2. Chantal
— ? —
Chantal
Two Weeks of Being the Woman Cedrick Married
Here’s what nobody tells you about revenge: it’s mostly cooking.
Tuesday, before the sun’s properly up. I’m at the stove in the silk robe he bought me for our anniversary, the one I haven’t worn in longer than I want to count because it felt like costuming for a role I’d stopped auditioning for.
Eggs scrambling soft. Fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Turkey bacon, because he read an article once.
Avocado fanned across the plate like a magazine spread.
Cedrick walks in and stops dead.
“What’s all this?”
I turn with the spatula and give him the smile. The first-year one. The one that used to make him late for work.
“I woke up early. Felt like cooking.”
He’s looking at the spread like he’s waiting for a camera crew. “You hate mornings.”
“She’s been kicking at five anyway.” I shrug one shoulder, and the robe slips just enough to remind him what’s underneath. “Might as well be productive.”
He sits down slow, that furrow between his brows. I set the plate in front of him - barely any pepper, because he’s particular - and pour his coffee before he can ask.
“Cream?”
“I - yeah. Thanks.”
I add the cream. Stir it twice, counterclockwise, the way he does it himself when he isn’t paying attention.
Then I sit down across from him with my own plate and my own juice and my own performance.
I eat breakfast with a man who has been sleeping with my best friend for six months. That’s the number I have so far. Every time I think I’ve found the bottom, there’s another layer underneath, soft and rotten. I have a feeling the number is going to grow.
“This is incredible,” he says around a mouthful. “Seriously. I can’t remember the last time you made breakfast.”
I can. Your birthday. You were on your phone the whole meal, and now I know who you were texting.
“You’re different lately.” He says it carefully, coffee cup paused halfway to his lips. “Good different. But different.”
“Pregnancy hormones.” I take a bite of egg. “The books say the third trimester can go either way. Lucky us, I got the good kind.”
His eyes drop to my collarbone. His throat works.
“Lucky us,” he echoes.
“Unless-” I tilt my head, all soft concern. “Is it too much? I can go back to cereal and ignoring you, if you’re feeling nostalgic.”
“No. God, no.” He laughs, and there’s relief in it, and under the relief something that scratches. “It’s just… I don’t know. It feels like the beginning again.”
Ask me what I know. Go on. I dare you.
“I’ve been thinking,” I say instead, and watch his fork stop midair. “About us. How things have been.”
“How things have been?”
“Distant.” I reach across the table and cover his hand with mine. “I’ve been so focused on the nursery, on the baby, on everything coming - I forgot about us. About you.” I squeeze his fingers. “I’m sorry.”
The guilt that goes across his face is almost beautiful. Surprise, then shame, then desperate hope, then the frantic arithmetic of a man who cannot believe what he’s getting away with.
“You don’t have to apologize.” His voice has gone thick. “I know I’ve been working a lot. I haven’t been around-”
“So let’s fix it.” I bring his hand up and kiss his knuckles, the way I did on our third date, back when I was naive enough to believe in this. “Both of us. Starting now.”
He looks at me like a man handed a pardon.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah. Let’s fix it.”
I refill his coffee, and I take a bite of my eggs, and I think about how I’m going to burn his life to the ground.
***
Saturday night, and I’m wearing the black lace from our honeymoon. It stretches tight across seven months of our daughter growing inside me, the fabric pulling in ways it never used to. I position myself on the bed, waiting, listening to the water run in the bathroom.
When he finally comes out, towel around his waist, he stops in the doorway. His eyes move over me once, quick, clinical. Then he reaches for the dresser and pulls out a t-shirt.
“Chantal.”
“I thought we could have an early night.” I’m propped against the pillows, one hand on my belly, the other tracing nothing on the sheets beside me. “Unless you’re tired.”
“I’m not tired.” He’s already crossing the room, already reaching, and he is very much not tired. “God, look at you. You’re-”
“Enormous.”
“Beautiful.” He climbs onto the bed careful of the belly, always so careful now, in a way he never was before.
Guilt made you gentle. I’m keeping that. That goes in the file with everything else.
I pull him down to me.
His mouth finds my throat, my collarbone, the lace. I arch into him and make the sounds he’s expecting, the gasps and the sighs and the breathless encouragement, and somewhere behind my own eyes I go somewhere cold and sit down and wait.
Did you tell her she was beautiful? Did you say it against her skin while I sat in that nursery feeling our daughter kick, waiting for you to come home?
“I love you,” he groans into my neck. “God, Chan - Chantal. I love you so much.”
Did you tell her that too?
