Chapter 25
I’m mixing a batch of Manhattans when Ian gets home. His blue button-up looks particularly rumpled, but maybe I’m only imagining that.
Has he showered since this afternoon? I force down a wave of nausea.
When he bends to kiss me on the cheek, I inhale deeply, an airport security dog trying to detect the deception. All I pick up is Old Spice—he must’ve reapplied. It’s almost impressive, the lengths he’s gone to cover his tracks. I underestimated him.
“How was your day?” I ask, calm and casual, giving the lid that’s been holding in all my hurt and disgust a few more turns.
“I’ve had better,” he says, taking one of the cocktails from me. “There’s just a lot going on right now.”
“With the river case?”
“Yeah.” He takes a healthy gulp. “It’s turned into a real monster.”
He has to be talking about her.
I stroke Ian’s arm with one hand and pick up my coupe glass with the other. “I’m sorry to hear that. Why don’t we have these on the couch and unwind a little?”
I snuggle in, curling my feet under my butt and angling toward him. I could hoist myself over his lap right now—he’d love it at first—but then I’d squeeze my hands around his throat while I straddled him. I’d watch his excitement turn to confusion, and then horror.
He rubs my thigh and clicks on the TV.
“Actually”—I gently take the remote and mute the volume—“there’s something I need to ask you about.”
He goes rigid beside me. Good. Let him fear the worst.
Once I was done reading through the burner phone, before Ian got back from his run on Sunday, I deleted the most recent text (since he surely would’ve noticed it had been opened—and not by him).
Then I planted the phone just under where we’re sitting now, shoved all the way back between the wall and one of the sofa’s rear legs.
By yesterday morning, it was gone. It was well-hidden enough that once Ian found it, he could believe he’d missed it on a first pass.
But I bet the nagging suspicion that I might’ve seen it has never fully left him.
He leans away, so he has a clearer view of my face. Worry pinches his forehead.
“Okay … what is it?”
“Well, it’s been over a week now since we paused the house hunt, and I’m sure you remember that the house hits the market the day after tomorrow.”
He sighs, but his posture relaxes. He’s relieved that this is all I want to discuss.
“I know I’m in a much better place since we stopped obsessing about it,” I say, “and I think we’re in a better place, too, don’t you agree?”
He nods, no doubt internally rejoicing at my cluelessness.
“You said you wanted your wife back, and you have her. I promise, I’m right here, and I’m never going anywhere again.”
He lowers his eyes to his hand, still on my thigh. Have I made him feel guilty?
“So,” I continue, “I hope you can trust that I’m coming from a much healthier, much more rational place when I say I still think we should make an offer on it.”
His face snaps back up. “Margo…”
“I know, I know. I get that it’s a very, very long shot. But I just want to give it a go the right way. Write a normal, honest offer—no games, no lying—and let the cards fall where they may.”
“Margo, you know they’ll never sell it to us.”
“You’re probably right.” I take his hand in both of mine. “I mean, you’re almost definitely right. But I have to see this through. I have to at least try, or I’ll always wonder. I just felt such a connection to that place.”
I unscrew the lid the teeniest bit, letting out just enough of the heartbreak to make my eyes water.
“I could really see us there, putting our baby to sleep in Penny’s adorable bedroom. And a few years down the road, you teaching her—or him—how to throw a baseball in the backyard.”
“But this is exactly what worries me,” Ian says, brushing a tear off my cheekbone with his thumb, his touch roiling my stomach. “I hate hearing you get your hopes up like this, when we both know what the outcome will be.”
“My hopes are not up, I promise. Just let me try, Ian. We have nothing to lose. It’s not like they can humiliate us any more than they already have.”
“I don’t think so, Margo.”
The patience is retreating from his voice.
“We can write a letter with the offer, apologizing for what we did—for what I did.”
“My answer is no.”
He pulls his hand from mine.
I slouch away from him and screw the lid back on tight. I open up a different, much larger jar. Anger pours out of this one, coursing through me like blood. I take a deep breath to steady myself.
I didn’t want the conversation to go like this, but I knew it probably would. I knew that saving the phone and the affair for this moment could be useful.
I stare at him, keeping my face blank. “So, where is it then?” I ask flatly.
He narrows his eyes in confusion. “Where’s what?”
“Your fucking burner phone, Stringer Bell.”
He jerks away from me, flushing a deep scarlet. “What are you talking about?”
Is he seriously going to insist on turning this into a struggle?
“I don’t think I’m asking for very much, Ian.” I glare at him. “Just for the tiniest shred of honesty—the bare minimum, really, given that you and Alex have been shitting all over our marriage for … how long has it been? Almost two months? Jesus, what would your parents think?”
Ian’s eyes stretch into unblinking orbs.
