He’s sitting still as a statue in a boring beige armchair like it’s a throne, andI’mthe one who begged an audience with him.
I guess I did. I came all the way into the city from Connecticut, didn’t I?
But isn’t he supposed to say he’s sorry and beg for my forgiveness now? Or at leastlooksorry?
I cross my arms and wait.
He narrows his eyes. He doesn’t like that.
Where ismyAdrian? This is the man he is with everyone else. He’s not hard with me; he’s kind and concerned and attentive. Caring. He calls me if I don’t text him right after doctor’s appointments. He doesn’t let me eat or drink from plastic. Once, he held a sticky bun for mebecause he didn’t want to leave it in the Styrofoam container, and I wouldn’t let him throw it out and “buy me a good one.”
This man is unrecognizable as my husband. Cold leaks from my core, trickling down my arms and legs, numbing my fingertips and toes.
He cocks his head ever so slightly to the side.
He wants me to speak first.
I let myself sink into the sofa. I’m dying inside, but I went through easily a dozen foster homes before I ended up at Bellamy Cross and then Villa Theresa, and I know how to not let on that my feelings are hurt.
“I’m sorry you saw that,” he finally says, almost grudgingly.
That’s not what a man in love says when he’s been caught cheating. Before the foster homes, when I lived with Mama, I heard so many different men begging, “Baby, please, just give me one more chance.”
Adrian doesn’t care that he’s caught. He’s done with me.
It hurts so fucking bad. I need to breathe, but I can’t. If only I could absorb oxygen through my skin like a worm. If only I could squirm away into a hole.
“Are you leaving me?” My voice cracks despite my best effort to keep it even.
His forehead wrinkles, but only for a second before it smooths. The question took him off guard.
“Don’t you think that’s jumping ahead of things?” he asks.
Is it? I don’t have the script. He was my first real lover. My first relationship. I’ve never done any of this before.
“You’re having an affair,” I say.
He leans back in his chair, as if he’s decided we’re going to be here awhile. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Isawyou fucking her.” The red soles of Delaney’s shoes are burned into the insides of my eyelids.
He lifts a sculpted shoulder. “It didn’t mean anything.”
He watches me, and it reminds me of a crocodile pretending to doze while birds and fish pass carelessly by. He knows he could chomp any of them into pieces whenever he wants, but he’s waiting, and he’senjoyingthe wait.
“Do you think that makes it better?” I ask. I was wrong. I do have a script, although I don’t know where I got it, maybe from friends who dated losers in high school or TV or the posts I read on social media where a sad woman asks for advice about an awful man.
“I do. Don’t you?”
What is this? Isn’t he supposed to say that he knows that it doesn’t make it better and then give me some excuse about how he was drunk or he’s been under so much stress?
I don’t know how to answer him, so I skip to the next line that my media-saturated brain helpfully suggests. “How could you?”
And yeah, how could he? Everything was good. Better than ever. We were happy. Weren’t we?
His idle crocodile eyes harden. “Come on, Cora. Can we cut the shit? What is it that you want? What do you need that you aren’t getting?”
“What do you mean?” Is he offering to pay me off if I let it go? That’s bonkers. Money can’t turn back time.