“Show me,” I whisper. “Show me how much.”
He does.
And I stare at the ceiling over his shoulder and catalogue him - the catch in his breathing, the rhythm he falls into, the sound he makes right before - and I feel nothing at all. Nothing but cold, patient arithmetic.
Afterward he collapses beside me, chest heaving, one arm thrown across my belly like he’s claiming something.
“That was-” He laughs, wrecked. “God. Where did that come from?”
“I told you.” I trace a finger along his jaw, and he turns his head and kisses my palm like I’ve handed him a gift. “Pregnancy hormones. Lucky us.”
“Lucky us,” he echoes.
He’s asleep in four minutes, face slack with contentment.
I lie awake for three hours.
I think about the voicemail I haven’t recorded yet. I think about the nursery she painted and the appointments she attended and the twenty years she spent being the first call I made about everything.
And I think about the woman who used to live in this bed - soft, trusting, so hungry to be loved that she missed every single sign - and I mourn her for a minute, because somebody should.
Then I close my eyes and dream about fire.
***
The charity gala is Cedrick’s mother’s idea - a fundraiser for the hospital’s new pediatric wing, the kind of thing where everyone who matters shows up to be photographed caring.
I look, according to the mirror and three separate women in the powder room, like a goddess.
Margaret has done the seating. Table four: Margaret, Cedrick, me. Hazel. Two Clybornes I’m related to by paperwork.
My mother-in-law put my husband’s mistress at my table and called it thoughtful, because she doesn’t know, and because Hazel has always been the daughter she wishes she’d gotten instead of me.
Four hours. Nobody leaves a gala early without a reason, and Hazel doesn’t have one, because Hazel’s entire strategy from the beginning has been act normal.
I find her at the champagne table, in a red dress that fits her like a second skin.
“There you are.” I kiss her cheek before she can arrange her face. “Red was always your color. You look incredible.”
“Chantal.” Her glass stops halfway to her mouth. “You look - wow. That dress.”
“Cedrick picked it.” A lie. I picked it. But I want to watch her hold that sentence. “He’s been so sweet lately. Attentive. It’s like he’s falling in love with me all over again.”
Her smile stays up. Her eyes don’t. “That’s… that’s so great.”
“Isn’t it? I kept waiting for him to come around, just like you said he would.” I squeeze her wrist, warm, sisterly. “You were right. You’re always right about him.”
“I-” Her throat moves. “I should find our table.”
“We’re at the same table.” I say it warmly, like I’m delivering good news. “Margaret did the seating. She put you next to me.”
Something happens in Hazel’s face that I want to keep forever.
“Oh,” she manages. “That’s - how nice.”
“Isn’t it?” I link my arm through hers before she can manufacture an escape. “Come on. Cedrick’s already over there with drinks.”
She has no choice but to walk with me.
I can feel the tension in her arm, the way her whole body has gone rigid beneath the silk of her dress. Good. I want her uncomfortable. I want her to spend the next four hours smiling so hard her face aches.
Our table is near the front - Margaret’s doing, because Margaret believes proximity to the stage equals importance. Cedrick is already seated, laughing at something one of the cousins just said, and he doesn’t notice Hazel’s expression when we arrive. He doesn’t notice anything about Hazel tonight.
I made sure of that with the dress.
“There you are.” He stands to pull out my chair, his hand lingering on my bare shoulder. “I was about to send a search party.”
“Hazel and I got caught up at the champagne table.” I settle into my seat, arranging my dress around my belly. “You know how we are when we start talking.”
Hazel takes the chair beside me. She has no other option.
“So.” I turn to her, my voice bright with interest. “Have you felt her kick yet? The baby?”
Hazel’s champagne glass stops halfway to her lips. “What?”
“The baby. She’s been so active tonight - I think she likes the music.” I reach for Hazel’s free hand. “Here. Feel.”
“Oh, I don’t think-”
“Don’t be silly.” I press her palm flat against my belly, right where my daughter is currently practicing her kickboxing routine. “Just wait. She’ll do it again.”
Hazel’s hand is cold through the fabric of my dress. Her face has arranged itself into something approximating delight, but her eyes are screaming.
“There.” I hold her hand in place. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “That’s - wow.”
“Isn’t it amazing?” I don’t let go of her hand. “Cedrick’s never felt it. Not once. Isn’t that funny? Seven months and he’s never asked.” I smile at him across the table. “You should, honey. Any time. You just have to ask.”
Cedrick’s fork stops.
“I’ve been busy,” he says, to the tablecloth.
“He’s been busy,” I agree, to Hazel, whose hand is still under mine.