Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Henry
March 20th, 2015
When I arrive home, light is spilling onto the front yard, painting the grass a dull yellow. I shut off the car, but I remain seated long enough to second-guess my resolve. Long enough to see Lucy’s headlights as she passes. To worry for her, before guilt steals that from me, too.
I force myself to get out. I put one foot in front of the other, but I don’t hear a single step. My ears are crowded with the rush of blood evacuating my face. My shoes are on one second, and then they’re off. I don’t register discarding them in the pile by the door. The door creaks as I push inside. Shudders closed behind me. I follow the sound of reality television into the living room, half-blind thanks to a blur of white-hot shame clouding my vision.
I find Kimberly there, curled up in the corner of the sofa with a throw blanket draped haphazardly over her knees. A half-empty glass of white wine glistens on the side table. I pause for a moment, but no sound comes from the back of the house. Delilah’s not home yet. There’s still time .
I swallow hard. “I need to talk to you.”
Kimberly doesn’t look up from her show. “About what?”
“Could you look at me please?”
She huffs a breath but tears her eyes away for a heartbeat. It’s long enough. Whatever she sees on my face grabs her attention. “What’s wrong now?”
My airways are closing. My stomach is inside out. I try to speak, but the words won’t come. Only tears. Sticky, hot tears that I wipe away as quickly as they fall, but there’s always more to replace them. I give up eventually. They soak my face, my throat, the collar of my shirt. I’m sodden by the time I manage to yank each mangled word from my lips.
“I kissed someone else.”
Her face is perfectly blank for a moment. It shatters when she rolls her eyes. “Good for you, Henry. I couldn’t care less.”
“W-what?”
She groans as she reaches for the remote and pauses her show, then untangles herself from her blanket to rise from the couch. She takes her time straightening the navy-blue cotton shorts and matching top she has on. When she faces me once more, her expression is one of cool indifference. “If you think jealousy is the way you’re going to get me to stay, you’re sorely mistaken. We’ve been over this. I’ll stay through next school year, but when Delilah moves out, I will too.”
My mouth opens. Closes. The tears slow to a constant drip. “I’m not trying to make you jealous, Kimberly. I’m trying to tell you I fucked up. Trying to have an adult conversation about it.”
Her gaze flickers over my face. Scans the length of my entire body. She takes a step closer. Curls her nose as though she smells Lucy’s perfume coming off me in waves. When our eyes meet again, hers are wide. “Who? Who did you fucking kiss?”
I know. I know it shouldn’t matter. Not after everything she’s said, everything that’s happened over the last year. Over the last seventeen years. But seeing her anger, knowing I deserve it for once, rips my heart out and shreds it in one fell swoop.
I cast my eyes downward, unable to watch the wound open when I whisper, “Lucy.”
“ WHAT? ” She steps forward, plants her hands on my shoulders, and shoves. “You better not be fucking serious. Lucy? Of all the people in the world you could screw, you picked her? I knew it. I damn well knew from the day we got married and you couldn’t keep your fucking eyes off her.” She pushes me again. Steps back to look at the whole of me in absolute disgust. “How could you?”
I throw my hands up. “You said you were leaving.”
“I haven’t fucking left yet! Damn it, Henry, you had one more year. One. More. Year. You couldn’t keep it in your pants till then? You don’t think you owe me that much?”
“I didn’t…we didn’t… It was a kiss, Kimberly. I swear.” My brow furrows. “I’m telling you because I know I fucked up, and I’m sorry I disrespected you. But we’ve been over for a very long time. You made that incredibly clear.”
“We’re still married, Henry!” She swipes a candle off the end table and throws it my way. I dodge it, barely, but hear it shatter on the hardwood behind me. “You expect me to believe you didn’t fuck her? You’re a fucking cheat! I gave up everything for you, and this is how you repay me?”
This time it’s her wineglass, the contents of which soak my feet upon landing. The smell of alcohol burns my nose. My foot stings. I glance down to see a small shard of glass sticking upright in my skin, right behind my big toe. A drop of blood leaks from it like a rusted tear slipping over my skin.
Good, I think. I deserve this. Because she’s right. We are still married. I made a promise to her, and I broke it. All I can do now is try to minimize the damage.
“I know, Kimberly. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” I flatten my palm against my heart, mostly to reassure myself that it’s still there. “Whatever you need from me, you’ve got it. I’ll quit my job. I won’t be near her. For as long as you stay, I’ll be loyal to you and to this marriage. But we’ve got to figure out a solution that doesn’t hurt?—”
“Mom? Dad?”
The words die on my lips. Kimberly is frozen with her hand around a picture frame. In it, she and I are smiling. Delilah is standing between us, large Mickey ears on her head. It’s the only family vacation we ever took. One of the happiest memories we share.
A snarl twists Kimberly’s face. She holds up the frame, gaze fixed over my shoulder. “Delilah, if you learn one thing from me, let it be this.” She slams the frame on the floor. The sound is like a clap of thunder in the small house, startling everyone but its maker. “Don’t waste a minute of your life on any man.”