He seems to have stopped breathing, then his frozen, horrified expression crumples.
He buries his face in his hands, shaking his head like he can’t believe this is happening.
His shoulders begin to heave up and down.
He looks so small, like a weak little boy.
He lifts his gaze to meet mine, his face a mess of tears and snot. He is pathetic.
“Margo, I am so sorry,” he chokes out. “I am such a fucking idiot. You know I love you more than anything in the whole world. She is nothing to me. You have to believe me.”
“So you love me and you just love fucking her? Am I understanding right?”
He’s shaking his head again. Another sob racks his body. “You never should’ve had to look at that phone. I can’t even imagine…”
I cut him off. “I need you to give it to me. Right now.”
He goes silent and still.
“Fine,” he says. “That’s fine.” He rises from the sofa and heads over to his backpack, on the floor in the entry. He roots around in it before removing a wrinkled, brown paper bag from Pret. A costume for the Nokia. Sneaky motherfucker.
He returns, placing the bag on the coffee table, too ashamed to take out its contents.
“Do whatever you want with it.” He sinks back into the couch. “It’s over, I swear to you. I ended it today. I couldn’t live with myself anymore.”
I think back to what I saw outside the apartment building. I want to believe him.
“Was she the first time?”
“Yes!” He says it urgently, grabbing my hands. “Oh my God, Margo, yes. Please, please believe me, I’ve never done anything like this before. I fucking hate myself for it.”
“Did you use protection?”
The possibility of that teenager getting pregnant before me erupts in my brain like an aneurysm.
“Of course! God, of course.” Ian’s eyes are damp again. “Hearing you ask me that makes me sick to my stomach.”
I tear my hands free of his and get up. I can’t stand to sit next to him any longer.
“How’d you meet her?” I ask, pacing in front of the television.
He groans. “You really want to know that?”
I pause to face him. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this too uncomfortable for you?”
He stares at the floor.
“Yes,” I say, “I want to fucking know.”
“On the sidewalk, near the office.”
“You met her on the sidewalk?”
“She was holding a clipboard, canvassing for the Environmental Defense Fund.”
It takes a second for this little twist to sink in. Then I start to laugh. I can’t help it.
“She’s a clipboard girl?”
“She’s an intern.”
“Ian, that is not better.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
“So then what? She asked if you wanted to fuck her to save the rainforest?”
He grimaces, like I’m torturing him.
“I told her I worked at the EPA. She wanted to know more about my job, whether I thought she’d be qualified for our internship program…”
He pauses, hoping I’ve heard enough. I refuse to let him off the hook.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, we just kind of hit it off.” He’s back to staring at the floor. “I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t myself. Things have just been so stressful lately, with all the house stuff, and all the baby stuff…”
He has got to be fucking kidding. The incinerator hits full blast, I feel like I could breathe fucking fire.
“Things have been stressful for you?” My voice trembles.
I am losing control. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your life has been so hard.
” I begin to pace again, like a caged animal.
“I must’ve forgotten—are you the one who had a needle jabbed into your vagina and your eggs suctioned out?
And is it you who drops whatever you’re doing the second a halfway decent listing hits the market?
” I let my eyes sear into the top of his head.
“Have I just been hallucinating this whole time that it’s been me doing these things, killing myself to build a real life for us while you fuck around?
” I’m not sure when I began shouting. “Can you at least fucking look at me, Ian?”
He does as he’s told.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I … that came out wrong … I … I know this has all been harder on you. But it’s been hard for me, too.” He clears his throat, working up some courage. “And sometimes, I feel like you don’t see that.”
“So you decided to fuck an EPA groupie?” I scream it at him, not giving a shit if the neighbors hear. But Ian refuses to match my rage. He just looks defeated.
“Tell me what to do, babe.” His voice quivers. “How do I fix this?”
The gravity of the question knocks some of the wind out of me. We will never be the same again. I know that. We’ll be a broken vase that’s been glued back together. Forever damaged—but still intact. Still mostly passable as a very nice vase (especially from behind the right Instagram filter).
Certainly still better than no vase at all.
Perfect house. Perfect baby. Perfect dog. Shitty husband.
Still an almost-perfect life.
“I don’t think you can ever fix it. Not entirely,” I say, my voice back to a normal volume. A fresh batch of tears emerges along Ian’s lower lashes. “But you can start by helping me get us the fuck out of this apartment. It’s killing us.”
He nods.
“We need a fresh start. A reset.”
More nodding.
“I’m calling the lender tomorrow to make sure our financing is in order. And on Thursday, you’re going to sign your name on that offer, and we’re going to cross our fingers and hope for a goddamn miracle.”
“Okay,” he agrees. “Let’s do it.”