He shook his head. “You didn’t create space for me to say those things. You were too occupied elsewhere.”
“So the fact that you didn’t compliment and appreciate me is . . . my fault? Listen to yourself! You cheated on me! You had an affair! I am the injured party here!” I wiped my eyes with a fast slash of my hand, hating the fact that I was crying.
“Is one partner staying in the family home, or are you going to sell it?” Elaine said.
“That is my house,” I hissed.
“It’s worth well over a million dollars,” Brad said, addressing Elaine. “I’m going to be generous and let her have it, but that financial sacrifice should definitely be reflected in the rest of our agreement.”
“I agree,” Elaine said. “What do you have in mind? Don’t worry, Lillie, you get a turn, too.”
For the forty-five minutes, we divided up our life as if we were trading Pokémon cards. He got the artwork from his office, since the paintings had been a gift (stupid me, spending all that money so his ego could have a boost). I got the house, the debt, the furniture except for the pieces of furniture that his parents had given us—my bureau, the one I’d used all of our marriage; the mirror in the front hall; the marble-topped coffee table. All the good stuff, in other words.
“I’d like my grandmother’s engagement ring, too,” he said.
“Fat chance. That’s my engagement ring.”
“Lillie, that has been in my family for three generations. It belongs on my future wife’s finger.”
My heart spasmed in shock and . . . grief. “You’re marrying her? You met her in February! Dylan is going to be furious!”
“We’ll see. I think he’ll understand.”
“Okay, okay, settle down,” Elaine said. “An engagement ring is considered a gift as part of a contract. Brad, you gave it to Lillie in the hope she would marry you. She did. It’s hers.”
“Good, because I’m gonna need the money,” I said. “I can sell it.”
“Don’t you dare!” Brad snapped. “At the very least, save it for our son!”
“So he can have the cursed ring of his divorced parents? Nah.”
This is what happened during a divorce. Pettiness, hatred. An insatiable thirst for revenge.
“We’ve made good progress,” Elaine said. “I’d like you to take a close look at your possessions—every little thing—and detail anything you want or need. See you next week.”
In the parking lot (we’d come in separate cars), Brad turned to me. “Lillie, I wish you nothing but peace and light. I wish you joy in your new life, and I hope that we’ll be friends. We’ll always have our son, and we can be friends, you and Melissa and me.”
“You’re an idiot.”
He said those things to infuriate me. He wished me peace and light and poverty, that’s what. Suddenly, he needed half of our household items (or the money that it would cost to replace them). The Le Creuset Dutch oven I’d found on sale at Marshalls a few years ago. The ice cream maker. The new towels. The blender. The pizza cutter.
This is what you fight about while divorcing. This is when hatred would flare white-hot. He wanted the painting made by my grandmother and the KitchenAid mixer he had never so much as turned on. The Danish clock in the bedroom, which he’d given me for an anniversary present. “At least give me half of what it cost,” he said. “You owe me that.”
“No, I won’t, and I don’t,” I said. “I’ll sell it. Or smash it.”
“You’re being childish, Lillie. God! I’m so relieved to be leaving this toxic environment. As soon as Dylan leaves, I’ll be free to pursue my joy.”
“I’m going to slap you if you say ‘joy’ one more time,” I said.
“Threat of violence,” he said. “Maybe I should get a restraining order.”
Dylan, at least, was happy and blissfully ignorant. The second we heard his car tires on the driveway, Brad and I leaped into our fake selves, competing for Favorite Parent. “How was the beach? Did you go swimming? Really? Another great white sighting? Did you see it? Are you hungry? Can I make you something?”
I reminded myself that at least I’d have this house . . . this empty house. Dylan would be home at Christmas. Maybe I could swing the debt if I rented it out all summer long, plus every weekend in May, September and October. The thought made my heart cramp . . . wealthy New Jerseyans messing up my kitchen, sleeping in Dylan’s bed, sitting on my porch. Once, it had seemed like a smart option. Now, it seemed like another violation.
So there it was. My son was going to school thousands of miles away, and my husband was leaving me to live with a very wealthy woman almost a generation younger than he was, and I wasn’t sure I could keep the house my grandfather had built.
Another thing about my type of divorce—a man finds a hot, limber yoga teacher, and while his peers might be shocked and momentarily disgusted, there’s an element of . . . admiration. Look at Brad! Look at where he lives now! Did you see his wife? He’s a new man!
That’s not the cuckolded wife’s experience. Once word got out, I’d go from being a nice Cape Cod girl who’d married up (yes, that was still a thing) to a woman dumped. A woman who couldn’t “hang on to” her husband. A woman who introduced her husband to his lover. A woman without a son at home anymore, without a husband, who’d be dealing with the patriarchal notion that I was somehow flawed because Brad had left me.
If I could choose, I’d never see Bradley Fairchild again.
But of course, you can’t erase the father of your only child. You can’t forget the man who had tears in his eyes when he said his vows. He’d been my best friend. We’d overhauled this house and raised the best son in the world and laughed and talked and reassured each other for two decades.
Not telling anyone was killing me. Wanda and I had talked a few times after work, me crying, her soothing. But I had to wait for Dylan to get settled. Beth, who had been my best friend since third grade, wouldn’t be able to not tell her husband, and Freddie was a notorious gossip. Besides, right now their restaurant was incredibly busy, as it always was in the summer.
I was going to grow old alone. These thoughts yanked me from sleep, sent my heart thudding erratically, caused tears to spill down my face before I was even fully awake. What if I fell out here? There were no neighbors close enough to hear me, and our house had two flights of stairs. In the rain or snow, the stairs to the pond were slippery and treacherous. I could picture it now . . . me going down to stare at Herring Pond to find some peace, slipping, the crack of my tibia as it broke, the tumble down the granite steps. I’d have to crawl with my limp and useless foot dangling. Or what if I broke my femur? That would be much worse! I could bleed to death if that happened! What if I broke my skull and gave myself a traumatic brain injury and had to go to a nursing home? What if, as I lay helpless at the base of the stone stairs, a bear ate me? Okay, we didn’t have bears on the Cape, but what about coyotes?
And all the while, Brad and Melissa would be inhaling light and exhaling love, watching the sunset from one of the many decks of her house, drinking malbec.
Brad must pay.
It started one morning when Dylan offered to drive him to work. “I’d love that, son!” Brad sang merrily, and the two of them went off in male camaraderie, discussing if they should stop at Blue Willow Bakery or Hole in One for donuts. If he knew his father was screwing someone else, Dylan would have punched Brad in the face. But of course, I had to be bigger than that and keep Brad’s infidelity to myself until Dylan was in Montana.
My phone cheeped with a text. Wanda. Bring half-and-half to work or Carol and I may die, and you don’t want that, do you?