Chapter 46
It’s been a minute since Ingrid’s been back to see her intimacy coach, Geneva. After the disastrous soup episode at Alec’s, she knows she has to talk to someone.
Every time she thinks of her ridiculous behavior, she’s disgusted with herself. How could she have gone to the house of a stranger who picked up her keys off a dirty grocery store floor, thinking he might be the answer to her problems? It was so irresponsible and juvenile.
And what about Kyle? After all that’s happened, can they ever get back to a good place? She’s so confused. Ingrid taps her feet anxiously as she waits for Geneva. She pulls up the Sophie Halloway Vanity Fair interview on her phone as she waits. It dropped over the weekend.
“Sophie Halloway Knows Her Worth” is the official title.
In the video interview, Sophie describes how painful it was to have her salary for her first movie—something she told Camila in confidence—get used against her, the death threats she received, and how Camila did not even call her back.
Just as Ingrid predicted, a heated debate ignited on the internet over whether what Camila did was cool.
Was it selfish using another woman to make a point?
Someone who was just starting out in her career?
By Monday, Camila and mean girl were trending, alongside Sophie Halloway and know your worth.
The internet is fully invested in their drama.
Ingrid feels a tremendous sense of heaviness and grief reading the article.
Contrary to what anyone else thinks, she does not enjoy watching any of this. But it had to be done.
Geneva walks in. Ingrid jumps a little from the couch. She puts her phone down.
“Ingrid! I’m surprised to see you here! Kyle said you wanted to take a break.” Geneva plops down across from her, holding a notebook and a pen.
“I’m sorry, take a break from you?” Ingrid asks.
“Or from me?” She realizes the absurdity of the question, but they really haven’t communicated.
She has a deep, sinking suspicion that Kyle can somehow smell her betrayal.
But after his initial text, he’s never again tried to bring up the night she didn’t come home.
“From me,” Geneva says, giving her a funny look. Her finger does a little circle in the air. “From this!”
Ingrid lets out a breath of relief, then laughs.
“No.” She shakes her head. “I want to do this. There’s just been…
a lot on my mind.” She’s tempted for a second to tell Geneva about the statements she found—the root cause of her recent activities.
But knowing Geneva, she’d milk that for at least twenty more sessions.
Does Ingrid really want to unpack it and hash it out for that long?
Isn’t it better to just forget and move on?
“Why don’t we just work on you today?” Geneva suggests.
“OK…What do you want to know?” Ingrid asks, shifting in her seat.
“I want to hear about your childhood.”
“My childhood? What does that have to do with me and Kyle?”
“Everything! Our foundation when it comes to trust and relationships comes from our experiences as children. Whom we trusted. How it worked out.” Geneva’s gaze lingers on Ingrid’s hands, which at the moment are gripping the corner of one of her couch cushions so tightly, the whole cushion has changed shape.
“I can tell trust is something you hold dearly.”
Ingrid lets go of the couch cushion. “Yes. Trust is important to me. I can forgive almost anything else. But loyalty and trust…those are essential.”
Geneva puts the pen to her chin. “Loyalty and trust aren’t the same thing…”
“What?” Ingrid asks.
“Loyalty is total commitment and allegiance to someone, whereas trust is based on a social contract that works both ways. I would say loyalty’s a much more imposing expectation than trust.”
“Well, I think they’re the same.”
“Interesting.” Geneva scribbles in her notebook. “And when did you first start feeling this terrified of broken allegiance?”
Ingrid sits with the question. As peeved as she is that Geneva put it to her this way, she thinks back to her childhood.
Her parents’ old dining table comes to her mind.
Sitting around that table always made her antsy.
Half the time, her dad was out with another woman.
The other half, he’d sit stoically. Except when he was telling stories.
Her dad was a gifted storyteller. She particularly loved the stories he told about the people at his work.
They would make her giggle inside, but out of loyalty to her mom, she never laughed out loud.
Loyalty is the highest form of love. She wonders if Geneva would even understand that.
Then her phone dings. It’s a text from Kyle.
Hey…call me when you have a sec. Connor had a little accident on his moped. Don’t worry, everything’s ok. He’s just a little shaken up.
She jumps up from her seat, the shock ricocheting through her. She’s relieved Connor’s all right.
“I’ve got to go,” she tells Geneva. “I’ll call you!”
—
Ingrid runs up the stairs when she gets home. She finds Kyle in their bedroom. “What happened? I came as soon as I could. Is he OK?”
Kyle reaches out his arms to hug her. She walks into them. They cling to each other, united in their deep love for their son. “Yeah, he’s fine. He was driving to the beach on the thing, and the road was wet. The bike skidded and crashed onto the beach. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt.”
“That’s the end of that thing,” Ingrid says firmly to her husband.
Kyle nods. “I told him already.”
“And he heard you?” Ingrid asks, just to be sure.
“I made it crystal clear to him,” Kyle assures her.
He pulls her in tighter and puts his chin on her hair.
“He’s a good kid. He knows.” It feels nice, holding her husband.
She closes her eyes, thinking of everything they’ve built, the beautiful children they made, the life they share together.
They’re a family. They’re a team. That means more than one stupid night, or multiple stupid nights.
As she opens her eyes, vowing to let go of the past, something catches her gaze. A bouquet of lilies. “What’s that?”
“The flowers? Maggie brought them over,” Kyle says.
Maggie came over again? Ingrid stops hugging her husband and walks to the other side of the room. She examines the flowers. They’ve been snipped at the ends, which means Dolores must have cut them. Ingrid waits until Kyle’s out of the room before calling for her.
“Yes, ma’am?” Dolores asks, walking in.
She smiles. “Thanks for cutting the flowers,” she says, pointing to the lilies. “By the way, how long was Maggie over here for?”
“About one hour, ma’am.”
She tries to keep her breathing steady as she absorbs this.
“And what was she doing?” she asks casually. “Where was she? In the backyard? The living room?”
“She was upstairs.”
Upstairs. The word makes her want to drain out all of Maggie’s blood from her body.