Chapter 7 #2
"Drive safely," Cheryl said, pulling me into a hug.
"And thank you for bringing Devin. Heather lights up around him in a way that makes all of this worth organizing."
"Thanks for putting this together," I said. "She needed to feel celebrated, and you made that happen."
Devin and I drove home through a fall landscape that looked like a painting, all red maples and golden birches. We listened to music and talked about his upcoming UConn visit and whether he was nervous about playing baseball at the Division One level.
"I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and find out this is all a dream," he said as we crossed back over the Sagamore Bridge. "Like maybe I'm actually just an average high school player who's been hallucinating about college recruitment."
"You're not average anything," I said, meaning it completely. "You've worked harder than anyone I know, and you deserve every opportunity coming your way."
"Thanks, Mom. I know Dad thinks I should have backup plans in case athletics doesn't work out, but sometimes it feels good to just believe that maybe it will."
"Your father wants to protect you from disappointment," I said, though I was getting tired of making excuses for Brett's inability to simply support his son's dreams. "But that doesn't mean you can't pursue what you're passionate about.
You're allowed to want extraordinary things and work toward them without apologizing for having ambition. "
We got home around six. I unpacked while Devin called his teammates about practice schedules, and tried to remember what it felt like to live here before I'd started seeing evidence of betrayal in every credit card statement and overheard conversation.
Maybe I really could go back to trusting my husband, to believing in our marriage, to building the future we'd planned instead of preparing for its end.
At seven-thirty, Robin and Amy arrived with enough wine, pizza, and Chinese takeout to feed a small army. They looked like women on a mission, dressed down in jeans and sweaters but radiating an energy that meant serious conversation was planned for the evening.
"Emergency girls' night," Robin announced, setting bags on my kitchen counter.
"We're drinking good wine, eating too much lo mein, and solving all of our problems through the ancient art of female bonding and inappropriate oversharing."
"God, I needed this," Amy said, and she looked different than she had at our coffee shop breakdown weeks ago.
Stronger, somehow. Like she'd made some decision that was giving her backbone.
"Richard's been even more of an ass than usual, which I didn't think was possible, but apparently he's very creative when it comes to finding new ways to make me feel terrible about myself. "
"What happened now?" I asked, opening wine while they unpacked enough food for six people.
"He suggested I might want to consider Weight Watchers," Amy said, her tone flat with exhaustion. "Not because he's concerned about my health, mind you, but because he's 'tired of being embarrassed by how I look at company events.'"
"Jesus Christ," Robin said, filling wine glasses with the care of someone who understood that some conversations required significant alcohol. "What did you say?"
"I told him that if he was embarrassed by me, he was welcome to attend company events alone." Amy's smile was sharp. "Funny how quickly he backtracked when he realized he'd have to make small talk with colleagues' wives without me there to handle all the social heavy lifting."
"Good for you," I said, meaning it. "You shouldn't have to apologize for existing in your own body."
We settled in the family room with wine and takeout containers spread across the coffee table like some kind of suburban feast. Robin looked relaxed in a way I hadn't seen in months, like she'd finally stopped trying to hold something together that was determined to fall apart.
"I have news," she said, taking a sip of wine that looked like it was giving her courage. "I'm moving to Manhattan."
Amy and I both stopped eating and stared at her.
"Moving how?" I asked. "Like, temporarily, or permanently?"
"I don't know yet. I found this beautiful penthouse in TriBeCa, and I can afford it if I'm careful with money. I'm not filing for divorce or anything dramatic like that, but I need space. Physical space, emotional space, space to figure out who I am when I'm not David's wife."
"A trial separation," Amy said, and she sounded almost envious. "God, that sounds amazing. Just waking up in a space that's entirely yours, making decisions based on what you want instead of what someone else needs."
"That's exactly it," Robin said. "I want to remember what it feels like to choose what to have for dinner based on my own preferences, watch whatever I want on television without negotiating, and go to bed when I'm tired instead of when someone else decides it's bedtime."
