Natalie seethed. This was her life, too. Why should he get to indulge in his dark desires at her expense? No wonder her sleep troubles had only gotten worse.
In her groggy state, Natalie had a flash, something akin to a waking dream, of sticking the knife she was using to cut Bryce’s waffle straight into Michael’s arm, the blade sinking to the hilt, a splatter of blood going in all directions.
“Fish, babe?” Michael repeated.
The bloody vision left her, but the feeling of grotesque satisfaction lingered a few beats. Michael’s handsome face beamed back at her.
“Sure,” said Natalie, wanting to rip the phone from his hands and scour it for pictures. “If you’re going to Wegmans, can you swing by CVS and pick up Addie’s inhaler? She needs a refill.”
“Happy to,” he said with the charismatic smile that she’d fallen for so many years ago.
She often thought about the night she and Michael met. If she had said no to going to that party, she’d have had a different life, a different husband, one who didn’t cheat.
That night, Natalie had set her intentions on bingeing bad TV and self-pity, but a friend of hers from work, Kate Hildonen, pressured her into going out.
“Morgan always invites cute guys to her parties,” Kate had said. “We should go check it out.”
Natalie was twenty-six at the time, living in Allston. She was happy(ish) with her career but frustrated with her love life, as were most of her single friends who endured the indignity of online dating.
“I want a connection that feels authentic,” Natalie told Kate on their way to that party. “I want it to be organic.”
“Then it’s good we’re going out tonight. Trust the universe,” said Kate, who, despite having grown up on a dairy farm, could be prone to the mystical.
When they arrived at the cramped little apartment, the first person Natalie set her eyes upon after greeting their host was Michael. She was immediately struck by his handsome features and drawn into his soulful dark eyes.
“I’d say there’s some high-quality grade-A organic material right there,” Kate noted.
Almost immediately, like an inescapable gravitational pull, Natalie and Michael were drawn to each other. They struck up a conversation, and before long took a fateful walk around the block to get out of the smoke and the noise. That walk all but sealed the deal. Before the evening ended they’d made plans to take a hike at the Blue Hills nature reserve the following Saturday.
One hike led to one dinner, and after that meal Natalie knew she was in deep. From their first moments together, Michael’s easygoing nature enveloped her with the pleasant joy of a warm summer breeze. She knew in her heart and soul that there was a rare kind of energy between them. By their fifth date they were already talking marriage, maybe in jest at first, but Natalie picked up the sincerity in Michael’s voice and eyes. The eyes seldom lied.
The rest happened like a runaway train. Natalie and Michael started integrating their friend groups, and then it was time to meet her parents, not his; his were gone, his father having abandoned him and his mother long before she died of cancer. It all felt right and normal, and the next thing Natalie knew, she was married. A year after that she was pregnant with Addie. Then came Bryce.
The anonymous note about Michael’s flirting came many years later, and was the start of her full-blown insomnia. What wasn’t as clear was when the gulf between them had started to emerge. The specific details were fuzzy, buried under an avalanche of experiences, so many moments that all blurred together. Natalie tried instead to pinpoint a feeling rather than a date or an event when her marriage hit the rocks, but there was nothing, no clear warnings, and no demarcation between the time when things were good and when they were not. Natalie likened her marriage to a frog trapped in slowly heating water, unable to sense the danger until it was too late to act.
The frog always died. The marriage seemed to be taking its final breaths.
She watched Michael fiddle with the thick leather strap of his watchband until it fully covered a nasty scar he picked up from a dirt bike accident when he was a teen. Bryce would never ride one, he swore. He ruffled Bryce’s hair as he stuffed one half of a buttery English muffin into his mouth. He chewed slowly with a satisfied look on his face.
“What’s going on at school today, champ?” he asked.
Champ—his nickname for his son since he was a toddler.
Bryce shrugged. It was too big a question for an answer. Michael winked. He wasn’t expecting any grand revelations anyway, a moment of a connection, nothing more. He kissed Addie on the top of her head. Addie didn’t even look his way, but Natalie had no doubt she was glad to receive her father’s attention.
“Love you guys,” Michael said, grabbing his workout bag on his way out the door. “See you, babe,” he called out to Natalie, holding her gaze longer than normal. He came over to her. Gave her a kiss. “You look so tired, hon.”
Because of you, she wanted to say.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Fish and the inhaler. I’m on it.”
After seeing the kids off to school, Natalie made her way to the office. She went from meeting to meeting hoping she’d start to feel better. It was as if she’d gone into shock and the gears driving her engine had seized up like a motor running without oil.
Toward the end of the day, a dose of anger kicked in and pushed the empty feeling away. Michael’s selfishness, his horrible lack of judgment, had deeply hurt her. This wasn’t like forgetting to put a stamp on the electric bill. They had a marriage worth fighting for, especially with the children. It became clearer to Natalie that what she wanted more than anything was to fight for her man—win him back, so to speak, possess him again as she had once before. Even though he had strayed, for reasons she couldn’t quite process, she still wanted him. She longed to kiss him deeply, caress his back delicately with her fingers, to pull him in as closely as she could until their bodies came together as one.
She was having these surprising and sexy thoughts when Audrey emerged from around a corner, nearly bumping into Natalie.
“Hey there,” Audrey said, her blue eyes brightening. “I came down here looking for you. Glad we caught up. I just wanted to thank you again for lunch yesterday and for being an ear. I so appreciate it.”
“Of course,” said Natalie, whose thoughts went racing ahead.
It’s a misunderstanding, she was telling herself. Michael isn’t Audrey’s Chris. All those connections she made could be just coincidences. Maybe the whole thing was in her head and he hasn’t been anything other than a giant flirt. That’s got to be it. Michael’s a good man. She replayed how sweet he had been to her and the children that morning.