4. The Stairwell
Chapter Four
THE STAIRWELL
Maybe I should wait until we get home. There are probably several more dignified places to confront a husband about cheating than the hallway outside a small accounting office, but dignity has become significantly less important to me than answers.
I stop near the emergency stairwell and turn. “Did you go to Harvest Days with Bree?”
Owen blinks. “What?”
“Saturday. Did you go with her?”
“I was working Saturday.”
I unlock my phone and hold up the photograph.
He looks at it, and for a second, he doesn’t say anything. Then he exhales. “I ran into her.”
I almost laugh. “You ran into her at a festival twenty-five minutes away?”
“I had deliveries nearby.”
“Did you literally run into her? Is that why your hand is on her waist?”
He looks at the photograph again. “It looks worse than it was.”
“How was it, exactly?”
“Melanie, lower your voice.” He glances toward the office door.
I stare at him. “Are you worried she’ll hear?”
“What? No.”
“Then explain.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “Fine. She was there. We walked around for a little while.”
“You said you ran into her.”
“I did.”
“And then you spent the afternoon together.”
“Not the afternoon,” he says.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Give me your best guess, Owen.”
He glances to the side, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “A couple hours.”
The words settle hard in my stomach.
“So you lied to me.”
“Because I knew you’d make this into something.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “You went with another woman to a fall festival I had invited you to, then you lied about it because you knew I might think it was something?”
“Listen to how you’re saying that.”
“How should I say it?”
“She’s a friend.”
“Give me your phone.”
He stiffens. “What?”
“Your phone.”
“No.”
Every particle of air leaves my body. “No?”
“I’m not handing you my phone because you’re worked up.”
“I’m worked up because you lied.”
“There’s nothing on my phone.”
“Then hand it to me.”
His jaw tightens. “No.” That answer tells me more than anything else has.
“Did you kiss her?”
His head jerks back as if I’ve slapped him. “What?”
“Did you kiss Bree?”
“No.”
I look at him, and he looks away. The hallway seems to narrow, the walls slanting inward toward the ceiling.
“Oh my God.”
“Mel—”
“Oh my God.”
“She kissed me.”
I take a step backward. “What?”
“It happened once.”
“When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“She kissed you.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Did you kiss her back?”
His silence is answer enough. I press my hand to my mouth, and for a moment, I can’t breathe properly.
“Mel.” He reaches for me, but I jerk away.
“How long?”
“It was one kiss.”
“How long have you been flirting?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“A couple months,” he says, looking down at the floor.
“Have you slept with her?”
“No.” The answer is immediate.
“Have you done anything else?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
“Have you taken your clothes off with her?”
He looks around the empty hallway again. “No.”
“Touched her sexually?”
“Mel. No.”
“Has she touched you?”
“No.”
“Have you met outside work besides Saturday?”
He hesitates, then says, “A couple times.”
“Where?”
“Lunch. Coffee.”
I shut my eyes for a long second. “Why?”
He looks miserable. “I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“She flirted with me.”
I stare at him, and he seems to hear how pathetic he sounds.
“I liked it,” he adds. “Okay? I liked the attention.”
“So you flirted back.”
“Yes.”
“And then you kissed her.”
“Yes.”
“But nothing else happened,” I say.
“Nothing.”
“Swear to me.”
“I swear.”
“Look at me.”
He does, and I search the face I’ve known for eleven years.
“Did you have sex with Bree?” I ask again.
“No.”
“Did you do anything sexual with Bree?”
“No.”
He looks like he’s telling the truth, but the idea of them only sharing a kiss seems hard to believe. At the same time, it’s hard to believe he could have sex with her when he’s also having sex with me.
“One kiss?” I ask again.
“One kiss.” His eyes are wet. He looks fearful rather than defensive now, and somehow that makes me want to believe him even more. “I love you,” he says.
I turn away.
“I love you, Melanie. I screwed up.”
“You lied to me.”
“I panicked.”
“You lied on Saturday.”
“I know.”
“You lied five minutes ago.”
“I know.” His voice breaks.
I close my eyes because eleven years is standing in front of me looking terrified, and eleven years is not easy to discard.
The face in front of me is the face I’ve seen sick with the flu, half asleep, laughing, grieving his father, and tearing up at our wedding when he saw me come down the aisle.
Eleven years doesn’t just disappear because of one kiss.
“I’ll go to counseling,” he says quickly. “Whatever you want. Couples counseling. Individual. Both.”
“You’ve already thought about counseling?”
“No. I mean, I’ve been trying to figure out how to stop all this.”
“All what?”
“The flirting,” he says. “Everything.”
“You said it was one kiss.”
“It was. I just mean I’m glad you know before anything worse happened.” The second the words leave his mouth, he sees it. “Nothing worse would’ve happened,” he says immediately. “That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you telling me everything?”
“Yes.”
“If I find out there’s more, we’re finished.”
“There isn’t.”
“I mean that.”
“So do I.” He holds my gaze. “One kiss. That’s all it was. I swear.”
I believe him enough that my heart breaks.
“Go,” I say.
“What?”
“I need time.”
“Come home. We’ll talk.”
“Owen, just go. Please.”
Eventually he does, and I stand alone in the hallway trying to stop my heart from pounding, and trying not to feel like I might throw up. I tell myself I can go back to my desk, work another few hours, and decide later what my marriage looks like.
Then I picture Bree sitting at reception.
I push through the stairwell door, sit on the concrete step, and tell myself I’m allowed two minutes. I’ll cry for two minutes, then I’ll pull myself together.
Minute one isn’t even finished when the door above opens, and footsteps come down the stairs. I wipe my face quickly, but before I can pretend I’m fine, Mark Benson rounds the landing and stops short.
“Melanie?”
“Hi.” My voice breaks so badly that the greeting sounds absurd.
His expression shifts. “Do you need help?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
I start crying harder, but choke out, “I’m sorry.”
He looks bewildered. “For what?”
“This is humiliating.”
He sits three steps above me, giving me space without making a show of giving it. “Do you want water?”
“No.”
“Want me to call someone?”
“No.”
We sit quietly for a while. He doesn’t ask any more questions, and my tears gradually stop.
Finally, because the words have to go somewhere, I whisper, “My husband kissed our receptionist.”
Mark’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything cruel about Owen or tell me what I should do. All he says is, “I’m sorry,” and that nearly starts me crying all over again.
“I can’t go back into the office today,” I say. “I don’t want anyone to see me.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I need my purse.”
“We can figure that out.” He thinks for a second. “Our suite connects to the south stairwell. You can use my conference room, call your boss, and then leave without going past the first-floor reception.”
I look at him. “Why are you being so nice?”
His eyebrows rise. “Should I be less nice?”
Despite everything, I laugh.
“There,” he says. “That sounded better.”
He takes me upstairs through Benson Commercial Design, which is busier and louder than I’ve heard it before. Someone calls from across the room, “Mark, tell Nina the Carrington wall cannot physically float.”
Without slowing, Mark says, “Nina, the Carrington wall cannot physically float.”
A voice answers from behind a partition. “Negative thinking!”
Mark glances at me and shrugs, and I laugh again. For a few minutes, I’m not Owen’s humiliated wife or Bree’s betrayed coworker; I’m simply Melanie from downstairs being led through a slightly chaotic design firm.
Mark gives me privacy in a conference room while I call my boss, then walks me to my car after Connie sneaks my purse to me through the alternate stairwell.
He stops several feet away.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Of course.”
“Really.”
He nods, then looks at me with a seriousness that doesn’t feel intrusive. “Whatever you decide, make sure it’s what you want.”
What I want. I drive home holding on to that.