Chapter 2
After that birthday, Mark stopped hiding.
He came back toward morning, and his collar smelled of other women's perfume — sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, a new one every time.
He didn't even bother to explain where he'd been: he undressed, lay down, fell asleep.
And I lay beside him with my eyes open and counted those scents, the way a prisoner counts the notches on the wall of his cell.
At night his phone flared on the nightstand again and again — messages pouring in one after another, and he didn't hide it, because there was no reason to. I watched the screen light up and go dark, light up and go dark, as if someone else's heart were beating beside our bed.
— Turn off the sound, — he mumbled in his sleep.
— Someone's texting you.
— I know. Sleep.
Once, at dinner, his phone rang and he answered it right in front of me, leaning back in his chair.
— Yes, sweetheart, — he drawled into the phone, looking me straight in the eye. — No, I'm alone. My wife? My wife doesn't count.
He talked for a long time, laughing into the phone with that warm, living laugh I hadn't heard in years, while I sat across from him with a full plate and couldn't swallow a single bite.
— Who was that? — I asked when he finally dropped the phone on the table.
— Nobody. — He pulled my untouched plate toward himself. — You eating? No? Then clear the table, since you're not.
One morning I found another woman's underwear in his bag. Lace panties — not my size, not my taste, a stranger's scent. I laid them on the table in front of him, next to his cup of coffee.
— This isn't mine, — I said.
— I can see that, — Mark didn't even lift his eyes from the phone.
— Mark.
— What — Mark? — He finally looked at me, wearily, as if at a tiresome child. — You want a scene before work? Go ahead. Just make it quick, I'm running late.
— Whose is this?
— No idea. Maybe it's yours. Maybe you planted it here yourself, to have an excuse to whine. Wouldn't put it past you.
He drained his coffee in one swallow, swept the panties off the table and shoved them back into his pocket — as if reclaiming evidence.
And he left, while I stood there with empty hands and the thought that maybe I really was losing my mind.
He knew how to do that. He knew how to twist everything so that in the end I was always the guilty one.
And a few days later he didn't come home to sleep at all. He showed up at noon — rumpled, foreign, smelling no longer even of perfume but of someone else's bed. I stood in the entryway, having not closed my eyes all night.
— Where were you?
— At a friend's. — He didn't even bother inventing a name. He took off his shoes, walked past me into the kitchen. — Make me some coffee.
On Saturday we were invited to a housewarming at some new acquaintances from his work. Dana called toward evening, and I could hear in her voice how nervous she was.
— Are you sure you want to go there? Ariana, don't. Make something up — a headache, anything.
— Mark said to go.
— "Mark said," — she repeated bitterly. — Do you even hear yourself?
— Dana.
— Fine, I'll shut up. Just know this: I'll be there. Whatever happens — I'm near.
— Dress properly, — Mark tossed out, tying his laces. — And please, none of your face.
— What face?
— You know what face. Like you're being led to a firing squad.
I put on red — a dress he'd once loved. He didn't look.
The apartment was a stranger's, noisy, packed with people I didn't know. They greeted me politely and forgot me instantly, as if I were a shadow Mark had dragged along for some reason. Dana arrived right after and squeezed my hand so hard my knuckles cracked.
— Stay close. Hear me? Whatever happens — right next to me.
She knew — the way she knew everything in my life. And that was why her eyes held the one thing I feared most. Pity.
Mark found her within half an hour. Or she found him — in this game I never understood who made the first move, I only knew that the one who lost was always me.
Her name was Nikki. Tall, given to laughter, in a dress the size of a handkerchief. She laughed, throwing her head back, and every time she'd lay a hand on Mark's chest, and he'd catch that hand and be in no hurry to let it go.
— Ariana! — he suddenly called across the whole room, and I flinched. — Come here. Meet her.
I came over. My legs weren't mine.
— This is my wife, — he said, and there wasn't a drop of awkwardness in his voice. There was thrill. He was leading me up to her on purpose — so I'd stand there and watch.
— So that's what you're like. — Nikki looked me over head to foot, slowly, appraisingly, and smiled the way you smile at a rival you've already beaten. — Mark never talks about you. Now I see why.
— And why is that? — My throat closed, my voice came out foreign.
