Chapter 6 #3
I watched them talk about baseball and college and how the ocean looked different depending on the weather, and felt the usual ache of watching my mother exist between past and present. She was still there, still herself, but increasingly distant from the world the rest of us lived in.
We sang "Happy Birthday" around a cake from the bakery she used to love. Seventy-eight candles would have been a fire hazard, so we used the number in frosting and let her blow out a single candle.
She made a wish with her eyes closed tight, looking like a little girl instead of a woman who'd survived eight decades of life's accumulated disappointments and small victories.
"What did you wish for?" Paula asked.
"If I tell you, it won't come true," Mom said with a smile that contained traces of the woman who'd taught me to drive and held my babies when they were too small to support themselves.
Later that night, after cake and presents, and Mom had been settled into the downstairs bedroom with her favorite blanket and extra pillows, I found myself on the cliff behind the house staring at the ocean.
Water stretched endlessly toward the horizon, dark and shifting in moonlight, waves crashing against rocks with persistence that made human problems seem smaller. Salt air and pine trees and the eternal sound of water reshaping coastlines one wave at a time.
Behind me, the house glowed with warm light. Family settling in for the night in easy chaos. Gary and Cheryl arguing about breakfast plans. Cousins catching up on jobs and kids. Aunt Paula reading with the concentration of someone who'd perfected blocking out family noise.
Normal family life continuing while I stood on a cliff thinking about what to do with my life if I had to leave Brett.
But would that be a mistake? Divorce was such a huge, terrifying word.
The unknown felt like standing at the edge of a cliff with no idea what was at the bottom.
What if single life wasn't fun? What if I was fifty-two and starting over and discovered I was completely lost without the structure of marriage?
Maybe I was overthinking everything, and Brett really wasn't cheating at all, and I was letting my imagination run wild because I was scared and lonely and looking for problems that didn't exist.
Alison was probably just a coworker. Of course they were close.
They were working together on the biggest deal of Brett's career.
The expansion required expertise in European Union regulations, and she was the perfect person to guide him through those complexities.
It made perfect sense that they'd spend long hours together, that he'd sound warm when he talked to her.
And after the expansion finished, things would definitely get better between us.
Brett had promised that so many times, and he wasn't a liar.
He was just under enormous pressure right now.
Once this deal closed, he'd have time to focus on our marriage again, to be the husband I remembered falling in love with.
The jewelry I'd found had to be for me. It had to be.
Brett was probably planning some romantic surprise for our anniversary, or maybe he wanted to celebrate the successful completion of the European deal.
The bracelet was beautiful and expensive and exactly the gift a devoted husband would buy for his wife of twenty-three years.
The expensive dinners were just business entertainment.
Of course they were. International deals required wining and dining important clients and partners.
The flowers were probably thank-you gifts for colleagues who'd gone above and beyond.
The weekend trips were legitimate conferences where Brett happened to book nice accommodations because that's what successful executives did.
I was making something sinister out of perfectly normal business practices because I was afraid. Afraid of being alone, afraid of starting over, afraid of admitting that maybe I'd let my marriage drift because it was easier than fighting for it.
Standing there looking at endless water, I forced myself to believe the reasonable explanations. It was so much easier than facing the alternative. So much safer than acknowledging that the evidence I'd been collecting might actually mean what I thought it meant.
Brett loved me. We were just going through a rough patch that would pass once work stress decreased. I was being paranoid and dramatic, seeing betrayal where there was only a husband working hard to provide for his family.
Everything was fine. Everything had to be fine.
Because the alternative was too terrifying to contemplate.
Tomorrow I'd drive back to Bexley Hills and continue being Brett's wife because that's who I was, and would always be.
Behind me, the house buzzed with noise. Family who expected me to have everything figured out, and who saw me as the stable one who held everyone together. I couldn't let them down by falling apart over imaginary problems.
I turned away from the endless water and walked back toward the warm yellow light, leaving my doubts behind like shells scattered on the beach.