This summer, I plan to grow a yard full of cherry tomatoes so we can pluck them straight from the vine onto our plate.
I powered through the day, chugging multiple lattes and luxuriating in the simple, dramaless company of Jack and Graham. Well, Graham hasn’t been exactly dramaless. He’s been distant and icy all day but he didn’t mention anything this morning about my coming in so late; I’d hoped he’d slept straight through it and hadn’t noticed. And I’m not about to be the one to bring it up. That’s why I’m making his favorite pasta, hoping my offering will be enough to defrost him without having to get into things.
We went berry picking earlier this morning at a nearby farm. Jack played hide-and-seek through the thick rows of blueberry bushes while Graham and I filled wooden baskets to the brim with plump, sugary berries.
“I never knew fruit could taste this good,” I said to Graham, grabbing a mouthful of blueberries from the basket, a trail of purple-blue juice streaking down my face. He didn’t say anything, just nodded.
“Seriously, these are so much better than the frozen ones we ate for breakfast,” I said, angling for more of a response from him. But he just kept on picking berries, methodically yanking the fruit off the bush with a businesslike air about him.
“Yumm-ee! Yumm-ee!” Jack echoed me, scooping up fistfuls and smashing them into his mouth.
His hands were stained blue by the time we buckled him into his car seat, his belly round and full with the mountains of berries he gobbled up between more rounds of hide-and-seek.
—
I THOUGHT JACKwould drift off to sleep in the car but he fought his nap until we got home. He’s still sleeping now as Graham sifts through sketches of a new bid at the kitchen table. He sighs, takes his glasses off, rubs the bridge of his nose.
I uncork a bottle of white and take a long sip. It’s exactly what I need right now. Even though I’ve made it through most of the day, my head is throbbing with the remains of my vicious hangover, and my nerves are shot from tiptoeing around Graham.
I drag another glass down, fill it to the brim, and take it over to Graham. His jaw is set and a look of disdain clouds his face as he takes it from me. I can’t take it anymore; I have to say something.
“Whatisit?” I ask, my stomach doing cartwheels.
He folds his drafting papers up, thin as onion skins, and pushes them across the table.
“I heard the shower come on this morning,” he says, his eyes not meeting mine, “and I realized you’d only just come in. While you were showering, I went through your phone.”
Dread grips my gut, a vise squeezing my insides while I listen.
“I looked through your texts with Margot,” he accuses, spitting her name out as if it’s an object of disgust. “What exactly did she mean, a few weeks ago, when she said, ‘Looks like you were having fun anyway’?”
I gulp. It feels like a rock is in my throat, and my hands shake as I set my wineglass down on the countertop. How much should I tell him? That’s what I’m trying to decide when he continues.
“From her text, it sounded like you were at her lake house during a weekday. And there were other people out there. Who? Who, Sophie?” he says. This time his eyes are on me, his open stare a mixture of anger and bewilderment.
“Look. I told you these women are crazy. Margot especially.” The words pour out, and I realize it feels good to say this out loud, to share this with someone else.
“But what does thatmean, exactly?” he asks, his head cocked toward the fireplace.
I decide to come clean. At least, part of the way clean. I don’t, I can’t, tell him about my obsession with Margot. And I stop short of telling him about Jamie.
“She cheats on her husband.”
Graham leans back, lets out a sharp sigh. “Go on.”
“And some of the other women do, too. Well, not all of them; there’s this nice woman, Tina, who doesn’t. And they don’t sleep with other men, or at least they’re not supposed to, they just sort of flirt and make out,” I offer, my face boiling with shame. I’m instantly filled with regret from telling him this; I’ve crossed a line. “And it’s not like it’s all the time. We really are just out there shooting guns and drinking for the most part.”
He’s nodding, biting his lower lip as if he’s working out a complex problem in his mind.
“And you?”
“Graham! Who do you think I am?” I say. Even though I try for indignant, I can hear the desperate screech in my voice, a telltale note of guilt.
He crosses his arms across his chest, tucks his hands into his armpits.
“I would never do that to you. To us,” I say as hot tears prick my eyes.
It’s a lie, but only a half lie, I tell myself. At least I haven’t fucked anyone else yet.