The idea sounded both terrifying and liberating.
I tried to imagine what it would feel like to live alone after twenty three years of marriage, to come home to silence instead of Brett's presence, to make every decision without considering how it would affect someone else's schedule or preferences or mood.
"I'm not brave enough for that," Amy said quietly. "The thought of being alone in some apartment while Richard does whatever he wants with whomever he wants feels like giving him permission to destroy what's left of our marriage."
"Maybe what's left of your marriage isn't worth preserving," Robin said gently. "Maybe the fear of him destroying it is what's keeping you trapped in something that's already dead."
I thought about Brett's phone call that morning, about how happy he'd sounded and how much hope that had given me. Maybe some marriages were worth fighting for, and some relationships just needed space and time and better communication to find their way back to love.
"I think sometimes we look for problems where there aren't any," I said, refilling wine glasses. "We get so focused on what's wrong that we forget to notice what's right. Marriage is hard, but that doesn't mean it's broken beyond repair."
Robin and Amy both looked at me with expressions I couldn't quite read.
"You sound different tonight," Amy said. "More optimistic, maybe. Did something happen this weekend?"
I told them about Brett's phone call, about how he'd sounded when he said he missed me, the thoughtful gift for my mother, and his promise to try harder when he got home. The relief I'd felt all day, the possibility that I'd been creating problems out of normal work stress and my own insecurities.
"That's wonderful," Amy said, but something in her tone told me she wasn't entirely convinced. "I hope you're right. I hope it really is just work pressure making him distant."
"What else would it be?" I asked.
Robin and Amy exchanged a look that lasted just long enough to make me uncomfortable.
"Nothing," Robin said quickly. "We just want you to be happy. Really happy, not just convinced that everything's fine because it's easier than dealing with the possibility that it's not."
We moved on to safer topics. Amy's art classes that she'd started taking again despite Richard's complaints about the hours. Robin's plans for decorating her Manhattan apartment. Devin's college recruitment and Kimberly's midterm stress and whether my mother was adjusting well to assisted living.
Normal friend conversation that should have felt comforting but somehow didn't. I kept catching them looking at me with concern, like they knew something I didn't or could see problems I was choosing to ignore.
Around nine-thirty, we were in the middle of telling embarrassing stories from our college years when my phone pinged against the coffee table.
A text from Kimberly.
"Sorry," I said, reaching for the phone. "Let me just check this quickly."
But it wasn't a text. It was a video message, the kind that always made my heart skip because Kimberly only sent videos when something important was happening. Good news about grades, or bad news about roommate drama, or just her face when she wanted to see mine while we talked.
"I'll be right back," I said, standing up with the phone. "Kim sent a video. Probably wants to show me her latest organic chemistry disaster."
I walked to the powder room and closed the door, sitting on the edge of the bathtub while I opened the message. Kimberly's face appeared on the screen looking serious in a way that immediately put me on alert.
"Mom," she said, and her voice was careful, like she was choosing words that wouldn't cause too much damage.
"I'm so sorry to send this, but I think you need to see it.
My friend Sarah was at the Wranglers game in Dallas today with her boyfriend, and she sent me this video.
I didn't want to believe it was Dad, but... "
The video switched from Kimberly's face to shaky phone footage of a stadium VIP box.
And there, unmistakably, was my husband.
Brett in his polo shirt, laughing at something the blonde woman next to him, Alison Crawford was saying.
Brett reaching over to touch her face with the kind of tenderness I hadn't seen from him in years.
Then Brett kissing her on the mouth like she was the answer to questions he'd finally learned how to ask.
They looked happy. Not guilty or secretive or concerned about being caught, but genuinely, radiantly happy.
Like two people who'd found each other and couldn't believe their luck.
The kind of couple you saw in movies about second chances and unexpected love and all the beautiful possibilities that could happen when you met the right person.