He winced. “I thought you could do that. You’re so much better with breaking bad news to him than I am.”
“Oh, no. My days of doing your dirty work are over. You want a divorce, you can have that divorce. But I’m not washing another piece of underwear or putting another supper on the table. I’m sure as heck not playing bad cop to your good cop anymore.”
My fingers traveled to my lips. How had my parents’ argument escaped my lips?
Mitch walked back to the table. His eyes never leaving mine, he took his half-eaten sandwich and tossed it in the trash. “Fine. I hate your chicken salad anyway.”
Slapping me in the face would’ve hurt less than his words did. “I made that just for you so you would have something homemade when you got home from traveling.”
“Well, don’t. And I’ll wash my own underwear, thank you very much.” He brushed past me.
“Where are you going?” I asked as I followed him down the hall.
“To bed.”
“It’s only five in the evening.”
“I’m tired.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping in there.”
“Vivian,” he said in his dangerously soft voice, the one that usually made me think twice. “I am tired. I am going to bed. We can discuss this tomorrow.”
“Youcan sleep in the guest room.”
“I will do no such thing. You can sleep in the guest room if you don’t want to sleep in ... there.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the primary bedroom behind him. Already he couldn’t say “our room.”
“If you sleep in there tonight, then you can pack up your shit and find a new house tomorrow.”
He sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Fine. Because I can’t live like this.”
“Live like what?”
“Live with all your nagging and questions!”
“Oh, silly me. I just wanted to figure out why my husband of almost twenty-five years decided to study divorces on the sly. How unreasonable of me to be angry in the face of his betrayal!”
“Betrayal?” His face screwed up into an expression between confused and angry.
“Yes, betrayal. What did you think you were doing?”
“I just want to be happy,” he bellowed. “Why can’t I be happy?”
“Why does your being happy mean I have to be unhappy?”
He paused, his mouth agape. He’d honestly never thought about it quite like that. “Well, I was thinking you couldn’t possibly be happy if I wasn’t happy, so it would be better for you, too, if I left.”
What kind of self-centered logic was that?
“Funny, I thought I’d dedicated my life to making sure that you and Dylan were happy.”
“Then dedicate your life to making yourself happy, because whatever you’ve been doing isn’t working for me.”
His acid tone ran through my chest like a hot sword. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t happy?”
“How could you not?”
We engaged in a staring contest. I willed him to answer that question, to admit that he really didn’t care whether or not I was happy. He looked away first, and a cold chill of realization ran down my back. “Is this about sex?”
