The cat found us, and I set my plate down at my feet.
“That’s disgusting,” said Paul as we watched the cat devour the salmon.
“Why?” I asked.
He sighed.
“I think we’re very different people,” I said, slowly. “And I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out.”
He leaned back in his chair, and finally asked the question I’d been dreading. “Is there someone else?”
I had told myself at the outset that I wasn’t going to lie. All the lying made me feel like crap, and it wasn’t fair to Paul. Plus, it had jeopardized my relationships with Laura and Teo and even Francesca. I was done with it, but I didn’t know if Paul could handle what came next.
“It’s Teo, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“How long?”
“A couple of months,” I said, my voice shaking.
It was his turn to nod.
“I’m sorry,” I said, again.
“You’re sorry for fucking him, or sorry you’ve got to sit here having this god-awful conversation with me?” What I was mostly sorry for was that I hadn’t had the wherewithal to leave Paul before I started anything with Teo. Doing it this way hadn’t been fair to any of us.
“So, what, are you just going to ride off into the sunset with him now?” Paul asked.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that Teo and I hadn’t spoken in weeks and that I might have damaged the relationship beyond repair. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m telling you the truth. I love him, but I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know if I’m staying in Italy. I just know that you and I can’t be married anymore.”
This hurt him, I could tell. But I was trying to put it as simply and delicately as I could.
He folded his hands behind his head, cracked his neck in at least three different places, and stood. “I think I’m going to sleep on the ship tonight.”
“Okay,” I said, then thought to ask if he wanted me to drive him to the pier.
He nodded, and I waited on the patio while he packed a bag. When he was ready to go, he leaned his head out the door to get my attention.
I stood and dumped the rest of my wine into the shrubs, then carried the glass and the plate, which Miele had licked clean, into the kitchen. “Do you want me to pick you up in the morning?” I asked as I retrieved my purse from the living room.
He shook his head. “I can shower on the ship.”
“Right,” I said. “Yeah, okay.”
We left the house through the front door and locked it behind us, then got in the Chevelle for what would turn out to be the last drive we ever took together. I think I’m glad I didn’t know it at the time.
146.
THAT NIGHT, I BARELY SLEPT.I was attuned to every sound in the house and began having these waking dreams that Paul was coming after me or, worse, that he’d gone looking for Teo. I pictured Paul waiting for Teo outside the newspaper’s offices. He’d say he wanted to talk, and then he’d beat the living shit out of him, and the whole thing would be my fault because I hadn’t even given Teo a heads-up that I had decided to tell Paul about us.
The next morning, I swung by the apartment, just in case Teo was there. When no one answered, I went to Bar Sanna and tried calling first Teo’s apartment in Sassari, which got me nowhere, and thenLa Spedizione’s offices, where I spoke with a secretary who offered to take a message. I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d broken things off with my husband, so I left my name and hoped that would be enough.
I think I had expected to feel some sense of relief, maybe even elation, after coming clean to Paul, but all I felt was dread. Paul’s reaction had been uncharacteristically calm, which left me wondering if he hadn’t really heard what I’d said. Or if he’d heard it but figured, with some time and distance, he could convince me that my feelings weren’t real.
