“Please, Milly,” he said, “we should talk.” He walked back into the apartment, picked up the milk and cereal from the table, and took them to the kitchenette. He picked up a shirt strewn over the back of a chair and threw it in a closet, then pulled sheets off the sofa, where he must have been sleeping. “I wanted to talk yesterday but you weren’t there.”
She didn’t respond. Instead she took a step into the single space and looked around, bewildered. He’d rather live like this than be with her?
“Lloyd,” she swallowed hard. “What’s going on?”
He looked at her, then unfolded a metal seat from the corner, turned it around, and sat down, motioning for her to take the sofa. Reluctantly, she sat on the very edge.
“Milly, I um…”
She waited patiently for him to go on.
“I lost my job. I was fired, actually.” He looked at the ground, as if he were unable to meet her eyes.
“Why?” she asked quietly. And when he didn’t answer: “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shook his head, still looking down at the ground.
“Lloyd, we’re your family,” she said, persisting.
“I couldn’t,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear. “I was…” He paused. He was having trouble getting the words out. “I was ashamed.”
Milly didn’t know what to do or how to feel. She wanted to go to him, put her arms around him, tell him everything was going to be all right, but how could everything be all right after what she’d done? And she had the distinct feeling that whatever he would tell her next was going to split her heart in two. She needed to brace herself.
“I had an affair,” he said, his eyes still glued to the ground. “And the studio found out.”
There it was. The words she had been expecting to hear, and yet somehow they didn’t break her the way she thought they would. It was almost a relief to know that she hadn’t made it all up in her head, and that she wasn’t the only one who’d faltered. The confession hadn’t changed anything. They were just words, words familiar to her because they’d been floating around in her head for weeks. She just hadn’t known if it was something he’d ever actually admit to. It hadn’t shocked her to her core, because she’d already known it to be true, and she’d cemented his cracks in loyalty with her own. She’d had an affair too. She realizedas she sat in front of him now how fundamentally broken things were between them.
When he finally looked up at her, Milly’s eyes met his blankly.
“I had an affair Milly,” he said, louder this time, as if disappointed at her lack of reaction.
“I heard you,” she said.
And then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and meeting Milly’s eyes with pleading intensity. “I had an affair with a man.”
