Chapter 5 #2
"I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth."
Her eyes changed. Confusion moved through them. And then, slowly, a dawning recognition that the question he was about to ask was not a question about doctor's appointments, due dates or nursery colors.
“What are you talking about?"
"The timing." He could hear his own voice. It was steady, controlled and completely disconnected from the war raging inside his chest. "I've been looking at the timing, Isabelle. Six weeks. Six weeks puts us in early March. I was in New York the first week of March."
"You came home Friday."
"I came home Friday night. You were already asleep."
"And we were together that weekend. Xavier, we were together that weekend. What are you asking me?"
A reasonable man would have stopped there, apologized, blamed the stress. Held his wife and let it go.
But Xavier could no longer see reason. He could only see the locked room and what had climbed out of it: a tall, good-looking man with sharp features and a history with his wife that didn't include Xavier.
"Douglas Torres moved back to San Francisco in early March," he said.
For a moment she didn't speak. She stood perfectly still with the kitchen towel in her hands, her lips parted. He watched comprehension arrive on her face like something breaking, and even as it broke he couldn't stop himself.
"Are you asking me," she said, very quietly, "if this baby is yours?"
He looked at her and let the silence hold.
"Are you asking me if I slept with Douglas?" she repeated, her voice coming louder now.
"I'm asking you to explain the timing. And while you're at it," he said, and his voice was ice, "explain why you kept this pregnancy from me for days.
Explain why you told no one. Explain why Douglas Torres shows up after years, moves back to San Francisco in the exact window of conception, and suddenly you're pregnant with a baby you didn't mention until you had no choice. "
Isabelle flinched. She physically flinched, as though he'd struck her.
The flinch should have stopped him. It didn't.
“Xavier,” she whispered, tears filling her blue eyes.
“How— how can you—” She stopped. Closed her eyes.
"I have loved you since I was eighteen years old.
I've been through four rounds of IVF, two miscarriages and I have wanted this baby, your baby, more than I have wanted anything in my entire life.
And you're standing there, looking at me like I'm a liar. "
"I want the truth."
"You have the truth! I've given you the truth!”
“Why did you come home from his apartment with his name in your mouth and a look on your face I haven't seen in months? I want you to explain that, Isabelle. Because I've been trying to explain it to myself and I can't."
His voice never rose. That was the cruelest part. He delivered every word at the same even register, the same controlled cadence, as though he were walking her through a term sheet. As though the destruction of their marriage were a line item he was flagging for review.
"Douglas is my friend. My friend, Xavier. He's been my friend since college. He brought pastries and we sat in the garden and talked about—about crown molding. That's the affair you've constructed. Pastries and crown molding. Jesus, Xavier!”
"And dinner on Divisadero. And wine. And coming home at nine-thirty glowing like a woman who's been?—"
"Don't." Her voice cut through his. "Don't you finish that sentence. Don't you dare."
He didn't finish it. He didn't need to. The unfinished sentence hung in the kitchen between them, obscene and deliberate, and they both knew what it contained.
"You didn't tell me about the pregnancy for days. You kept it from me."
"Because I was terrified! Because the last time I was pregnant I bled on the bathroom floor, alone, at two in the morning, and I called for you and you came running and you held me while I cried.
I—I couldn't do that again. I didn't keep it from you, I kept it safe.
I kept it safe until I could bear to say it out loud. "
She was crying now. Tears running down her face, her hands still pressed against the counter, her whole body trembling with something that was bigger than anger.
He'd seen her angry before. He'd seen her upset, frustrated, sad and exhausted. He'd never seen this. This was something giving way. This was the foundation of their marriage shifting under her feet, and she could feel it moving, and so could he, and he was the one who'd taken a sledgehammer to it.
But he couldn't stop. That was the horror of it.
He could see what he was doing. He could see the damage in real time, could see her face coming apart, could see years of trust dissolving in front of him, and he couldn't stop because the fear was bigger than the love.
In that moment, in that kitchen, the fear was bigger than everything.
"I trusted you," she whispered. "Every day.
Every single day of our marriage, I trusted you.
I never questioned you. Not the assistants or the colleagues or the women at your dinners who looked at you like they wanted to eat you alive.
I never once asked. Because I trusted you. And you can't give me the same thing."
Isabelle’s voice broke. She pressed both hands over her mouth.
The sound she made behind her hands was the worst thing Xavier had ever heard.
He wanted to tell her that no other woman existed for him, so her trust made all the sense in the world.
Instead, he said nothing, keeping his cold gaze trained on her.
When Isabelle took her hands away her face had changed. The anger was gone. The tears were still there but they'd gone cold, and what replaced the anger was worse. It was clarity.
"You've already decided," she whispered. "Haven't you? You didn't come home to ask me. You came home because you'd already decided."
"That's not true,” he bit out. But it was true. The decision was a cold thing in his chest, wrapped up in jealousy, pain and an ancient wound.
"Look at me and tell me you believe this baby is yours. Right now. Look at me and say it."
Xavier couldn't. He opened his mouth. He looked at this woman, his wife, the love of his life. I believe you, Isabelle. He could feel them in his throat. He could feel them pushing up against the locked room, pushing against the fear.
But they weren't strong enough. The fear won. The fear always won.
Instead, he said different words.
“I don’t believe you," he said, his voice sounding cold, hard, and foreign to his own ears. Xavier turned away, unable to look at her shattered expression. “I think that you should leave.”