Chapter 47 Henry
Chapter 47
Henry
The four of them stare blankly at each other, wondering who’s going to speak first.
Sienna shakes her head. “Tell me I just woke up from a miserable fucking nightmare, because—”
And she stops herself. The reality too shocking to repeat.
Adam stands and heads toward the open wine from last night, and even though it’s not even nine, he pours himself a drink. Henry studies his movements, remembering a time when they were like brothers. Remembering how they managed college together, held each other’s firstborns, but today his squinty blue eyes and short-cropped hair irritate him. His smug mouth, always in some dickish smirk. He restrains himself from slugging Adam in the other eye.
“Someone needs to explain to me what happened last summer,” Sienna says.
Lucy tried to explain the night before, but Henry turned his back on her when she climbed into bed. Henry isn’t one to overreact. He collects data and sorts it out in his head, sifting through facts to make informed decisions. Science has served him well, but this time, the answers are out of reach.
They probably should have the conversation in their room or take it outside. They could hurl insults into the open air, hurl their disappointment across the murky pond. But Henry feels beaten. First his father and the De La Rues, and now this. These were his people. And even though Adam has changed in ways he doesn’t understand, their history glues them together. They’ve always been there for each other.
He catches Sienna’s pitiful stare across the table. “Is anyone going to answer me?” she asks.
Anger rises in his chest. The swell started as a simmer, but then it grew. How long it’s been growing, he’s not sure. He hasn’t felt awake or alive in a while, drowning in resentment. This thing with Lucy and Adam, it’s tipped him over. Like the dying stars he studies, he’s crashing at an inordinate speed. If he can’t get himself under control, he too will burst. His voice is calm, but fury bleeds through. He repeats Sienna’s question. “How did this happen?”
“What do you want, Henry? A fucking play-by-play?” Adam doesn’t even attempt to disguise his arrogance.
“Don’t make me have this conversation with my fist,” Henry says casually. “How the fuck did you end up screwing my wife?”
“I told you,” Adam says. “We didn’t have sex.”
We. Henry tries to wrap his head around the word that ties his best friend to his wife, the mother of his children.
The table is silent, and the only sound comes from a faucet nearby with a tentative drip.
Lucy’s hunched over with her face buried in her hands. Sienna waits.
“Let’s not do this,” Lucy says into her palms.
Sienna doesn’t flinch. “We’re doing this.” Disgust falls from her tongue. “And when I get up from this table, I’m done.” She directs her gaze at Adam. “So this is your last chance to tell me this didn’t happen. That this is some sick joke.”
“It’s not a joke.” It comes out in barely a whisper, and when Lucy lifts her head, tears stain her face.
Sienna’s forehead crinkles as if she’s misunderstood. She shakes her head and takes a deep swallow. “Lucy.” Her face crumples. “You can’t ... you can’t be serious ... it’s me ... it’s us ...” Her voice shakes. “We shared everything.” Henry can’t help but think it’s a fact that doesn’t age well, but there’s no time to point it out because Sienna’s bombarding Lucy with questions. “Were you having an affair? Has this been going on—”
Lucy stares straight ahead—not at Henry, not at Sienna. She talks robotically, her words dull and practiced. Henry doesn’t understand how she held them in this long. How she kept this secret as they lay next to each other in bed night after night. “We were all really fucked-up last year.” As if that’s a valid excuse, but she keeps going. “Henry ... this thing with his father ... we were hanging on by a thread.”
He glares at his wife, this woman he once knew intimately, the one who’s now a stranger. “Please don’t blame this on me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sienna implores her friend, as though adultery weren’t enough of a crime. He will never understand the mystery of female friendships. Her voice is shrill. “How could you keep something like this from me?”
Lucy’s voice rises; her hand gestures at Sienna. “Look at your life. It’s damn near perfect. How could I tell you? It was humiliating.”
Henry cowers.
Sienna nods. “I get that.” And then she stops. “I mean, the part about it being difficult. But Adam and I ... so, you hook up with him? Why? For what?”
“I don’t know!” Lucy yells, raising her hands in question. “I was in a dark place. I was scared. I was lonely. And alone.”
Sienna eyes her questioningly. “With all your training ... all the advice you’ve given me over the years ... you were my person ... my vault ... I trusted you!”
Lucy can’t face her. It’s tough for Henry to watch.
“What happened?” Sienna asks. “You need to tell me. I deserve answers.” Then, as if she’s afraid of those same answers, she lets out a sob. “I don’t get it. Adam throws some attention your way and you ... did you even think about our friendship? About our kids?”
Lucy shrinks into the stool, and she answers plainly, “No. In that moment, I did not.”
Adam mutters under his breath, but they all hear. “There wasn’t much time to think.”
Sienna swings around, her hair smacking her face. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” she says. “Really. Just shut up.”
And Henry can’t help himself. “Adam.” He fixes on his friend. “Have you really forgotten who you once were? Who we were? All of us? The shit we’ve been through?” Adam’s face remains unchanged. “I’ve made excuses to justify your bullshit. But you can really be offensive.” He can’t think of a better word. “To be honest, I haven’t liked you in recent years. I’ve tolerated you at best, out of respect for Sienna and Lucy’s friendship. But you’re not even close to the guy you used to be. You’ve turned into one of the most pretentious, self-important people I’ve ever met, and as embarrassing as it is to have Michael Wall as my father, your obnoxious entitlement may be worse. I don’t doubt for a second you made this happen.”
