“Jeremy knows?”
“He wants me to report him, but Ican’t. Idon’t feel like he was taking advantage. It just happened. Iwas as responsible as he was. Iwanted it.”
“But Jeremy knows?” Clemence doesn’t get it.
“It’s over now. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Jeremy doesn’t know that part. Clemence, I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re not.” She isn’t. But this isn’t Jillian, either. What’s going on here? Jillian is sensible, and this is lunacy. “But this is a lot.”
“So, like, Iknow,” says Jillian, “is what I’m saying. About what you’re going through. Iunderstand. Do you know that when Jeremy and Ihave sex, we have to schedule it on the Google Calendar? Do you know what that does to a couple, to have this regimented, impossible, exhausting, never-ending onslaught of a life?”
Clemence says, “Kind of.” But she’d never had it that bad. Things had been rough with her and Toad, but this sounded like a different kind of awful. They didn’t havekids and she didn’t really love him, which made the stakes so much lower when she walked away. “So what are you going to do?” She finds Jillian’s efficiency remarkable—as with friendship and physical fitness, Jillian didn’t have time to have an affair and go to therapy, so she decided to do both at once.
Jillian says, “Ithink I’m going to do nothing. Kind of anticlimactic, right? To go on this journey and end up right where Istarted, but it’s not like that. Ifeel different now. All those things Itook for granted, and then once they were on the line, Irealized Ididn’t want to lose them after all—my marriage, our family. And I’ve been lucky. Jeremy wants to work through it. Of course he does. Six months ago, that would have been the whole problem, how accommodating he can be. Sometimes it’s like living with a balloon instead of a person, you know? He just floats and here Iam losing my mind, but he’s always exactly the same, and Ijust want him to have a reaction. Iwant him to be furious, too, instead of so docile. But if both of us were furious, everything would explode. Isee that now. One of has to be the accepting one, the forgiving one, and I’m so damn lucky that’s how he is. Ididn’t understand before. Ididn’t understand what I’d be losing if Ilost him, but now Iknow.”
They sit in silence, listening to the whistle of a cardinal somewhere overhead. Jillian moves closer, and lays her head on Clemence’s shoulder.
“What does it mean, ‘mostly’ over?” Clemence finally asks.
“Well, Imean, I’m not seeing him as a therapist anymore.”
Clemence laughs, as she is supposed to. “But who does that?” She turns to face her friend. “If you went public about this, he’d be in all kinds of trouble. And who else has he done this to?”
“He’s been going through a crisis. He got divorced, then his mother died, and his half-brother is an incel, and he needs to sell the house, but the brother refuses to come out of the basement.”
“Where did you find this guy?”
“On Yelp.”
“Jillian!” Clemence cannot fit all these details into her scheme of reality. “You’re supposed to be the smart one.”
“His rating was great, and Ineeded an appointment in a hurry. He got me in the very next day.” Jillian pulls out her phone and checks the time. “We should keep walking.” She takes off again.
“You just don’t want to face me,” Clemence calls after her.
“Idon’t want to be late for my three o’clock,” says Jillian once Clemence has caught up. But she says, “Thank you for listening. And for not hating me.”
“How could Ihate you?” Clemence asks her. “Honestly, hearing your story, Ikind of hate myself less. So, like, Iloveyou.” They walked a little farther, and the parking lot appeared in the distance. “If it’s over, though, shouldn’t it beactuallyover?” Fuzzy boundaries were dangerous. “What does Jeremy think of that?”
“You’ll be not shocked to learned that Jeremy has been remarkably easygoing. He wants to give me the space to figure out what Ineed to know. He says that when I’m ready, he’ll be waiting.”
“And that’s an offer that doesn’t expire?”
“Idon’t think so.”
“You don’t want to chance it, though.”
Jillian says, “Iknow that now.”
“Does Naomi know?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
