Chapter 7 #2
When Anson finally showed up at the apartment, he acted like nothing had happened, nothing unpleasant had been said.
It was a little awkward at first, but he couldn’t wait to go to bed with Veronica, which was what had brought him back after a week of silence and the ice treatment.
He showed up on a busy afternoon for him, between meetings, and had to go to Washington that night for a committee meeting at the Pentagon the next day with the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Navy and the Army, and he was so hungry for Veronica that he couldn’t stand it a moment longer.
He walked into the apartment with no warning, walked over to where she was standing, and kissed her so hard, he took her breath away.
He never apologized when he had been hard on her.
He just showed up when he was ready to see her, and made love to her like someone who had been starving for however long he’d been gone.
He was the master of the silent treatment and she was used to it.
She never resisted him or made him accountable for it when he treated her badly, because he treated her well the rest of the time, and she knew there was no point dragging it out.
It was best to put it behind them, and go on.
This time was no different. He had wounded her deeply when he had said she was just his mistress and they weren’t dating.
She was standing in the living room, putting some books away.
When she didn’t see him, she used the time to do things in the apartment.
He pressed her against the bookcase, unzipped the skirt she was wearing and let it fall to her feet, and she was standing there in black lace underwear and high heels.
He swept her off her feet and carried her to her bedroom, in the apartment that was his, and made love to her with every ounce of his strength and passion for her, and never said a word.
He gave a lion’s roar when he came, and he lay there looking at her for a long moment.
She could tell that he had missed her, but he didn’t say it.
“You’re beautiful,” he said to her in a hoarse voice, admiring her, as her long dark hair fell around her like a veil.
They lay talking quietly for a little while, and then he made love to her again.
He was capable of feats with her that he couldn’t achieve with anyone else, which bound him to her more than he acknowledged, but he took full advantage of the virility she endowed him with.
She was an artful lover and knew how to arouse him and satisfy him in ways no one else ever had.
It accounted for the longevity of their relationship, and her role as his mistress.
She was a geisha and a courtesan, and she did it well.
She walked across her bedroom naked while he admired her, put on a pink satin dressing gown, went to make him a Scotch on the rocks the way he liked it, and came back to hand it to him.
He sat next to her, drinking it, and she lay back against the pillows.
She made no mention of the fact that she hadn’t seen him in over a week and he had been mean to her the last time she did see him.
All was forgiven and forgotten, on his side, and on hers she knew there was no point belaboring the point and angering him again.
If she wanted him, she had to play by his rules, with no exception.
She was going to do what she wanted and needed to do, with the class at Columbia, and she had her inheritance now, and the farm, but as long as she was with Anson, she was his mistress, and in his eyes, he owned her.
He didn’t spend the night with her, leaving at midnight, but the complex machinery of their relationship was back in place, on track, where he wanted it to be.
It was the life she had signed on for with him, and accepted for ten years, but she was bigger than his narrow definition of her now.
He sensed it and it frightened him, but she wasn’t afraid of what he could do to her if she didn’t follow his rules.
Whether she had meant to or not, her mother had done what she hadn’t been able to do in her lifetime.
With the revelation of all of her own secrets, Felicia had liberated her children, and Veronica wasn’t a prisoner anymore. In her heart, she was free.
—
The tension between Isabelle and Ian was almost unbearable once he had admitted the affair to her.
And for Isabelle, the sadness was overwhelming.
She felt as though she was riding a wave every day, and praying it didn’t drown her.
It was as though talking to her about the affair had freed Ian to do whatever he wanted.
He stayed late at the office, or said he did, and came home late at night.
He disappeared early in the morning, to spend time with Leila before they went to work.
On two occasions he stayed out all night, and only came home to change in the morning.
Isabelle felt as though she was seeing the world around her from under water.
She didn’t even want to talk to her sisters about it.
She had never felt so alone in her life.
All she could do was hang on and hope the pain didn’t kill her.
There were times when she thought it might.
She had loved Ian so much from the moment she met him, and now he was throwing it all away.
It had never occurred to her that it could happen to them, but it had.
She felt as though she were watching her life from outside her own body, like a bystander, or a stranger or an alien, with nothing to hang onto.
She was trying to focus on the children, and sometimes she thought she was losing her mind, but what she was losing, or had already lost, was Ian.
He didn’t want to hurt Isabelle, but it was inevitable, and he was in a freefall into Leila’s arms, and couldn’t stop himself.
It was Ian who finally put a stop to it.
He came home early one morning, looking ragged.
Isabelle was in the kitchen drinking coffee, before the kids got up.
She was smoking a cigarette, which she hadn’t done since college, and she looked as though she had been dragged down the street behind a bus.
She had dark circles under her eyes, was deathly pale, and had lost weight. She looked like a cadaver.
He sat down across from her at the kitchen table, horrified by how wounded she looked, knowing he had done it to her.
“I can’t do this anymore, to either of us, any of us.
Leila is upset too.” Isabelle didn’t answer him.
“I thought I could stay here and figure it out. You were right. I can’t.
It’s killing us.” He felt as though she was watching him, even when he wasn’t there.
