Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
JULIE
I'm standing at the kitchen island chopping vegetables for a sheet pan bake I'm making for dinner when I hear the garage door going up. The sound of Asher's car pulling in is followed by the slam of his car door, then the door from the garage into the house banging open hard enough that I flinch.
"Babe!" he calls, his voice sharp and loud.
I set down the knife. "In the kitchen."
He comes running up the stairs from the ground level and through the doorway fast, still in his suit from work, his tie loosened and his hair disheveled like he's been running his hands through it. His face is flushed, his jaw tight.
"You're not going to believe this," he says. He drops his briefcase on the counter with a thud. "I mean for real, you're not going to believe this!"
I've never seen him like this. Asher doesn't get angry. He gets quiet when he's upset, withdrawn. But right now he's practically vibrating with rage. "What happened?" I ask, worried.
He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "My prick of a father got fucking married."
I wait a few seconds for him to say something else. Because surely I didn't hear him correctly. "What did you just say?"
"Married. My father. Got married." He says each word like he's biting it off. "And nobody thought to mention it to me until his secretary sent me an invite this afternoon for an 'introductory family dinner' on Friday night."
My eyebrows shoot up. "Wait. Is this for real? When did he get married?"
"According to the email, last weekend." Asher opens the fridge, pulls out a beer, then slams the door shut again. The bottles inside rattle. "Our anniversary weekend, actually. While we were in Carmel, he was getting married to some woman I've never even heard of."
He doesn't even pause. "How fucked is it that I didn’t even notice he was gone? Like, yeah, we work on different floors and I do everything I can to steer clear of him. And yeah, we barely cross paths on a normal week. But seriously. What the fuck??? I just thought I was having a run of good luck not having to see him.”
The father son dynamic between Asher and Dean is abysmal.
Despite working for the same company, they barely communicate.
They exist in separate worlds. Dean could disappear for weeks on end and Asher wouldn't know why.
That's how distant they are. It breaks my heart for my husband because he deserves better.
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Caroline." He twists the cap off the beer and takes a long drink. "Caroline. Seriously, babe, I don't know a Caroline. I've never met a Caroline in my father’s orbit. And now she's my stepmother."
The insanity of it is staggering. Dean Stevens, who just last year spent months orchestrating every detail of our wedding, who invited three hundred people and hired a twelve-piece orchestra and insisted tens of thousands of white roses be flown in from Ecuador, got married without huge fanfare.
"And you learned all this from an email? " I ask.
"Yep." Asher sets the beer down hard enough that he's lucky it didn't break.
The subject line said 'Family Dinner This Friday.
' And then there was just this casual little note like, 'Mr. Stevens would like to introduce you to his wife Caroline and her daughter Devon.
Dinner at seven. Business casual attire requested.
' First of all, Mr. Stevens. I hate when she does that. He's my father. Just call him that."
I nod my agreement. It is weird. Then, I realize all of what he said. "Wait. The new wife has a daughter?"
"Yeah. Apparently Caroline has a kid. Seventeen years old. Devon." He paces to the window, then back to the island. "So not only did my father get married without telling me, but I'm also getting a teenage stepsister. Yay, I guess."
I try to process this. Dean, who controlled every aspect of our wedding. Dean, who made me feel like my choices weren't good enough. Dean, who turned our intimate ceremony into a spectacle. "That's..." I don't even know what to say. "That's insane."
"It is," Asher agrees. He runs both hands through his hair.
"Do you know how many times he called me during our engagement?
How many times he emailed me to 'discuss wedding details'?
He had opinions about the fucking napkins, Julie.
The napkins. And now he just goes and gets married without even telling me? "
"Maybe it was spontaneous," I offer, though I can’t conceive of that being possible. Dean Stevens is always thinking ten steps ahead.
"Nothing my father does is spontaneous." Asher picks up his beer again, then sets it back down without drinking.
"Maybe he met her, she saw dollar signs, seduced him, gave world-class head, threw in some anal, and he wanted to lock that feeling down.
