didn’t respond.
“You said you wondered a couple of times,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like only the last three months. That sounds like more than a couple of times, and for a while.”
As he continued to look at me in silence, it felt like confirmation of all my suspicions.
“When’s Spencer done with school?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.” I had completely forgotten to make a last-day-of-school cake, an annual tradition.
“I know I’m a shitty friend for saying this, but you’re too good for this, Angela. Get out of here. Take Spencer out east.”
“And live with my mother? Shoot me now.”
“Only for a little while. Or I can help you.”
Colin had money, but not that kind of money. I shook my head. Colin was Jason’s friend more than mine, but he had always looked out for me. I remembered all those doctors he had called after my miscarriages.
“Then throw Jason out. He can stay with me. You don’t need this shit. Let him deal with this on his own. He’s the one who fucked some batshit-crazy woman who would pull something like this as revenge.”
“He said it was because of the company. That they’re paying kickbacks in some third-world country. Something like that could put them in prison.”
“Yeah, he told me that too,” he said flatly.
“But that’s not the revenge you were talking about, was it? Is there something else?”
He didn’t say anything, and I imagined all the other reasons that my husband’s lover might hate him enough to do this.
I knew it was a mistake, but I went to the kitchen and opened another bottle of wine anyway. When I returned to the living room, I was slurring my words.