At just after 11:00 p.m. Sunday night, the Porsche’s engine purred outside. I set down my book and went to the window, creating a separation in the blinds to peer down at the street. Graham had left the loft after hitting me, and he had not been back for two days. I watched him drive the Porsche into the garage. He was not going to be happy. I’d decided to park my car in my parking space beneath my building.
Minutes later, the Porsche reappeared and parked on the street beneath a streetlamp. When Graham got out, the first thing I noticed was he was not wearing the same clothes he’d left in. He wore skinny jeans, topsiders, and a brown suede jacket. I was fairly certain he had not come home to change, though I had left the loft Saturday afternoon for my doctor’s appointment. No doubt he’d put the clothes on his credit card, though it had to be close to maxed out.
I watched him walk around to the passenger side and open the door. He bent and reached inside, retrieving something, likely a peace offering. His routine had become predictable—except he’d never hit me before. He’d crossed a line, and I wasn’t willing to give him the opportunity to cross it again.
I went back to the couch, grabbed my novel, and curled up in the corner with a blanket over my legs. I’d made myself a cup of mint tea, which the doctor said might help my nausea. When the door opened, I turned the page in my novel and continued reading.
“Hey,” he said, keys hitting the entry table with a dull thud.
I glanced at him but said nothing. As I’d predicted, he’d come bearing gifts—a stuffed bear holding a book, The Girl on the Train. Next would come the apology.
I went back to reading my novel.
I heard him approach the back of the couch but I didn’t turn to look. “I am so, so very sorry,” he said, “and ashamed for what I did.” He sounded sincere, but then, Graham always sounded sincere. I’d come to learn that was one of his skills. “Can you at least look at me?”
It was so pathetic. He looked like a little boy who’d dropped his ice cream cone on the sidewalk. I set my novel in my lap, but kept it fanned open to the page I’d been reading.
Graham came around the end of the couch to sit, but hesitated when I didn’t immediately move to accommodate him. I made him wait a moment before sliding back my legs.
He sat facing me. “I would never, ever hit a woman,” he said.
“Except you did,” I said, nearly dumbstruck by the idiocy of his statement. “You hit me.”
He shook his head. “I know, and I’m so sorry.”
“You said that,” I said.
“It’s just . . . everything came crashing down on me the other night, Andrea. You just can’t believe the weight I felt at that moment, like an anvil had fallen on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was suffocating. There is a very real possibility I could go to prison.”
I didn’t respond. I also wasn’t sympathetic. This was also his MO. Excuses for his behavior so he wouldn’t have to accept what he’d done.
“Look, I don’t even know who that person was,” he continued.
I do, I thought. It’s the man I married.
“It scared me,” he said.
Scared him?
“That’s why I left. I had to leave because I just couldn’t face what I’d done.”
I didn’t bother to ask him where he’d gone or where he’d spent the night. I didn’t really care anymore. I’d thought maybe he’d run to the associate at his old law firm, the one he’d admitted to sleeping with after we’d married, but I’d done some additional fact gathering and learned she too had since married, which meant Graham had no place to go. In other words, he needed me. More to the point, he needed my loft and he needed my trust funds. I suspected that was the real reason he’d come back. He was going to be prosecuted for fraud if he didn’t find a way to make things right.
“I’m going to do better,” he said, reaching out and taking my hand. “I’m really going to work to do better. I’ll even go to counseling . . . if you want. I want to make this work, Andrea. I really want to make this work.”
Translated, that meant, I really don’t want to go to jail or work as a lawyer, but I really want to continue to drive my Porsche, screw around on the side, and live off your trust until I come up with the next great business idea. Where else was he going to get such a sweet deal?
“I don’t know what I want,” I said. I did know, but I couldn’t articulate it, not to Graham. At the moment I was as stuck as he was, though I’d had all weekend to consider my situation and was figuring a few things out on my own.
“I know. I know,” he said, rushing his words as if to silence me before I could ask him to leave. His eyes were wide and animated. “And I don’t blame you. What I did was inexcusable. It was unforgivable. But I’m asking you to give me a second chance. Look, I’ve been thinking about this. You’re right—we can start over. I can get a job practicing law. I realize now my mistake with Genesis.”
“What was that?”
“I was out of my field of expertise,” he said, as if he had come up with that all on his own. “I didn’t know what I was doing. Good idea but poor execution. I have a much better plan this time.”
I was almost afraid to ask. “Which is what?”