Sienna screams for them to stop. She’s crying, tears bursting from her eyes as she swipes at them with the back of her hand.
“If we’re going to do this here,” Lucy begins, “let’s just get it over with.”
Lucy’s undeterred. He can tell by the way she sits up, how her hands clasp together, the determined expression in her eyes. She trains those same eyes on Henry. Only him. And she talks to him freely, as though no one else is in the room. She sobs, intermittently, then briefly composes herself. It breaks his heart to listen. “I’ve loved only you, Henry. There’s never been anyone else. But you won’t let me in. You’ve built your wall so high, I can’t climb it. Since the story broke about your father, you’ve disappeared. Staring up at those stars, living in another world. Away from me. Away from the kids.”
She isn’t wrong. She’s trained to pick up on couples shutting each other out.
His eyes wander over to Adam, who’s playing with his expensive watch.
“You and I were both complicit last summer,” Lucy says.
“Except I didn’t try to fuck your best friend.” Henry detests the words falling from his tongue.
“I didn’t sleep with Adam.” She’s a little more indignant this time. “I don’t know how much of that night you remember, but I came back to the room. I tried to get close to you ... and it wasn’t the first time. It had been months since we—”
He shakes his head. Great. More fodder for Adam to use. “You had no idea what it was like.”
“No, I didn’t. And you didn’t give me a chance to help.” Now she focuses on Adam, dismantling his ego with her stare. “I went outside. Adam was there. He poured me another drink ... the last thing I needed.” She doesn’t break the stare, forcing him to turn away. “Maybe I was starving for something. Affection. Attention. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. And I wasn’t in my right mind. I never drink like that. With pot. We were sitting in the grass ... he was ...”
Sienna stands up and heads toward the sink. “I can’t listen to this.” She proceeds to vomit in the steel basin.
“We didn’t have sex.”
“Just stop,” Sienna says, wiping her lips. She drinks directly from the tap.
“No. You need to hear this. We all need to hear this. Then there’ll be nothing left to the imagination.” She rakes a hand through her hair. “I can’t hold on to the ugliness any longer.” She sits back. “We fell back on the grass. Sloppy. Incoherent. And it happened. One minute we were laughing about old times, and the next ... he was on me ... we kissed ... that was it.”
“On you?” Sienna’s hands cover her face.
“It was just a kiss.”
“A kiss?” Sienna asks. “Like a friendly lip thing? But he was on you?”
Adam stirs his coffee.
“Adam?” Sienna prods.
Their eyes prance around the room. Henry’s disgusted.
“It wasn’t a friendly lip thing,” Adam admits.
“Tongue?” Sienna paces around the table.
“Tongue was involved.”
“How long?”
“Fuck, Sienna,” Adam begins. “You want to know how long? I don’t know. I was plastered.”
“Actually, I do want to know, because there’s a big difference between your tongue mistakenly finding its way inside my best friend’s mouth and a full-blown make-out session.”
“No blowing was involved.”
“Why is this a joke to you?” Sienna asks.
“He may have grabbed my ...” Lucy’s palm lands on her chest.
Henry clenches his cup and throws back some ice water. Adam is working his every last nerve.
“I don’t think I did,” Adam says.
Lucy holds his eyes in hers. “You did.”
The images plant themselves in Henry’s brain. Adam sticking his tongue down Lucy’s throat, clutching at her breasts.
“You have everything you want,” he says. “You had to have Lucy too?”
Lucy gazes at Henry, tears spilling over. “I’m sorry.” And then she turns toward Sienna. “I know our friendship is over, but you have to know, I’d give anything to go back and change that night. It was a mistake. And I’m sorry.”
Sienna stares out the window, her back to the table.
“It was me who asked for the divorce,” Lucy continues. “Even when I knew I loved Henry ... I knew how big of a mistake it was ... I couldn’t face him with this secret between us. Hating myself felt better than having all of you hate me.”
Adam’s annoyed. He crosses his arms at his chest. “Why exactly are you doing this, Lucy? It’s not helping, but at least you’ll have a clear conscience, right?”
She holds her chin up when she speaks. “I’m nothing like you, Adam.”
After Henry has a moment to dissolve the image of Adam doing whatever he did in the grass with his wife, he considers his wife’s courage. He could never have done that. He kept his dirty secret hidden, let it crawl inside and wreak havoc.
Lucy would tell him it takes two to break up a marriage, and he knows he’s been an active participant in this. He has been a silent partner. He shut her out. But he can’t admit that yet. The anger is too raw. But the fact that she stood at this table and confessed, knowing how much it would destroy, is more than he has ever done. He is a coward. And his lies hurt the people he loves most.
“There’s something else,” Lucy says.
Adam’s eyes narrow in on hers.
“There’s something else I want to say. If we’re being honest here.” And she gazes squarely at Sienna. “There’s something you need to know.”
Adam’s face twitches, a mix of fear and desperation. “Come on, Lucy. That’s enough.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he says.
Which is all the trigger she needs. But then Penny waltzes in the room, beelining for the fridge.