I glance over my shoulder. My daughter, the light of my life. My kindred spirit. She looks stricken. Her narrow face is pale, eyes wide. Her light brown hair flows wild and unruly from her crown. A sprig of grass sticks out from behind her ear. But what eviscerates me is her gaze, which flicks from her mother to me, unsure of who to trust.
Her whole life, I’ve tried to be the constant. The steady hand through the storms of her mother’s moods. The person she can depend on, no matter what. How could I have let her down so monumentally, that I’ve now taken that away from her? I’m the rug stripped from beneath her feet, and I’m watching her free-fall before my very eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Delilah,” I say.
“What’s going on?” she asks, brow scrunched tightly.
“Tell her, Henry. Tell her what you did.”
Another crash. Delilah and I both turn toward the sound. This time it’s a wedding photo on the ground. Delilah stumbles forward, and I put out a hand. “Careful. There’s too much glass, sweet pea.”
“Oh, don’t pretend to be this perfect caretaker now that she’s here.” Kimberly points at me, but her eyes are on our daughter. “Not gonna tell her? Fine. I will. He fucked your friend’s mom, that’s what he did. He cheated. He’s a goddamn cheater. He ruined everything.”
“Dad?” Delilah’s voice is so small, so childlike that for a moment I’m transported back in time to when she was little and afraid of the dark. I’d tuck her into bed, but inevitably about ten minutes later, she’d tiptoe down the hall and find me watching TV on the couch, her soft voice dragging me from whatever show to go do the whole closet-check routine over again.
This time she’s looking at the monster. A fact that strikes shame down my spine, grounding itself at my feet.
“I kissed her. I kissed Lucy. And I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry.” I drop to my knees, hearing but not feeling the glass crunching beneath my weight. “Please, Delilah. Please forgive me. I love her. I’m so sorry.”
“You LOVE her? Is that what you fucking said?” Our bedroom door swings open, slamming into the wall behind it. A second later my duffel bag comes flying through the doorway, landing with a dull thud at my side. Clothes are thrown in an array of colors, so fast that I can barely make them out. Kimberly follows soon after, her face mottled red with anger. “Get out. Get. Out. I can’t look at you right now.”
“But, Delilah…”
“You should go, Dad,” Delilah says softly. Her gaze is guarded, one hand braced on the kitchen counter for support. She catches my eye and shakes her head. “It’s better if you go.”
Better for whom? I want to ask. But it’s not my place. I gave up that right when I let myself be so damn selfish for a split second. A split second that shattered my world, and hers right along with it.
“Okay,” I say, my voice a raw croak. “I’ll go.”
“And if you go see that whore, so help me God?—”
“Mom,” Delilah interjects, her voice weary.
“What?” Kimberly snaps.
“Lucy’s my?—”
“Your what, Delilah? If you think she’s anything more to you than some woman who used you to get close to your dad, you’re as stupid as your father.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” I say, rising from my knees. “This has nothing to do with her.”
Kimberly’s lips pinch together. She holds my stare for so long I consider the possibility that we’ll stay like this till we’re old and gray, neither giving an inch, while the world goes on spinning around us.
“Out,” she commands. Then she pivots on her heel, marches into our bedroom, and slams the door.
I turn to Delilah. “I’m so sorry. I can explain.”
Her gaze drops to the floor. She starts toward me, and for a moment hope rises in my chest, but it quickly crashes when she walks around me to the laundry door, which she opens. She retrieves a broom and dustpan, shuts the door, then gets to work cleaning up the shattered candle.
“Please go. It’ll make it harder on everyone if you stay.” Her voice drops off, but I still hear it when she mutters, “Especially me.”
My heart plummets, but I do as she asks. I gather my clothes, not bothering to look at what Kimberly tossed my way. I shrug the bag onto my shoulder. Cast one more glance around the bedraggled remnants of our once peaceful home, now splintered apart irrevocably .
“At least let me help you,” I say, reaching for the broom handle.
She jerks it away. There’s a fire starting in her eyes, the sparks of betrayal, when she glances up at me. “Dad.” It’s a warning. A boundary.
So I heed it. I back carefully over the glass shards toward the door, never taking my eyes off her. When I reach it, I grab the handle but keep my gaze trained on Delilah. “I love you. I’ll come back in the morning. I won’t leave you, I promise.”
“Good night,” she mumbles, but she doesn’t look up. I’m being dismissed.
I shut the door behind me, cocooning myself in the quiet night. It’s too cold out still for birds to sing, for crickets to chirp. As I pluck the glass from my skin and slip into my shoes, that fresh cut stinging, I spare a glance for the farmhouse on the hill. All its windows are aglow, floating in the darkness. I think of what it is Lucy is facing, and I pray she’s safe.
Then I load myself into the car and pull away, unsure of where it is I’m heading, only that I have to keep going.