3. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
I t took Nadine a minute to recover as shock raced through her body and took up residence in every nook and cranny of her being. Slowly, she stood, her legs shaky.
“What is going on here?” she asked. Her voice came out in a squeak.
Julie pressed a finger against Richard’s arm and muttered through gritted teeth, “You promised you would tell her when you were in Hawaii.”
Nadine almost asked what he wanted to tell her, but she realized that this was what he was supposed to tell her: that there was another woman, and a child. He had a son. No, that can’t be right .
“It didn’t come up,” Richard said.
“How would it come up,” Julie asked, “if you didn’t bring it up? ”
Sam was comfortable with Richard. Richard had picked him up, and Sam’s little arms were wrapped around Richard’s neck. He knows him, Nadine observed. Richard spends time with this boy . But when?
Richard’s son .
Her eyes opened wide in amazement. Sam was the spitting image of Richard at that age. That’s why he’d looked familiar. Her gaze traveled to the bookcase, to the framed photos that stood amongst the books. There was an old, faded color photo of Richard at a similar age, standing in front of a yellow school bus, one foot on the stair, waving to his mother as he went forward boldly to his first day of kindergarten. But that was Richard: bold and fearless.
Nadine studied Julie. The other woman saw only Richard, her expression open and soft, and Nadine realized sadly that this young woman with the clear complexion and the toned body was in love with her husband. She couldn’t hide it. Nadine knew because she, too, had looked at her husband like that at one time. In the beginning. As time wore on, that had been tempered and buffered and their love had grown deeper, or that’s what she’d thought. Had their marriage been only one-sided?
Even though the obvious truth stared her right in the face, it made no sense, and Nadine caught a sharp breath as she tried to process it. Her stomach roiled around inside of her, anxious to rid itself of its contents.
“Richard?” she said .
Her husband of twenty years gave her a pitying look, which made her angry.
“I w-w-wanted to tell you, Nadine,” he started. “But there never seemed a right time.”
“I don’t believe this!” The words, on their own and out of her control, burst forth from her.
Richard set down Sam, and Julie took the child’s hand. As Richard reached for Nadine, she took a step back.
“No, tell me this isn’t true,” she pleaded.
He took a step closer, holding both his hands out to her. “I’m sorry, Nadine. I wanted to tell you myself.”
“When?” she asked, her voice shrill. She looked at Sam. “You’ve wanted to tell me this for what—four or five years? But couldn’t bring yourself to do it?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said.
Looking at Julie and Sam, she whispered, “It’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
Herman, sensing her distress, trotted around the coffee table toward her and leaned against her leg, looking up at her.
“How . . .” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, standing up straighter. Herman looked up at her and gave a little whine. She gave him a reassuring stroke on the top of his head. “How old is Sam?”
Julie spoke up. “He’ll be five in October.”
Nadine’s mind began to work backwards. Briefly, her eyes met with the other woman’s, and she knew Julie had read her mind: how she was counting back the years to figure out where her marriage was and what had been going on in their lives when this child of Richard’s was conceived and born.
Five years ago, Emma was having braces put on her teeth. They’d spent two weeks at a house right on the ocean in Rodanthe in the Outer Banks. They’d been happy. Or at least she had.
She swallowed down her emotions, trying not to cry, but her pride went down first in one big gulp.
Richard was about to say something, but Nadine cut him off. “When did you find the time to have an affair, a child, while working and traveling for your job?” He must be some kind of Marvel superhero. There were only so many hours in the day, and it was clear that he was spending time with his son.
He stammered and ran his hand through his short-cropped hair. “I don’t travel anymore.”
“Since when?”
“Since the promotion to vice president.”
Six years ago. It all fell into place. While she’d believed he was in another city working for two or three days a week, he’d been living with Julie and Sam. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. She felt like the stupidest person on the planet. That old axiom that the wife was the last to know was true .
At that moment, Emma appeared in the doorway, tennis racket in hand, sports bag over her shoulder. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Nadine squeezed her eyes shut. Emma.
“Emma!” Richard said, surprised.
As Nadine brushed past Richard, he reached out for her, his expression pained. “You don’t have to go.” His voice was pleading.
She looked at him, no longer recognizing the man she’d lived with for more than twenty years. Pulling her arm out of his reach, she said to their daughter, “Your father will explain everything.” And she left the room, not missing the bewildered look on her daughter’s face.
In that moment, her devastation turned to outrage at the thought of her daughter being hurt. But there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to clobber her husband for being selfish enough to put them through this.
She took the stairs two at a time with Herman following her, seeking the refuge of her bedroom. As she ascended the staircase, she could hear Richard’s whispered words to Emma, followed by their daughter’s wail. “What?”
Inside her bedroom, she slammed the door shut and leaned against it, sliding down to the floor until she sat on the plush carpet, burying her head in her hands and allowing the tears to fall.
Her life as she knew it was over.