— Well… — She rolled a shoulder and touched his arm again. — You're so… calm. Convenient. A wife like that is nice to have. But you want to live with a different kind.
Someone behind me snorted. I felt the heat flood my face, my neck, my chest — as if I'd been dunked in boiling water in front of everyone.
— Nikki, you're wicked, — Mark smiled at her.
— I'm honest, — she purred. — And you like it.
— And how long have you been married? — Nikki wouldn't let up, twirling the glass in her fingers.
— Seven years.
— Se-even years. — She whistled and shot a look at Mark. — Imagine that. What patience. I'd never last that long.
— I thought I wouldn't last either, — I said quietly. — Turns out I do.
For a second something flickered in her eyes — surprise, or maybe a shadow of shame. But only for a second. Mark laughed, put his arm around her waist, and everything fell back into place.
— Ariana, — he tossed out, not turning to me, — bring Nikki and me some more wine. The red, you know which.
And I went. Went for wine for the woman my husband would take upstairs within the hour. Poured two glasses with shaking hands and carried them over — because everyone was watching, because in seven years I'd forgotten how to say "no."
— Thanks, sweetie, — Nikki sang, took the glass, and turned away.
A slow song came on. Mark led Nikki out to the middle of the room, laid a hand on the small of her back — low, too low — and they swayed, pressed together, in front of everyone. In front of me.
I stood against the wall and watched my husband dance with a strange woman the way he hadn't danced with me in years.
She whispered something into his neck. He laughed.
And I dug my nails into my own palm, so that the pain in my hand would drown out the other one tearing at my chest — and I couldn't make myself either leave or look away.
An older woman sat down beside me — the wife of one of his bosses — and patted my hand.
— Hang in there, dearie, — she whispered with that terrible, all-understanding kindness that makes you want to howl. — They're all like this when they're young. He'll burn himself out. Mine used to wander too — and now he sits at home, good as gold. You just have to wait it out.
— Wait it out, — I echoed.
— Wait it out, — she nodded contentedly and walked off, certain she'd helped.
I fled to the bathroom — just to catch my breath, just to not see them for a minute. And there, behind the thin door of a stall, I heard two voices and laughter.
— …the one in red? His wife?
— Yep. Standing over there, blinking. He plays around right in front of her, and she takes it.
— Well, where's she gonna go. Ones like her always take it. Zero self-respect.
They laughed and went out, while I stayed sitting, my hand clapped over my mouth so I wouldn't give myself away with a sound. Because they were right. That's what was unbearable — they were right.
And then Mark and Nikki went upstairs.
Just like that. In front of everyone. He took her by the hand, whispered something in her ear that made her snort, and they went up the stairs — to where the bedrooms were. I stayed below with a glass trembling in my hand.
And the most terrible part — no one even fell silent. The music played, people laughed, somewhere a champagne cork popped. Only a few glances slid over me — quick, sticky, full of that pity that makes you want to sink through the floor.
They all knew. And I stood in the middle of a stranger's living room, in a red dress, the only one there who was truly in pain.
— Are you really his wife? — A tipsy type with a glass of whiskey shambled up, swayed, breathed fumes at me. — No, seriously, why're you even standing here? He's upstairs… you know. — He guffawed. — Brave woman. I couldn't do it.
— Excuse me. — I tried to turn away, but he caught me by the elbow.
— Aw, come o-on, don't take offense! Let's have a drink. To brave wives, eh?
I wrenched my arm free and nearly ran — through the laughter, through the music, through the well-fed stranger faces.
In a corner I finally got out my phone and texted him: "Come down.
Please." I stared at the screen, waited for even a single check mark.
Nothing. I wrote again: "Mark, I'm begging you.
" The phone was silent in my palm, and that silence was more eloquent than any words: right now, for him, I simply didn't exist.
At some point I caught myself already standing on the second step of the stairs. I don't remember climbing them. My hand on the railing, my foot reaching higher — up there, toward the closed door, behind which were my husband and that woman.
— Don't. — Dana caught me by the wrist from below. — Don't go up there. Don't humiliate yourself like that on top of everything.
— And like this, you think I'm not humiliating myself? — I looked down at her, from that cursed step, my face streaming. — Standing here, I'm not humiliating myself?
She didn't answer. She had nothing to answer. And I came down — I don't know myself whether from the last drop of pride or the last drop of fear.