“Are you even listening to me?” he said.
“Are you listening to me?” I snapped. “We’re not getting a divorce! Are you crazy?” Heads were starting to turn. I lowered my voice. “Look. I don’t think . . . You didn’t mean what you said, honey. I know it’s a strange time, and it’s natural to do some soul-searching, but we’re in this together. It’s going to be great! We’ve been talking about all the things we want to do.” I smiled. Yeah. Keep smiling, Lillie. “And we will do them.” That last line came out as a command.
He didn’t look at me. “I haven’t been happy in some time, and . . . well, as I just said, I’ve met someone.”
There was a buzzing sound in my ears. “No, you haven’t.”
“I have, and we’re in love.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself.” The words were supposed to come off as funny, as pals saying that to each other, knowing they were just goofing around. Instead, it came out as, well . . . a curse. The newlyweds glanced our way, concerned.
“I’m sorry this hurts you, but we’re in love,” Brad repeated.
“No, you’re not. Nope. You’re not in love. You love me, your wife of twenty years, I might add. Two decades, Brad.”
“Nineteen years. And I want a divorce,” he repeated in his soft therapist voice. “We’ve been growing apart, and this is a natural separating point. But we’ll always be Dylan’s parents.”
“Is this about your stupid book?” I regretted the words immediately.
He refolded his napkin with sharp movements. “No.”
“Brad,” I said. “I’m sorry. The book is wonderful. But . . . you don’t want a divorce. We have a great life! We have so much to look forward to.” I smiled firmly and took another bite of cake to prove it. See? Coconut cake! Our life is great!
“You haven’t been that great a wife, to be honest,” he said, and my jaw fell open, a chunk of white cake falling out and splotching onto the table.
I covered it with my napkin. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You’re so obsessed with work. And Dylan. And now you’re suddenly obsessed with Venice? There’s no room for me.”
“Are you serious?” My voice was rising. “I’m a great wife! We have a wonderful marriage, Brad!” Everyone was listening, and I didn’t blame them. Yes. Let them listen and weigh in on what a ridiculous idea this is.
He sighed, gently, kindly, the therapist seeing his patient acknowledge a hard truth. Was he acting? It felt like he was acting. “I just haven’t been feeling a lot of joy. And, Lillie, I want joy in my life.”
“I . . . What does that even mean? We have a healthy, wonderful son, we have a beautiful home, and all of our parents are alive and well. We’re healthy and still pretty young and we’re going to Europe. There’s your joy right there!”
“I just feel dead inside.”
“No, you don’t. This is idiotic.”
“Lillie?” said a voice, and there was Samantha, one of my clients, whose baby I had delivered last fall. “Hi! Sorry to interrupt, but I just had to say hello.”
“Sam!” I said, switching into nurse-midwife mode. “How are you? How’s Luca?”
“Oh, he’s beautiful,” she said, pulling out her phone.
I looked at the pictures of a fat-cheeked, drooling angel. She’d done an amazing job in labor, even though it was her first. No screaming, no drama, just totally in tune with her body and nature, humming through the pain, her husband murmuring gentle words of encouragement. Three pushes, if I recalled (which I always did). “He’s gorgeous. You were such a champ. Everything good otherwise?”
“Yes! We’re trying for another, so hopefully we’ll be seeing you again. You remember Paul?” She gestured to her smiling husband.
“Of course. Hi, Paul,” I said. “Enjoy your evening, and kiss that little sweetheart for me.”
“We will!” Samantha said, and they went to their table.
For a second, I wondered if I had imagined the conversation between Brad and me, like a weird hallucination. I smiled at him just in case.
“See?” he said. “A perfect example. We’re talking about our marriage, and you drop everything to fawn all over them. That’s how unimportant you’ve made me. I’ve been sidelined by your career, and I can’t put up with your constant invalidation.”
“What was I supposed to do, Brad? I pulled a baby out of her vagina! Should I have told her to shut up because my husband is acting like an idiot?” My Portuguese was rising, as my father used to say proudly whenever I got mad.
“You always put me down. You crush my dreams.”
“What dreams have I crushed? Name one!” I snapped. “Brad. On Valentine’s Day, you told me you were the luckiest man in the world because you had me. Remember? You handwrote three paragraphs about how wonderful I am. That was a beautiful card, and you meant every word.” I swallowed. Eyed the cake.
“I was still hoping our marriage could be salvaged,” he said. “But I’m afraid it can’t be. I deserve to be happy.”
I sat back, my head falling against the back of the booth with a clunk. “Brad—”
“I actually prefer Bradley,” he said.
And there it was. Bradley.
He was seeing another woman, oh, yes he was. If Bradley wasn’t a sign, I didn’t know what was.
Memories sliced into my brain like jagged glass. This past winter or spring, Brad had suddenly started working out with a vengeance—he ran occasionally and swam in Herring Pond during the summer, but that was it. Somewhere in March, however, he joined a gym and started asking Dylan about the football team’s workouts and muscle groups and ketoacidosis. I didn’t complain. Brad had always been slim, but seeing a little bulk on his arms, a little hint of a washboard . . . it was nice. I naively thought maybe he was doing it, at least in part, for me.
Then there were the clothes. Brad had always been preppy—with the last name of Fairchild, part of the Boston Brahmin, growing up on Beacon Hill, would you expect anything less? Always tidy, always neat, always a little boring, style-wise.
But one day he’d come home with bags and bags from some of the shops here in Provincetown, which was the male fashion capital of New England. Suddenly, he was wearing European-cut floral-printed shirts and slim-fit pants, low leather boots and vintage jeans that cost triple what regular jeans did. I’d just about choked when I saw the credit card bill. He’d even bought a little straw hat. But hey. Our son was going away to school. He wanted to feel young. I understood.
Sex, which had always been fairly frequent and heartily enjoyable, had tapered off. When I’d asked him if everything was okay—when was that? April? It had been a rainy night, I remembered that—he told me he was just sad about Dylan leaving. And I’d believed him.
The mixology. Bradley. The malbec.
Brad was arrogant at times. He never said it outright, but he’d thought he’d make more money as a therapist, be a little more . . . special. His parents were so flush and successful, dominating the high-end real estate industry in Boston and here on the Cape. Despite what you see on TV, therapists—at least, nonpsychiatrists—didn’t make a huge income, unless you were Dr. Phil or Esther Perel . . . or wrote a bestselling book. Brad always insisted he was in the profession to help people, but the money bothered him.
A thought occurred to me. “How can you be in love with someone else when we had sex four nights ago?”
He sighed. “I was feeling a little sad that our life together was coming to an end. It was a sentimental mistake.”
“A mistake? A mistake, Brad?” Oh, the Portuguese had risen now, yes indeed.
“I’m sorry if this hurts you, but I’m sure.”
Suddenly, my plate was in my hands, and I was squishing the coconut cake on his head. “How dare you, Brad Fairchild! How dare you!”
“Jesus, Lillie!” he shouted, but I was already leaving. My breath was tearing in and out as if there wasn’t enough air in here. I pushed past the startled servers, out onto Commercial Street. Furious tears blurred my eyes.
He had cheated on me. He was having an affair. I was going to need an STD panel. I didn’t get to finish my cake.