She was like a ghost following him around.
She didn’t argue with him. She didn’t have the strength.
They pulled themselves together to have breakfast with the children, who seemed quieter than usual too.
The whole family was in a turmoil. Making pancakes Isabelle burned the first batch, and the children hardly touched the second, though it was their favorite breakfast. Isabelle got them dressed before the babysitter came to take them to school.
Ian packed a suitcase after they left while Isabelle sat in the living room, smoking.
She couldn’t watch him do it. Every inch of her ached, as though she’d been beaten.
Ian dropped his suitcase at the front door, and he came to find her in the living room and didn’t approach her.
He spoke to her from the doorway. He was afraid to go near her. She looked like she would break.
“I’m sorry I’ve made such a mess of this. I promise I’ll try to fix it. I can’t do it here,” he said sadly.
“Are you moving in with her?” she asked in a dead voice. “You won’t be able to figure it out there either.” They had all gotten caught up in his insanity.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. You can reach me on my cell, if you need me.
” But she didn’t need him, not the man who belonged to Leila now.
She needed her husband back, the one she had loved for twelve years and no longer knew or recognized.
Ian was crazy, and Isabelle looked it. “I’ll call you.
” He picked up his suitcase and walked out the door, closing it softly behind him.
She heard the elevator come and go, and went back to their bedroom and went to bed.
She didn’t even have any tears left. She had been awake all night, crying, for days.
She got up when she heard the children come home from school, and she went through the motions of motherhood.
Baths, food, tucked them into bed. Charlie wanted to know where his father was and Isabelle told him that he had to go on a trip for work and he’d be home soon.
Tyler was listening intently. She didn’t know what to tell them, and they hadn’t agreed on a story to tell the kids yet.
She wondered how you explained divorce to a five-year-old, but they weren’t divorced yet.
She didn’t answer any calls all day. Veronica and Quinne had called her, but she didn’t want to talk to them, or to anyone.
Losing her mother and her husband in the space of two months was almost too much to bear. But there was nothing she could do. She was on an express train to hell that wouldn’t stop.
She had ordered pizza for dinner for the kids that night and they loved it.
It felt like a party to them, but they knew something was wrong.
They asked again when Daddy was coming home, and she tried to look bright and cheerful when she said she didn’t know.
But the children knew something was wrong.
Even Penny was out of sorts and had been wetting her bed at night.
Isabelle got into her own bed after she tucked them in, and she lay there, feeling like a mummy.
She finally fell asleep at six a.m., an hour before she had to get the children up.
She staggered to her feet when her alarm went off.
Disoriented, she got up and woke them. Another day started without Ian.
It was like childbirth, where you wonder how much worse it can get, and then it gets even worse than you imagined. But she knew she had to get through it. She had to stay alive for her kids.
Her life was a blur now, all the days looked the same.
It was another day without Ian. She couldn’t imagine his coming back now.
He was gone, probably forever. She didn’t know where he was staying and it didn’t matter.
He was no longer hers. He belonged to a girl called Leila.
Isabelle could guess that he was probably staying with her.
It was easy, and Ian was making all the easy choices now, and none of the hard ones to save their marriage.
—
Isabelle had been looking forward to spending her mother’s birthday weekend with her sisters, but now she was dreading it.
She didn’t know what to tell them. Veronica knew, but Isabelle had asked her not to tell the others.
At some level, she was ashamed that Ian had left her.
She didn’t see it as his crime as much as her failure to keep her husband’s interest, make him happy, and make him love her.
She was feeling terrible about herself, and about him.
She would have canceled out of the birthday, but she didn’t want to disappoint her sisters.
It had been a sweet idea to celebrate their mother’s birthday together, but she didn’t feel up to making the effort, or even combing her hair.
When the day came, she reminded the children at breakfast that she would be away when they came home from school.
“Will you be like Daddy and not come back?” Tyler asked her, looking her in the eye, and she shook her head and hugged him. She wanted to reassure him about Ian and couldn’t find the words. And she didn’t want to lie to him. Ian had called them a few times and told them he’d be home soon.
“Of course not. I’ll come home on Sunday, and you can call me whenever you want. I’m going to be with all of your aunts.” She had already told them weeks earlier, but they might have forgotten. “We’re going to talk about our mom. It’s her birthday tomorrow.”
“Can’t you talk to them on the phone and stay here?” Tyler asked in a plaintive tone, and she shook her head. She would have preferred staying home with them too.
“No, it’s too hard with so many people. You have a lot of aunts.” She smiled at them.
“Do it by Zoom, Mommy.” They’d gone to school remotely during the pandemic, and even Penny was computer savvy at five.
“We can’t hug each other by Zoom,” she said.
They went to brush their teeth after breakfast, and she hugged them tight before they left.
She wished she could take them with her.
It was painful being away from them now.
She had lost Ian, and she was terrified to lose them too, not that Ian would take them.
But she needed to be close to her children, and instead she was going to spend two days with her sisters.
She didn’t know what to say to them, and she cried thinking about it.
It was going to be a long sad weekend at the farm for her.