For a year or two, Brad and I just saved our money and adored our boy. I worked just enough to keep my license, and only night shifts. My in-laws paid me to work for Fairchild Properties, redoing their rudimentary website, starting them on social media, making a new logo for their twenty-fifth year in business, so I earned a little on the side, too.
Dad came for dinner every Wednesday, and Hannah would babysit if Brad and I wanted to see a movie, which was a splurge for us back then. Mom and Beatrice would drop by if forced—they both preferred that I visit them with the baby. Mom said the house gave her PTSD, always one to pee on my parade. After all, I obviously loved the house. Her grandson lived in this house. Her marriage hadn’t been violent or hateful or dramatic. Brad would roll his eyes and analyze her for me in bed later and tell me she had narcissistic tendencies with a borderline sociopathy, and I loved him for it.
We renovated it bit by bit, pouring our hearts and souls into the house. We made a winding stone staircase down to the pond, heaving the rocks, setting them firmly in the fertile ground. We turned the cellar into a fully habitable floor with kitchen, dining area, screened-in porch. We built an addition off the kitchen for a guest room with full bath (Brad’s current hideout). We cut down a few trees to widen the view of the pond. A few years later, we refurbished the middle floor, adding a bathroom to our bedroom and putting in a powder room off the front hall. We knocked down the walls around the chimney so that the stones ran right up to the attic, which we insulated, Sheetrocked and made into Dylan’s room. A balcony overlooked the living room, and we made a tiny little library around the chimney, the shelves crammed with books, with room for one chair. My hidey spot, Dylan used to say.
I say we, but now, standing in the house that was a part of my soul, I realized it was me. Sure, Brad had been a solid provider all those years I worked part-time. But I was the one who saw what could be. Brad used to be proud of me for that. I put in gardens and made a courtyard, and we turned the shed into the studio apartment with the idea that we could stay there after Dylan graduated and rent the main house for some extra money. Rentals were in high demand on the Cape, especially a house with private access to a kettle pond.
I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Our hidden little house had a purity so deep on winter nights you could practically hear God breathing. In the summer, the birds sang constantly, and the occasional fox or coyote trotted past, and always you could hear the ocean just beyond the ridge.
It was the most perfect place on earth.
How could Brad be leaving this? The home where his son had been raised, the home that held thousands and thousands of happy memories. What would he do at Christmas? We always had Christmas Eve here—Dad, Hannah and the Fairchilds, a friend or two, the night happy and crowded and full of good smells. What would we do this Christmas? Would it just be Dylan and me?
I broke out in a sweat.
I didn’t even know who this other woman was. Did I know her? How old was she? Would he have more children? I was having a panic attack, it seemed. Breathe in, hold it, exhale. I knew the drill. I taught the drill. It wasn’t working today.
I’d been a wife for nearly half my life. How could Brad just strip me of that title?
Heart pounding, I texted Dylan. Hope you had fun last night! How are you doing? I needed to touch base, to remind myself that I was still a mother, even if my days as a wife were numbered.
He didn’t answer immediately. As was true with all mothers, I pictured him in a car wreck hospital ditch, then told myself he was probably making out with Lydia, his girlfriend, and hopefully not impregnating her.
Finally, the dots waved, and I sagged in relief. Doing great! Thx! Be back for supper.
My son was safe. He would be home this evening. I still had him . . . for five more weeks. Four weeks and four days, actually.
I wandered through the house, constantly checking my phone for something, though I wasn’t even sure what that was. Cell reception was awful out here—one bar on a good day—so we used the Wi-Fi for communicating.
In the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror—a forty-one-year-old woman with frizzy black hair and, today, circles under her eyes. Thought about calling someone—Beth, who’d been my best friend since third grade. But she was happily married, and for some reason, this stopped me. Wanda, but she was covering for me at work, obviously. Vanessa, who would surely be furious with her son for this nonsense.
So I didn’t call anyone. I just waited.
I would divorce him. Of course I would. I was a strong woman with standards, goddamn it, and this was a line in the sand I would not cross. I would not tolerate this. I was a badass, and he would rue the day he left me.
Unless he was really, really sorry.
Nope! No. I should be more like Susan Sarandon in Thelma and Louise. The tough one. No hesitation, no doubts, just strength. Then again, she drove off a cliff.
You can fix this, said Geena Davis. She was the dopey one in the movie, right? But sweet. Also, she got to sleep with a young Brad Pitt. This is worth saving! she said, flashing her dimples. You can win him back!
You would take that lying, cheating, weak excuse of a man back? Susan Sarandon asked.
Shit. Would I? At this moment, numb with shock, rage and terror, the answer was yes. My entire life was about to change without my consent, and I loved my life. This splitting apart felt like . . . like emotional rape. My future, my family, taken away against my will.
I could erase one day of Brad saying everything he’d said, because we had two decades of a good marriage. Nineteen years of good days. It wasn’t perfect, of course, but it was good. It was solid. We were parents of the same child. We loved each other. Right?
Time to cook. I checked the fridge—there was sea bass, courtesy of my dad, who’d given it to me last night at the restaurant. Only my father would hand off fish at a party. But he’d caught it that day, he said. I had some shrimp and mussels. I’d make caldeirada, a Portuguese fish stew, and a loaf of fresh bread to go with it.
Brad would rue the day he left my cooking, that was for sure. I’d never made a bad meal in my life. Onions from last year’s garden. Garlic, minced fine, making my fingertips smell like heaven. Tomatoes from the farmers’ market. Thyme from my own garden, so sweet smelling. Butter, of course. Olive oil, smoked paprika, red potatoes. Wine for the broth. I let it simmer, then covered it and turned off the flame. By the time I got home, the house would smell incredible.
To the office I went, on autopilot during the drive, because all of a sudden, I was there.
“Feeling better?” Wanda asked as I came in.
“Yep.” I smiled at her, then looked away quickly. She was very good at reading people. “Who’ve we got today, Carol?”
“Stephanie James. Terrible hot flashes. We compared notes. She hasn’t hit the chin hair stage yet, but when she does, she’s going to look like a nanny goat. What do you think, Lillie? Electrolysis or laser?” She jutted her chin at me so I could inspect, a pleasure I’d have to put off till later.
“And who else?” I asked.
“Rena Blake. And Annie Blanco.”
“Before you get to work, look at this picture,” Wanda said. She pulled out her phone. “Your godchild. I may be biased, but isn’t she beautiful?”
“Oh, wow. Wow!” Leila, Wanda’s daughter, was incredibly beautiful—her dad was from South Sudan, and she’d inherited his deep, rich, nearly black skin color. She’d also gotten Addo’s height, but her face was Wanda all over, and the result was a stunningly beautiful girl. In this photo, she was wearing an orange dress, and she had it, all right, that innate knowledge of photography and angles, light and posing. She’d just signed with Ford, at only fifteen, but had already booked New York Fashion Week, as long as she stayed on the honor roll. She and Dylan had played together when they were little, and Wanda had been very glad he’d watched out for her in high school.
“They grow up so fast,” I said, tears in my voice. I’d been there when Wanda gave birth. Seemed like yesterday.