He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. When he opened his eyes again, they were flat, but they met mine in that direct way that indicated he was telling me his deepest truth. “What sex?”
I gasped, then forced myself to recover. “You haven’t asked!”
“I shouldn’t have to ask!”
I threw my shirt over my head and shimmied out of my yoga pants. “Well, if it’s a question of sex, then we can remedy the situation right now.”
“Remedy the situation?”
“Yes.” I was already reaching for the back hook on my bra.
Vulnerability hit me along with a chill from standing there in my underwear. What was I doing?
“Can you even hear yourself talk? And what are you going to do anyway? Go in there and be a cold, dead fish? Maybe flop around just a little?”
I gulped. “A dead fish?”
Was that what he thought I was?
Vivian, he’s trying to get under your skin.
A bomb of nausea and understanding exploded in my stomach. “You’re seeing another woman.”
The words came out as a statement rather than a question. Mitch’s pause, however, was even more telling.
“What? No.”
“Just tell me now.”
“There’s not another woman.”
I arched one eyebrow and skewered him with my best mom look, the tell-me-the-truth-now-so-I-don’t-have-to-dole-out-twice-the-punishment-later one.
“There’s no other woman,” he said, but, rather than meet my gaze, he looked out into the living room, a sure sign he was lying. How had this man ever beaten me at poker?
“There’s another woman.” The statement came straight from my subconscious. Suddenly, I knew that, as sure as God made little green apples, my husband was having an affair.
My statement hung in the air too long.
He spoke because he knew silence could be an answer, too. “If there were another woman, would that make you happy?”
“No.”
“Well, I guess I can’t win here.”
“Maybe if you had told me things, like how unhappy you were, then—”
“Then what? You’d have been depressed, and I would’ve gotten laid even less. That’s what would’ve happened.”
“You would’ve gotten laideven less? Doyoueven hearyourselftalk?”
“Well, it’s the damn truth. You would’ve pouted for a month, then done nothing.”
“Not true! I would’ve bought a book or looked for a sex therapist or—”
The bedroom door slammed behind him, and a chill fell over me. I tossed away my bra and put my shirt back on.
Inside out.
