“Yeah. And I made sure his career was fucked.”
“Because you love Reina,” Mother says triumphantly.
“Lucy.” I ignore my mother and my ex entirely and focus on my wife. “I’m not a man who makes empty gestures. What I did had nothing to do with Reina.”
Lucy wrinkles her nose. “But you ruined his career, Fox. I mean—it’s not hard to see why she’d think you were in love with her.”
I smile at my wife. She’s being specific when she says that it’s not hard to see why Reina thinks I’m in love with her, not that Iamin fact in love with her.
I turn to Reina, who looks like she’s wishing the floor would open up. This is not what she signed up for. She doesn’t like unpleasantness or confrontation, and she has never had much of a sense of humor.
“He took something that wasn’t his. He made his choice. I made mine. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with my ego, which was considerably larger and more fragile when I was younger.” I hold Reina’s gaze. “Here’s the truth. I never loved you. I didn’t even know what the word meant until—“ I glance at my wife, at the expression of pure delight on her face, and feel my chest fill up with something I spent two years trying to rationalize away— “until I met Lucy.”
Reina’s composure cracks only at the edges. After all, she’s a society girl; she’s not going to let all her emotions show.
“Let’s get you to bed, sweetheart.” I take Lucy’s hand. Her eyes are already drooping. This has been entertaining if you like fucking soap operas, but she needs to rest.
My mother is having trouble with all her plans being upset, and she’s not going to give up easily, not without considerable effort on my part. “Archibald, you said you wanted to?—“
“Go home, Mother. Take Reina with you.” I lean down to pick up my wife, slowly and carefully, so I don’t catch her ribs. “Arms around my neck, sweetheart.”
She complies.
I slide one arm behind her back, the other under her knees, and lift—smooth and steady, no sudden movements, keeping her tucked close against my chest.
She makes a small sound, not pain, just the adjustment of it, and tucks her head against my shoulder like she was built to fit there.
“Goodbye, Mother. Don’t come back without being invited.” I start toward the door. “And leave the key you took from your housekeeper on your way out. Tell her she’s fired as well.”
“Her housekeeper?” Lucy mumbles into my shoulder.
“I borrowed my mother’s housekeeper.”
She pulls back just enough to give me a look that says,Well, then you deserved this.
Mother tries again. “Archibald?—“
“Sunday dinners,” I speak over her, “are suspended until further notice.”
I carry my wife inside.
Footsteps follow us. “Archibald. Stop and talk to me.”
I sigh.
Lucy giggles.
“Mother.” I stop on the stairs and turn. “I need you to understand—fully—that if you come to our home again without being asked, and if you bring anyone into my wife’s space while she is healing, who isn’t there to help her heal, I will not be diplomatic about it.”
I continue up the stairs and add, “I’m not feeling particularly diplomatic right now.”
17
TELL ME SOMETHING TRUE
FOX
Ilay Lucy down carefully on our bed, pulling the covers back first so she doesn’t have to do anything but let me settle her against the pillows.
