5. While I Was Doing His Life
Chapter Five
WHILE I WAS DOING HIS LIFE
Unfortunately, you don’t discover a long betrayal once. You discover it repeatedly.
Tuesday morning, I see a frozen lasagna I made in August. Justin came home late that night. Now I know he was likely with Julia.
Wednesday, a Ridgemont truck passes my office. Justin had claimed he had a training weekend, but he’d been with Julia.
Thursday, Justin’s mother texts asking whether I ordered the furnace filters he told her I’d handle. He’d been too busy to take care of it, because he needed time for Julia.
Old memories acquire new footnotes, and the worst images aren’t always sexual. Those arrive, of course, because my brain is cruel enough to supply details I never asked for. But the thing that truly consumes me is time.
I meet with Meredith Malone Friday afternoon. She’s in her fifties with silver-blond hair, a navy suit, and an expression calm enough to make me feel steadier simply by sitting across from her.
She doesn’t tell me she’s sorry. She tells me what happens next with property, accounts, retirement, our house, and our vehicles. She gives me possible timelines.
There are no children, and neither Justin nor I own a business. If we can agree on the financial terms, the divorce should be relatively straightforward.
The word feels absurd. Still, I appreciate the idea that something in my life can be straightforward.
When I leave, I cry in my car for six minutes, then I go back to work.
That evening, Amy and I spread bank statements across my kitchen table.
“You don’t have to do this all tonight,” she says.
“I need to.”
“What are you trying to find?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She picks up a highlighter. “Whatever it is, I’m helping.”
We find restaurant charges, gas stations, hardware purchases, and the cabin deposit on Justin’s personal credit card. There’s nothing particularly extravagant, just my husband spending ordinary marital life on somebody else.
Forty-eight dollars at a restaurant on a Tuesday he told me he ate pizza at the station.
Seventy-four dollars at a home-improvement store the Saturday I cleaned our garage.
One hundred twelve dollars at a steakhouse near Waverly Lake.
“He spent more on that dinner than he spent on my birthday. He bought me grocery-store flowers.”
Amy’s mouth tightens. “He’s an idiot.”
Then more memories hit. The Sunday I visited Justin’s mother because her hip hurt and carried laundry downstairs for her. He was at Julia’s.
The night I wrapped his sister’s birthday present. Julia.
The evening I formatted Christmas toy-drive letters while Justin was “helping somebody.” Probably Julia.
The time I spent on hold with his insurance company while he texted me a heart.
My throat closes, and Amy notices.
“What?” she asks.
“I kept thinking he was busy, so I took things off his plate.”
“Brooke—”
“The busier he got, the more I did.” The realization becomes clearer as I say it. “I made his appointments because he didn’t have time. I handled association paperwork because he was busy. I ran family errands, took care of things around the house, fixed his insurance, cleaned the garage alone.”
Amy reaches across the table.
“He didn’t somehow find free time for Julia.” I look at her. “He handed me his responsibilities and spent the hours I gave back to him on her.”
Amy squeezes my hand. “That’s what he did.”
The realization gives me clarity. Justin didn’t merely cheat during spare moments. He made me carry more of our life so he could live a second one.
The next afternoon, the community-center manager calls. “Brooke, I’m sorry to bother you.”
My stomach tightens as she explains that complaints were made about the Halloween party. More importantly, the center’s reduced civic rate applies only to legitimate community or charitable events, and the paperwork I signed identified the Halloween gathering as a fundraiser.
“I’m sorry,” I say automatically, then I stop. Why am I apologizing?
The manager seems to have the same thought. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m calling because your name is on the reservation.”
“I booked the building because Justin told me the fire association was holding a fundraiser.”
“That’s what I suspected.”
“I didn’t organize the party.”
“I understand.”
“I wasn’t even supposed to attend.”
“Oh.” It’s that small-town oh again.
“I’ll send you the texts where Justin asked me to reserve it,” I say. “Anything about what happened afterward needs to go through him.”
“Fair enough.”
“And I’m not doing the association’s administrative work anymore.”
“I don’t blame you.”
I hang up and forward the original messages. We had a conversation about the room originally, but I’m glad he also texted a reminder the next day, so I have proof.
Can you reserve the community center for the association Halloween fundraiser?
My response: I can call later this morning. You’re handling everything after that, right?
Justin: Promise. Just book the room.
I send the exchange.
The association’s board asks for it Monday morning, and I send it to them too.
Justin calls before lunch. “What did you send them?”
“What they asked for.”
“You sent screenshots?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, Brooke.”
I lean back in my chair. “Is anything in them untrue?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“You made it look like I deliberately misled you.”
“You did.”
“The party changed after that.”
“And you never told me.”
“They’re demanding I reimburse the center,” he says.
“That sounds reasonable.”
“There’s the difference in the rental rate, extra cleanup, and some stupid charge because alcohol wasn’t disclosed.”
I don’t respond.
“Almost seven hundred dollars.”
Still nothing.
“Brooke.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“You could tell them you understood what the party was.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You knew it was Halloween.”
“It was supposed to be a Halloween fundraiser.”
He makes an aggravated sound. “They want me to step down.”
“As president?”
“Yes.”
I look through my office window. Amy is helping an older customer at the counter. Life is continuing at full speed while Justin discovers I’m no longer his emergency exit.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“I thought maybe you could explain that this got blown out of proportion.”
“No.”
Silence. “No?”
“No.”
“They listen to you.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have made me the person who could prove you lied.”
“Brooke.”
“I’m working.”
“I need help.” The words would once have moved me immediately, but not now.
“You had months to protect our marriage. You chose Julia.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither was spending your Saturday fixing her house while I cleaned ours.”
I hang up.
By the next week, Justin has resigned as association president and reimbursed the community center. He remains a volunteer. Nobody banishes him from town or destroys his livelihood, but the halo comes off.
For years, Justin has been the dependable guy. The man who gives his time. The civic-minded volunteer.
Now people know he used the association’s name to throw a private party with his ex-girlfriend while letting his wife believe she was booking a fundraiser.
The affair leaks out soon after. I only tell Amy, my parents, Meredith, and Justin’s mother, but Justin tells Brett, and Julia tells somebody, and that’s more than enough. Maple Oaks does the rest.
Carrie Milton looks at me with such elaborate sympathy one afternoon at the bank that I know the story has reached circulation.
Kara sends me a message: I am so sorry. Julia made it sound like you knew they’d gotten close again. I feel sick that I went to that party.
I stare at the text for a while, then answer: You didn’t do anything wrong.
She replies: She let all of us think it was okay.
That matters more than I expected. Julia and Justin didn’t just lie to me. They built a social setting where their relationship could look normal.
Matching costumes. Old stories. A room full of people laughing with them. If I hadn’t shown up, maybe the memory would have become one more private little thrill. The Halloween party where they got to be a couple in public while I sat at home.
Justin moves in with Julia the same week he resigns. He tells me it’s temporary, even though I don’t ask.
One evening he calls and says, “My reputation is trashed.”
I’m slicing an apple. “You threw the party.”
“You’re my wife.”
“Not for much longer.”
“You could’ve protected me a little.”
I set down the knife because the sentence is breathtaking. “Justin, protecting you is how I got here.”
He goes quiet.
“You don’t have a reputation problem because I told the truth,” I say. “You have one because people finally know what I was protecting.”
Then I hang up, leaving his mess exactly where he made it.