Glimpsing the stranger in the bureau mirror, she steps closer, forcing herself to take a good, hard look. Awash in guilt, she finds it difficult to even make eye contact with herself.
I don’t know her, she thinks, staring at her reflection. And I don’t like her.
It isn’t just that she still expects to see her familiar red hair. Her face looks older, etched in the shadows of worry lines and dark circles.
How is it that Jake hasn’t figured out just by looking at her that something is terribly wrong?
Maybe he has.
Remembering the way he’d studied her across the table last night, she turns away abruptly and walks over to the bed. What she wouldn’t give to crawl back under the covers and hide for the rest of the day. Not just from Jake, but from herself.
Maybe she should just tell him the truth.
She dismisses the thought before it’s even fully formed.
He might not believe that what had happened between her and Rick had stopped short of a physical affair, or that it was completely meaningless. He probably wouldn’t grasp that it had grown out of the circumstances of their lives back then; circumstances that no longer exist. She made a stupid, selfish mistake, but it’s one she would never make again. She’s older and wiser; their marriage has evolved; she loves Jake and would never . . .
She can hear herself saying all of those things to her husband as clearly as if the conversation actually took place. It isn’t difficult to imagine his response; the terrible devastation in his voice and the angry accusation in his eyes weigh on her as vividly as an ugly memory.
No. It can never happen. She’ll never tell him. She loves him too much to inflict that level of pain.
She forces herself to make the bed, same as she does every morning. Normalcy. It’s all about normalcy.
Downstairs, she steps around the box of indoor decorations Jake left near the foot of the steps, and is relieved to find Mick in the kitchen. He’s wearing a striped T--shirt with plaid shorts—-shorts, in December! Stripes and plaid!—-and standing in front of the open refrigerator gulping milk straight from the carton.
Ah, normalcy.
Seeing her, he hastily puts the milk carton back. “Sorry. I forgot to get a glass.”
“It’s okay.”
“It is?”
“I mean, no, it’s not okay, but . . . I’ll let it slide this time. Did you run this morning?”
“Yup.”
“Did you remember to take your medicine?”
“Yup.”
“Did you eat something with it so you won’t get an upset stomach?”
“No, I was about to.”
At too many maternal questions, a scowl begins to work its way over his freckled face, but she deftly erases it with a final one: “Want me to make some pancakes?”
“Yeah! I can eat about twenty, so make a lot.”
Rowan isn’t sure she can even choke down one.
Burnt cookies: the weight loss magic bullet. You don’t even have to eat them, and they’ll kill your appetite for a full week.
Jake appears with the Sunday paper in its blue plastic bag from the foot of the driveway. As usual, Mick promptly asks to see the sports section. As usual, Jake reminds him that the paper has been sitting outside since dawn and that Mick was perfectly capable of retrieving it then.
“Come on, Dad. That’s not fair. You read all those other sections, too. I just want to check the Knicks score from last night.”
“They lost.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Let me—-”
“You can have the sports section when I’m done with it. Here, help yourself to one of those other sections. Maybe you’ll learn something. And by the way—-what time did you come in last night?”
“Around twelve, give or take.”
“Give or take a few hours?”
“No! A few minutes.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mick.”
“I’m not! I told you I was home. You must not have heard me.”
Standing at the stove, listening to the predictable rhythm of their testosterone--fueled argument, Rowan finds herself breathing a little easier.
For now, anyway.