Chapter 7
Istood thereon the sidewalk in front of the house, staring. I didn’t know how long I stood there for, but I watched as he pulled her closer…kissed her nose, bopped it, brushed a piece of hair behind her ear, like he actually cared…like he had feelings forher.
She caught my eye first, a look of horror spreading across her face. His eyes met mine, and he stepped in front of her. He protected her. I stood there in the vast openness of the lawn, unable to do anything but look at them, at where my life had led me. A moving man walked beside me. I stopped him, took the box out of his hands, set it on the ground. I took the keys out of my pocket, sliced the box open, and took out a few items I hadn’t seen before, china patterns I hadn’t picked out. I looked up again. The woman had gone inside. It was just usnow.
It was just us and the infinite possibilities of what had happened, where we were going, and eventually, how this would allend.
Adam called to me from theporch.
“Would you like to come in?” His voice was calm, like nothing waswrong.
I laughed at him, because when I looked from him to the house, the situation just seemed to get worse. This was my dream house, and he knew it. He knew everything about this house was all I could ever want, but I knew looking at it that this wasn’t my house. That no part of it would ever bemine.
I held up the china tohim.
“What’sthis?”
“It’s Natalie’s.” He said it as if it was completelynormal.
“Who’s Natalie?” Even though I was asking the question, I already knew theanswer.
“One of the girls at the hospital. She was a nurse.” He stepped down from the porch, walking slowly towardsme.
“Was?”
“She’s here now, with me.” My heart started torip.
“Adam.” I raised the plate in my hand higher. He didn’t try to reach for it but let me throw my tantrum. “What’sthis?”
“It’s a commitment.” The way he said it, with such conviction, threw meoff.
“From who?!” I could feel myself starting to shift from calm and confused to angry and sarcastic. A commitment. Wasn’t that what we hadhad?
“From me.” He placed a hand on hischest.
“To who?!” My voice started to crack. It wasn’t from the tears that were starting to form, it was from the screams I couldn’tcontrol.
“To her.” He pointed back at the house. He looked back to where Natalie was standing in the doorframe, and I could see the smile pull at his lips as he looked uponher.
“But what about me?” I found myself almost begging to know what was happening, trying to get his attention back to me. We were both tiptoeing around, and it made my anxietyflare.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He turned back to me now, not elaborating just yet. I tried to take deep breaths, because in all of this I seemed like the irrational one. The man standing in front of me, whom I had been married to for years, was talking to me like it was just any other day. He tried to reach for me, but I pulledaway.
“What do you mean?” My hand gripped the plate tighter, ready to smashit.
“We haven’t been happy for a longtime.”
“What do you mean? I’m your wife. I’ve been here this whole time. How are you telling me we haven’t been happy?” I waved the plate back andforth.
“Then let me rephrase.” I could feel the anger emanating from him, see the fire blazing in his eyes. “Ihaven’t been happy for a longtime.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me? This is what husbands and wives do. Theytalk.They tell each other so that if something is going wrong, then they can work through it. That’s what normal couples do. They don’t just throw it away.” I didn’t know what to think. Could we work through it? The one person that I thought I could talk all of this through with was the person that was betrayingme.
“She worked as one of my helping nurses every night. Every night I worked, she was there. She might not have been there at home, but she was there for me at work. We’ve known each other for years.” He tried to explain where he was comingfrom.
“And when did thisstart?”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. I knew I wasn’t going to be prepared for thisanswer.
