“Because he’s Lucas Kinney,” I say flatly, the reality of it all sinking in. I turn it off. I can’t watch it anymore. “I’m gonna get her to sleep,” I say, picking Avery up and bringing her over to the bed. I want them to give me some time to take all of this in. I need to be alone.
“Of course,” Cora says.
“So we’ll meet back here tomorrow,” Paige says. “Late. To make sure the bastard is sound asleep.” It’s not a question; it’s a plan.
“’Night,” she says then, like she’s simply making coffee plans with us tomorrow, and then she leaves. And that’s that.
24
CORA
When I hear Nicola click the lock shut after I leave, and I know they are safe and the alarm is on, I walk back to the house, and it’s dark and silent. Mia is staying at her friend’s house, and Finn isn’t home yet. I feel like I’ve been physically beaten. My nerve endings are full of electricity, and my exhaustion is mixed with rage and sadness, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I walk across the living room, moonlit from the large glass doors, and I pick up a velvet throw pillow from the couch and scream into it until my lungs ache.
I think about waiting up for Finn, and being perched at the kitchen island with all of the photos of his sins spread across the Carrara marble, but I’m not capable of any more talking or crying. I can’t listen to one more lie from his mouth or think about whichever of his women he’s with tonight. I also can’t bear the thought of him slipping into bed beside me at three in the morning with her body fluids all over him, masked only by a squirt of his cologne and my fatigue.
No, I pour a large glass of water and swallow a couple Advil to help prevent the hangover I’m sure to have after all of the wine I’ve consumed, and I pad along the upstairs hallway to the guest room, where I pull down the plush duvet we picked out together with his parents’ visits in mind: white, when I suggested a heather gray. I slip into the sheets and stare up at the swirling ceiling fan. I turned it on out of habit, even though I hate having a fan on when it’s cold out. But Finn always wants the air moving, even in subzero weather. I stare at the blur of the blades and wonder how someone’s life can completely implode in less than twenty-four hours.
I hate him. I hate myself for believing him all those countless times he said he’d never even look at another woman because I was all he needed and family was everything. It was what I desperately wanted to hear, and he said the right things with such conviction, so I lied to myself. I lied to myself even though I knew. And now I’ve wasted years and years of my life. If I let myself think too long about that, about living a complete lie for two decades, I feel like it could literally kill me. Every beach vacation, every Christmas morning, every cocktail party where we danced together, every special candlelit dinner, it was all a front. It was a show.
I let the images of him with other women play over and over in my head until I finally submit to my exhaustion, and when I wake up, it’s to the sound of Finn trying to creep in at 2:47. I think about what the me of even just yesterday would do. I would tread carefully, because he’d say he was out with (insert guy-friend’s name) and they just shot pool or hung out at the bar at the golf club or whatever, and I would do something pathetic like try to get close to him in bed and see if I could smell anything incriminating, try to ask specific questions that sound like I’m interested in his night but are meant to catch him in a contradiction. He’s always seen through it.
Tonight, though, I think about how great it would feel to tie a garbage bag over his face and watch him suffocate in his drunken stupor. Instead, I run over the details in my mind of how exactly I will confront him with all that I know. A time when he is sober and I have more time to think about how to respond to any of the ways he might try to lie his way out of it.
I don’t fall back asleep. I feel like shit. I have a wine hangover, and I’ve barely slept, but by four thirty, I give up trying and go down to the kitchen to make coffee. Mia shouldn’t be back until noon, so I do exactly what I’ve spent the last few hours thinking about. I make a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, blueberry pancakes, and rye toast with orange marmalade. I pour myself a mimosa for some hair of the dog, and it does help make me feel a little better. I bring a plate out to Nicola and tell her I’ll be back later when Finn leaves.
Then, by nine twenty, the smells of frying bacon and brewing coffee have finally drawn Finn downstairs to the kitchen. He comes in in sweats and socks and kisses me on the cheek as he passes me and goes to pour a cup of coffee. Only, I know that it’s the last time he’ll ever kiss me on the cheek or sit in this kitchen while I make breakfast. It’s the last time I’ll ever make him coffee and the absolute last time I’ll ever give him a fake smile when behind it is years of mounting resentment.
“How was your night?” he asks, sitting down at the kitchen island. On top of his breakfast plate is a stack of the photos and email printouts that Paige let me keep, explaining that she has plenty of copies. I see the panic in his eyes immediately. He goes white. He stands and puts his mug down. He has no idea what to do.
“What the fuck?” he says. Well, I guess that’s a start. What else can he really say?
“Yeah, that’s a good question. What the fuck?” I say, grateful now for the sleepless night, for the time I’ve had to calm myself and mentally prepare, maybe even accept reality instead of finding this out myself and losing my shit in the moment.
“The hooker is the most interesting part to me,” I say very calmly. “I mean, I always knew you were fucking colleagues. You were good at lying, but I knew. But hookers. Hmmm. So you’ll just fuck anyone. It’s not even about an affair with someone you care for, it’s just you sticking your dick in anything.”
He looks like he’ll storm out of the room for a moment. Then he sits on the island stool and stares down for a long time at the photo on the top of the pile, the hooker photo. I’m sure he’s thinking very hard of any possible way to explain it, but there is none.
“I don’t know what to say,” he says.
“That’s it? Really? ’Cause I’d suggest you say something,” I say, still calm.
“What do you want from me? Men like sex, Cora. It’s not like you’re ever in the mood. You—” And I stop him right there.
“Wrong. Try starting over with a version that doesn’t blame me for you sleeping with hookers and coworkers and lying to me for years.”
“People cheat. All the time. Okay, this isn’t, like, mind-blowing. It happens every day, so fine. It’s all there. What can I say? You—”
“Eh!”I make a loud, throaty noise and hold up my palm. “Don’t say one more word that includes blaming me. I refuse to hear it. I did everything you asked. I gave up a career, for God’s sake. I offered couples counseling the last time I knew you were cheating, but you made me feel crazy and told me I needed counseling on my own. I planned date nights, I bought lingerie I was not comfortable wearing because you liked it. I turned a blind eye. I was made a fool of by you and all your little girlfriends snickering behind my back. And worst of all, I wasted all these years on a total fraud, so if you open your mouth one more goddamn time to find a way to make this my fault, I swear to God, not only will I take pleasure in taking all of your money, I will fucking smother you in your sleep!” I say or, more like, scream by the end of it.
He has never seen me like this before, I know. His eyes are wide, and he looks like a little boy, sitting on his stool, looking up at me.
“Before you go and pack your bags and call whoever you were with last night to go and stay with them, I just want to make sure you know that this,all this—” I pick up the stack of photos and printed emails and throw them at his chest, and they fall onto the floor in a scattered mess “—is really the least of your concern. In fact, I don’t even care about this,” I say.
“Yeah, it looks like you don’t care,” he says, trying to get the upper hand. Then he tries to take back his smirk and shitty comment and softens. “Look, you have every right to be like this.”
“Oh, thanks for the permission, but I don’t need it.”
“But people get through this sort of thing, Cora. I’ve obviously been—”