So he married her before anyone could talk him out of it. "
"Asher! That’s crude and you don't know that."
"You’re right, it is crude, but what the fuck?
I don't know a fucking thing. That's the problem.
" He leans against the counter, his shoulders tight.
"I don't know who she is. I don't know where they met.
I don't know how long they've been together.
I don't know anything about this kid she has.
And apparently I'm just supposed to show up on Friday night and smile and pretend like this is all totally normal. "
I walk over to him and put my hand on his arm. His muscles are tense under my palm. "Maybe it'll be fine," I say. "Maybe she's nice."
"Maybe." But he doesn't sound convinced.
He looks at me, and some of the anger drains from his face.
"I'm sorry. I know I'm being intense. It's just...
the hypocrisy of it. You know? He made our wedding into this huge production.
He invited people we'd never met. He changed the venue, the menu, the guest list. It was a spectacle we both hated, but he forced it and I didn't know how to stop the fucking train.
I've carried that guilt for a goddamn year.
You display exactly two wedding photos in this house and I know it's because it wasn't what you wanted. "
"And now he just quietly gets married like it's nothing." Asher shakes his head. "I don't get it. I don't get any of it."
I don't either. But standing here in our kitchen, watching my husband process his anger, I feel something shift.
Our first year of marriage has been good.
We've been happy in this house, building our life together, keeping Dean at a comfortable distance with those bi-monthly dinners. We've had space to be ourselves.
But now there's a wife. And a stepdaughter. And a mandatory family dinner on Friday night. "We'll go to dinner," I say. "We'll meet them. And then we'll figure it out from there."
Asher pulls me into a hug and holds me tight. "Yeah," he says into my hair. "Yeah, okay."
But I can feel the tension still coiled in his body. His breathing hasn't slowed. His hands grip my back like he's holding on to something that might slip away. There's something else. I pull back to look at him. "What is it?"
He shakes his head. "He said he'd never marry again. After my mom died, he told me marriage was a prison. That he'd done his duty and he was done. What the fuck happened? What caused this?”
"People change their minds."
"Not him." Asher's jaw tightens. "He doesn't change his mind. He makes decisions and he sticks to them, damn what everyone else thinks. So why now? Why her?"
I don't have an answer.
"How long have they even been together?" His voice drops. "When did this happen? And why didn't he tell me until it was already done?"
"Maybe he knew you'd be upset."
"Or maybe he knew I'd ask questions." Asher releases me and runs both hands through his hair. "What if she really is just after his money? What if she talked him into this? He's not exactly known for his emotional intelligence, Julie. What if she's playing him?"
"You don't know that."
"Exactly. Because he kept her hidden like a fucking secret.
" He looks at me, and there's something in his eyes I've never seen before. Something dark and calculating. "I need to keep my head on a swivel and make sure this doesn’t go the wrong way. No fucking way am I going down without a fight because of some cunt.”
The air in the kitchen feels suddenly cold. "Asher. Do not use that word, please. "
"Why not? She probably is a cunt. And I'm not letting her take everything that should be mine, not after a lifetime of taking his goddamn shit. Fuck that."
He mumbles something beneath his breath that I don’t quite catch as he opens his phone and starts scrolling.
"Maybe there is no angle,” I say.
He pauses and stares at me for a second before he laughs incredulously, not a trace of humor in it.
It’s weird. "Sometimes you’re too innocent for your own good,” he says, like it’s a character flaw.
“There's always an angle, Julie. Even when you don't see it.
You should really pay better attention."
He stops then, looking at me with an expression that makes my breath hitch.
Just as quickly the look is gone and he goes back to looking at the phone.
I don’t know what the hell that was, but it was like looking at a stranger.
He’s silent as he scrolls, his face illuminated by the blue glow of the screen. He’s furious.
And standing there in our kitchen, watching my husband rage scroll and obsess about losing everything, I wonder if the careful life we've built can survive him throwing the word cunt around to describe someone he hasn’t even met yet. It felt like I was listening to a stranger talk.