Chapter 94
Savannah
Last week
Jon had gone, leaving his wife to do the talking. And, Savannah realized now, that spoke volumes. Slinking away at the first sign of trouble. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
With a shake of her head, she stepped toward the kettle.
She was having more coffee. Whether or not Susan wanted to join her was up to her.
She had to admit, though, she was curious.
What kind of person agrees to an open marriage?
Especially with a newborn baby in the mix? Unless…Maybe the baby wasn’t Jon’s?
She turned and inclined her head to invite Susan into the kitchen for what was surely to be the strangest conversation of her life.
“Coffee?” That seemed like a reasonable start.
Susan, looking grim and irritated, stepped into the kitchen and nodded. “Sure.”
She nodded toward Savannah’s wedding photo on the shelf by the back door.
“You’re married too, I see?”
“Divorced. Your…arrangement is not for everyone. Is Jon telling the truth? You really don’t mind him seeing other people?”
Susan exhaled heavily. “It’s not an ideal marriage,” she said dryly, “but we make it work.”
“Why not divorce?”
She rolled her eyes. “We get on well as friends, we both like our house and neither of us wants to move out. And we have Bella to think of.” Another grimace. “The baby.”
“So you…” Savannah tried to think of a way to ask her next question.
“Yes, we occasionally still sleep together, and Bella was the unplanned outcome of one such occasion.” Susan looked deeply uncomfortable now. Perhaps this was the first time she’d come face to face with one of Jon’s girlfriends. Assuming there were others and this had been going on for a while.
“Has it always been like this? Or is it a new arrangement?”
Susan paused, as if trying to remember. “A few years now.”
“I think he’s seeing someone else too,” Savannah said as she washed out the cafetière and Jon’s abandoned coffee cup. “A woman called here last night and confronted me. Really aggressively.”
Susan looked taken aback.
“You didn’t know he was seeing other people as well as me?”
“I…no. But nothing would surprise me about Jon this morning. Absolutely nothing.”
Savannah added two heaped spoons of ground coffee to the cafetière and filled it halfway with boiling water.
“God, I can’t believe he didn’t just tell me. Why lie, if you knew anyway?” Savannah carried the cafetière and two clean mugs to the table, nodding for Susan to sit.
“Would you have agreed to go out with him if you’d known he was married, open marriage or not?” Susan asked.
“Probably not. Yeah, I see how it could be a mood killer.”
“Jon is a man-baby,” Susan said. “He’s weak. He’s needy. He wants to have his cake and eat it. He’s an all-round useless specimen of a human.”
Savannah poured coffee. “That doesn’t sound like ‘we get on well as friends.’ ”
Susan seemed to shake herself. “It doesn’t, does it? Maybe I’m getting too old for this.”
“How, um, old…”
“How old am I? Really, that’s what you want to know?” Susan looked amused. “I’m forty-six.”
“Wow, and you just had a baby. That’s amazing!”
“Yes. Not what I expected.”
“How old is the baby?”
“She’s four months.”
“And will you tell her when she’s older?”
“We…we haven’t thought that far ahead. Look, thanks for the coffee, but I’d better get going.” Susan pushed back her chair, leaving the coffee untouched. “I run a hockey camp and I need to check in.”
Savannah eyed her curiously. Wasn’t she a maths teacher? Maybe this was a summer gig.
“Oh, of course. Who minds the baby?”
“What?” Susan looked suddenly flustered. “My…my sister.”
Savannah examined the visitor’s face. Why the fluster over a straightforward question? She couldn’t help pushing for more.
“Oh, cool, does your sister live nearby?”
“Next door.”
Savannah knew she was on to something. Susan definitely looked uncomfortable now, far more so than when talking about her open marriage.
“That’s handy. What’s her name?”
“It doesn’t matter what her name is. I really have to go.”
Savannah looked at her quizzically. “Why aren’t you on maternity leave?”
“What?”
“You said you have to go to work—why aren’t you on maternity leave?”
“Because I, well, the hockey camp is my own business and—”
Susan was really floundering now.
Savannah’s eyes went to her hand, to her left ring finger.
And suddenly it all made sense.
“You’re not Susan, are you?”
And the woman with the red hair sat back down.