Chapter 8 #2
Devin looked up from his phone, where he'd been texting with a girl, most likely Madison Fletcher despite his claims that they were just friends.
"Dad coming home today?" he asked.
"This evening," I said. "He said the meetings are going well."
"Cool. I want to talk to him about the UConn visit. Get his advice about what questions to ask and stuff."
My heart broke a little more. My son still wanted guidance from his father about the most important opportunity of his young life, and that father was currently more focused on his affair than his family.
Devin deserved better than a man who was present in body but absent in every way that mattered.
"He'll be excited to hear about it," I said, because what else could I say?
After breakfast, Kimberly announced she was staying until tomorrow morning instead of driving back to school that evening.
"I already texted my professors," she said when I started to protest. "One day isn't going to kill my GPA, and I want to spend time with you guys."
Really she wanted to make sure I didn't fall apart alone while processing my husband's betrayal, but we both knew she couldn't say that in front of Devin.
"That's great," I said. "It'll be nice to have the family together."
Devin left for baseball practice around noon, and Kimberly and I found ourselves alone with the truth again. We'd been dancing around it all morning, performing normalcy for her brother's benefit, but now we could stop pretending everything was fine.
"Want to take a walk?" she asked. "I feel like I need to move or I'm going to explode."
We put on jackets and headed out. The neighborhood looked beautiful, all golden maples and neat lawns.
"I keep thinking about the phone call this morning," Kimberly said as we walked past the Connor house with its ridiculous fountain in the front yard. "He sounded so normal. Like he wasn't doing anything wrong."
"People who cheat get very good at compartmentalizing," I said. "They learn to separate their lies from their regular life so they can function without going crazy from guilt."
"Does that mean he doesn't feel guilty? Like he's just fine with lying to us every day?"
I thought about Brett's tone when he'd said he missed me, about the thoughtful gift for my mother, about all the small kindnesses that had made me hope our marriage might be salvageable.
"I think he feels guilty sometimes," I said. "But not guilty enough to stop."
We walked in silence for a while, past houses where normal families lived normal lives unlike ours now.
"I hate him," Kimberly said suddenly. "I hate him for hurting you. For lying to all of us. For making me the person who had to tell you about this."
"Don't hate him," I said, though I wasn't sure why. Maybe because hatred felt too exhausting, or because he was still her father despite being a terrible husband.
"Why not? He deserves it."
"Because hate will eat you alive from the inside. He’s still your dad, even if he's not a very good husband. You have to live with whatever feelings you choose to carry around."
Kimberly stopped walking and looked at me.
"How are you not furious?" she asked. "How are you not screaming and throwing things and planning elaborate revenge fantasies?"
It was a good question. How was I not furious? How was I functioning at all instead of collapsed on my bedroom floor in a puddle of rage and self-pity?
"I think I'm in shock," I said finally. "Like when someone gets hurt really badly and their body just shuts down the pain so they can survive until help arrives."
"When do you think it'll hit you? The anger, I mean."
"Soon, probably. When he gets home and I have to look at his face and pretend I don't know what I know.
" I kicked at fallen leaves that had been raked into neat piles by someone's landscaping service.
"Or maybe when I meet with a divorce attorney and start figuring out how to untangle twenty-three years of shared everything. "
"Are you definitely getting divorced?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Probably." It felt strange saying it. "I can't imagine how we come back from this. How I ever trust him again or how he chooses me over someone who makes him that happy."
We'd reached the end of our street, where suburban paradise met the conservation land that kept developers from building McMansions in every available square foot. The trees looked ancient and wild compared to the landscaped neighborhood we'd just walked through.
"What if he chooses you?" Kimberly asked. "What if he ends it with her and wants to work on your marriage?"
I thought about the way Brett had looked at Alison in that video. The tenderness in his touch, the joy in his expression, and the way he'd leaned into her like she was home.
"I don't think he's going to choose me," I said.
"And I don't think I want him to anymore.
" I didn't want to be chosen after being dismissed for months.
I didn't want to be the consolation prize Brett settled for when his exciting affair became too complicated to maintain.
I didn't want to spend the rest of my marriage wondering if he was thinking about someone else when he looked at me.
"Good," Kimberly said fiercely. "You deserve someone who chooses you first, not someone who has to be convinced to love you."
We turned around and headed home.
"What do you want?" Kimberly asked as we turned onto our street. "If you could have anything, regardless of what's practical or responsible or expected, what would you want?"
I thought about my journal, about the woman who'd wanted to travel and take pictures and tell stories that mattered to people. About the camera I'd bought and the Instagram account nobody followed and the small rebellion of pursuing something that belonged entirely to me.
"I want to remember who I used to be before I became so focused on being the ideal wife and mother that I forgot I was a person with my own dreams," I said. "I want to stop apologizing for taking up space in my own life."
"Then maybe this is a gift," Kimberly said. "Maybe Dad doing this terrible thing is what finally gives you permission to stop living for everyone else and start living for yourself."
It was a generous way to think about betrayal, and probably too optimistic for someone whose world had just collapsed. But walking home with my daughter, talking about possibilities instead of just problems, I felt something I hadn't experienced in months.
Hope. Terrifying, fragile hope that maybe this ending could also be a beginning.