CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
2:15 p.m.
Andrew
In the stretch between Kathryn’s house and his own, Andrew braced to confess his sins to his wife. Knowing the full extent of what had transpired with Kathryn would crush her, but he had to tell her about Max. Amy was the only person he had in his corner, the only one who hadn’t lied to him. His stomach twisted for having betrayed her. He had to set things right.
With each passing mile, his anger roiled. Nick. Kathryn. It was right there the whole time, and he’d been blind to it—maybe he hadn’t wanted to see what was laid out in front of him. Amy’s car was in the garage, where it hadn’t been that morning. He parked and marched up the steps, tremors still quaking his hands after Kathryn’s confession.
“Amy?” he called, his voice echoing into the silence. A cool unease stirred in the house, and his stomach dropped. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Andrew scanned the downstairs. The appliances hummed against the smooth tile and white walls.
He took the stairs two at a time. Andrew saw her, sitting on the bed in the dark, her back to him. She didn’t move when he entered. “Amy? Why didn’t you answer me?”
Amy turned her head to the side. She’d been crying. Ice coursed from Andrew’s head to his fingertips. He scrambled through a list of all the things she could have found. Had she gotten ahold of his phone while he was asleep? His mind raced with horror at the thought of Amy reading his text messages. He couldn’t think of any in particular that were incriminating, but he’d gotten careless. Had someone they knew seen him out with Kathryn? “Amy—”
She rounded on him, her face cold, hard. Expressionless. “Who is she?”
Andrew held his wife’s gaze, while two and a half months of dinners and laughter with Kathryn spun in his mind. His hands in her hair, kissing her. He swallowed, painful, like a jagged rock was lodged in his throat.
A flare of rage rushed across Amy’s face, and she screamed, “Who is she?”
“Amy—it’s not what you think.” Stupid. The most clichéd line he could deliver. The words of a guilty man.
“Is it someone you work with?” Amy demanded.
Andrew shook his head. “No. No. It’s not like that.”
“You’re a fucking asshole.”
Andrew had never heard Amy speak this way, and her words struck him. She darted past him and went down the stairs, her small feet barely making a sound on the steps.
Andrew turned and trailed her but stopped on the landing at the top of the stairs. “I need you to listen to me,” he called.
“Leave me the fuck alone.” Amy disappeared into the kitchen.
Andrew bounded down the stairs until they came face-to-face in front of the island. The same location as their first fight. “That’s not fair—you won’t even give me a chance to explain.”
“You don’t even try to hide it.” Amy was screaming. Unglued. “You stay out late. ‘Chicken wings and a Heat game’?” She mocked his voice. “You think I’m stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid—”
“You didn’t show up last night.” Rage was splashed across her face. “I told you weeks ago my parents were coming to dinner. And you didn’t even dignify me with an excuse. Do you know how embarrassing it is to know my husband doesn’t even care enough to lie to me?”
Dread spread, a cold, slow poison. His memory flashed back to the morning Amy had mentioned her parents were coming into town. She hadn’t said anything to him about it since. “You set me up.”
“Set you up? I told you we had plans, and you were too distracted with—whatever it is you do—to show up.”
Mortification bloomed, blending into a toxic mix with Kathryn and Nick’s deception. With his own. The gradient layers of their lies, and his sympathetic nervous system in overdrive, his body ticking like a faulty engine, ready to blow.
“What is it about me, Andrew? What am I missing here? I picked out this house for you. For us. I stuck myself with needles so I could have a family. With you.”
Needles?
Amy stabbed a finger to her chest. “I give you all of me, literally—my body, my life, all of me . I’m faithful to you and I put you first—”
“You do not put me first. You put your job first, and you always have.”
Amy’s eyes widened.
But the gates opened and all reason slipped away. He stepped closer, the crosshairs narrowed on his wife. “You don’t want a family with me; you want me to get you pregnant. There’s a difference. I tried to warn you. It’s not a good idea. Depression and addiction are hereditary. And my father—not perfect fucking Ken doll Craig, my real father—was an alcoholic. And so was I. I wouldn’t eat for days so I could get as fucked up as possible. I was suicidal. I wanted to die, and I would have if Nick and my parents hadn’t intervened. When I got sober, I started having debilitating panic attacks. I spent our marriage heavily medicated, and you knew that. But you wanted a trophy husband. And I look the part, don’t I?” He waved his arms. “I look good in a suit at your boring benefit dinners. I do as I’m told. You want your perfect house and your perfect husband, then a perfect baby—but what if it’s not all so perfect, Amy? What if your kid is fucked up like I am; are you going to bury yourself in work and avoid him like you avoid me?”
Max’s face, lost and distant, illuminated by the moonlight, sat forefront in Andrew’s mind.
Amy recoiled, like she was disgusted by the very sight of him. “What’s gotten into you? You should’ve told me all of this.”
Andrew narrowed the gap between them. “I told you I wanted to consider adoption, but that didn’t fit your vision of your picture-perfect life, so you blew me off. Like you blew me off when I wanted to grow in my career. Why, so you can run off seventy hours a week and leave me here with a baby, in this empty fucking mausoleum of a house?” His voice thundered on the hard surfaces of the kitchen. “Here’s a thought: maybe your body refuses to give you a baby because it knows you’re too selfish—too cold .”
A sharp gasp from Amy.
Then, deafening silence.
Sick, instant regret crept into Andrew. His thoughts shifted, and he saw Amy not as the target of his anger, not as a roadblock, and not as a powerful professional. She’d always been tough—stronger than he’d ever be—but now she looked small, delicate, destroyed.
By his words.
Amy was right. She’d given him all of herself. Everything she had, everything she’d worked for, she’d committed to sharing with him. And he’d lied to her, sneaked around behind her back. He’d let himself fall in love with another woman. He was worse than Kathryn. Worse than Nick.
“We’re done, Andrew,” Amy whispered.
Ice pumped his veins. No, if she’d just let him explain, tell her about Max, tell her what happened with Kathryn all those years ago. “Amy, please ...”
“I hope it was worth it.”
“No.” He drew a breath, a sharp pain in his windpipe. “I need you to listen. There’s so much more to this than you know.” Then the tingle started in his fingers, and at the crown of his head, vibrating downward, clenching his throat, his diaphragm. This time, he was too weak to fight it.
Amy kept her eyes frozen on him, and she gave a nod. “Yes, there is much more to this than you know.” A flicker of a smile on her lips. “I want you gone when I get home from work tonight.”
Amy turned and marched up the stairs. Andrew clutched the countertop, tried to suck in a breath, jagged tearing ripping apart his rib cage. He doubled over, straining to form his wife’s name on his lips. But she was already gone.