“Mitch, I need answers.”
“I’m not sure I have any. You weren’t supposed to know yet.” Now he crossed the kitchen to the pantry to get the bread.
“And when were you going to tell me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Are you seriously going to eat while we’re having this conversation?”
“Yes,” he said, then finished making his sandwich and put the chicken salad back into the fridge. He left the bread bag on the counter and open because he, apparently, liked stale bread. I came behind him, like I always did, and used the handy-dandy twist tie to seal up the bread because I preferred mine to be as fresh as possible. Like a normal, responsible person.
“When did you start thinking about this?” I asked while I put the bread back into the pantry.
“When Dylan was a freshman in high school.”
Four years? He’d been thinking about leaving me forfour years?
A wave of dizziness passed through me, and I allowed my knees to give this time as I grabbed the counter again.
Who was this coward sitting in the breakfast room somehow managing to eat a sandwich while we talked about the dissolution of our marriage? He looked like an older, plumper version of the man I’d married back when I was supposed to be a junior in college. He wore a blue polo just like that man always had. Same tasseled loafers.
“And it never crossed your mind to say, ‘Vivian, I’ve lost that loving feeling’?”
“No.”
“What about counseling?”
His face screwed up into a horrible contortion. “God, no. Could you pass me the chips?”
“No,” I said. “So this is it? I don’t have a say in this matter?”
“Vivian, I just don’t love you anymore. At least not like that.”
Not. Like. That.
He put his sandwich down and began lecturing. He was saying words, but he might as well have been speaking in German, because my mind was stuck on “not like that,” repeating it over and over again.
Not like that. Not like what?
“You know ... likethat,” Mitch was saying, an indication that I’d been talking out loud again. “I’ll always love you as the mother of my child, and I’d like for us to be friends, but—”
“Stop right there. We promised to love each other forever. Why in the blue hell would I want to be your friend if you’re the kind of person who can’t keep his promises?”
He started to answer me several times, but he couldn’t find the words. Finally, he sighed and said, “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t have the answers, then where the heck am I supposed to find them?”
“I don’t know!” His voice echoed off the walls.
Anger twisted behind my eyes. “Figure it out! There has to be some reason why you’re ready to give up on this marriage.”
“Vivian,” he said softly. He pushed his plate away, stood, and walked over until only a foot separated us. He reached—
“Don’t touch me.”
He put his hands back down to his sides. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Then why are you? What are you going to tell Dylan?”
