Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
Marilyn
What about our children? Voices in my head ran rampant!
I drove back to Tiburon on the numb autopilot that accompanies all acts of self-preservation. The bridge was just waking up, the bay littered with early-morning sailboats, and every familiar landmark looked alien, as if painted from memory by someone who’d never actually lived here.
I expected Michael’s car to be gone, parked at his office downtown, the way it always was by this hour.
But when I pulled up, it was in the driveway, angled slightly wrong, like he’d come home in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered to straighten out.
The house looked uninhabited, all the blinds closed, the kind of hush that makes you wonder if you’re the last person alive.
I let myself in. The silence had changed overnight. It was now the hush of defeat, not anticipation. I dropped my suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and listened, half-expecting to hear Michael on the phone, already in crisis management mode.
Instead, I found him in the study, sitting at the old desk where he used to pay bills and, later, coordinate million-dollar acquisitions. The laptop was open but the screen was blank, and he stared at it as if hoping it would explain his life to him.
He looked up when I entered, eyes bloodshot and ringed with fatigue.
“I thought you’d be at the office,” I said, keeping my tone as even as I could.
He shrugged, the movement barely perceptible. “I couldn’t go. Not today.”
“I’m just here to get my things,” I said. I didn’t look at him when I said it.
He nodded. “I know.”
I turned and left him there, not wanting to see what my absence looked like reflected in his face.
I climbed the stairs, the familiar creak of the second step now a knife rather than a comfort.
I entered the bedroom, went to the closet, and started pulling out what I needed.
I could hear him moving downstairs, aimless, sometimes pausing for several minutes at a time.
I was in the middle of cramming shirts into a duffel when the front door opened and a voice called up the stairs.
“Mom? Dad?”
Our daughter.
My hands trembled, mid-fold, as if my body realized before my brain did that everything was about to get exponentially worse.
I zipped the bag, went to the top of the stairs, and looked down. She stood in the entry, holding a coffee and her own set of keys, wearing sweatpants and a messy bun that perfectly encapsulated her proximity to adulthood.
She saw me first. “What’s going on?” she asked, frowning at the sight of my bag and the standoff pose of her father in the hallway.
I hesitated. I’d rehearsed dozens of explanations in my mind, but none seemed even remotely adequate.
Michael stepped forward, hands open, palms visible, as if approaching a wounded animal.
She looked from him to me and back. “Are you guys… separating?”
The word sounded foreign in her mouth. She’d never had to use it in reference to her own parents.
Michael’s gaze flickered to me, as if asking permission. I nodded once.
He said, “I cheated on your mother.”
The words hit like a punch. She stepped back, sloshed coffee onto her hand, and stared at him with a horror that was new and bottomless.
“Are you kidding me?” she said, voice rising. “What the fuck, Dad?”
He didn’t try to deny it, didn’t retreat. “I’m sorry. There’s no excuse.”
She turned to me, tears threatening, her whole body rigid with betrayal. “You’re leaving?”
I nodded, unable to trust my voice.
She looked at Michael, then back at me, as if the answer to how this could have happened was hidden in the space between us.
“How could you do this?” she said, but the question was aimed at both of us.
Michael looked shattered, but all he said was, “I made a terrible mistake. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right.”
She laughed—sharp, incredulous, unkind. “There’s no making this right,” she said, and stormed up the stairs past me, slamming her bedroom door so hard the walls vibrated.
I lingered on the landing, breathing hard. Below, Michael just stood, staring at the space where she’d been.
I went into her room, closed the door quietly, and found her curled up on the bed, face buried in a pillow. She was too old for me to climb in beside her, so I sat on the edge, close enough to touch but not touching.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “Until yesterday. I left as soon as he told me.”
She nodded into the pillow but didn’t look at me.
“I don’t know what will happen next,” I admitted. “But I had to leave.”
She wiped her nose, turned over, and stared at the ceiling. “Are you going to divorce him?”
I couldn’t answer. Instead, I said, “We need time.”
She sniffled, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, and said, “I hate him right now.”
I reached for her hand, and she let me take it.
We sat there for a long time, neither of us speaking.
When I finally emerged, Michael was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, looking as though he’d aged a decade in a day.
I picked up my bag and paused. “She’ll forgive you,” I said, though I didn’t know if I believed it.
He nodded. “Will you?”
I left the question hanging as I stepped out the door.
In the driveway, I heard our daughter’s voice upstairs—angryand wild, but alive—and wondered if that was the sound of a family breaking or just changing shape.
I got in my car, started the engine, and drove away, letting the house shrink behind me. The sun was already high, burning off the morning fog, and for the first time in my life, I had no idea where I was supposed to go.
But I knew I wasn’t going back.