31. Three Months Ago
PENNY
When I woke up, Gavin was spooning me, sound asleep, with his hand on my hip under my T-shirt. I stirred. It felt like he was still half-asleep as he slowly caressed my side. I didn’t want to stop him but I knew it was wrong.
He buried his face in my neck and pulled my back flush to his front. I could feel him hard behind me. I tensed. “It’s nothing,” he whispered. “Just the morning. Relax, go back to sleep.”
We slept for a few more hours and then he got up, took a shower, and got ready to leave.
“Stay as long as you want. I’m going back to my dad’s. I’m really sorry about last night. I hope nothing has changed between us.” He was looking right at me, into my eyes, with honesty and penitence.
From the bed, I threw my arms out. “Come here.” He leaned over and hugged me. I held him to my chest and said, “Nothing’s changed.”
He pulled away. “I support any decision you make, P. I understand if you go back to him. He loves you. How can he not?” And there it was. Gavin believed there was no way a person couldn’t love me.
Gavin nodded. If Gavin had urged me to get a divorce, or if he had tried to make me feel bad about going back to Lance, it would have been much harder for me to confide in him. I needed my friend—and he knew it.
THREE DAYS LATER, while I was running errands in Denver, I got a call from Lance. “I know you said you needed your space, but I wanted to let you know that I canceled my next fitness competition. I told my boss I needed to cut back on my hours, and I’m seeing a psychologist now. She actually suggested that we go to marriage counseling and already referred me to someone. Would you be willing to go with me this Friday?”
He was trying. “Yes. I will.”
It sounded like he was going to cry. “Thank you.”
DR. LAKE, OUR marriage counselor, was a petite woman in her fifties with short black hair, a wide nose, and a no-nonsense attitude. She walked with a limp and a cane.
Gavin’s name came up more than once, but each time Dr. Lake tried to put the focus back on our relationship. What was missing in our marriage? Why were we unhappy?
“Penny, when you say that Lance seems unhappy, distant, and emotionally and physically unavailable, be specific. In what ways?” Dr. Lake said.
“Well, he works more than most people—”
“So I can buy you the things you like,” Lance interrupted.
“Let Penny finish talking, Lance. Then it will be your turn.”
“When he’s home, he works out in our home gym two or three hours a night. He claims to be too busy to make it to Milo’s school functions, like PTA fundraisers, and when we’re intimate, it feels one-sided, like he’s rushing things.”
“Do you agree with Penny, Lance?”
“I guess. But it seems like we weren’t really connecting even before Gavin came back to town.”
“Tell me, Penny, what is your understanding of your relationship since Gavin came back?”
I thought carefully before giving my answer. “Gavin’s father, Frank, was dying. That’s why Gavin came back to town. Gavin is a very good friend of mine, and he’s been a very good friend to our family, but I admit that we were spending a lot more time together than usual. Death makes people vulnerable, Dr. Lake. I was close to Frank—he was like a father to me after my own father passed away—and after he died, Gavin and I lived in a bubble of grief together. I think Lance felt threatened by that.”
Lance made a grumbling noise.
“Let’s not speculate about Lance’s feelings, Penny,” Dr. Lake said firmly.
“I don’t think he would disagree with me,” I said.
“They’re too close,” Lance added.
“And that makes you angry, Lance?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, she spent almost the entire week before Frank died at his house.”
I shook my head. “I was trying to be there for both my friend and his dying father.”
“Okay, Penny,” Lance said. “Call it what you want.”
“Penny, why have you stayed with Lance when it sounds like you have so much resentment toward him.”
I sighed. “I don’t resent Lance. I think he’s a good father and husband. But I do feel like he can be self-absorbed and controlling. And that frustrates me.”
“Lance, what do you think about that?” Dr. Lake said.
“Gavin,” Lance said curtly. “He’s the source of everything. I saw them through the window once, sleeping on the couch together, and then the next night he was singing to her on his porch. He was fucking spooning and serenading my wife, Dr. Lake. How’s a man supposed to feel about that? There’s no boundaries to their friendship. And I got tired of coming home to an empty house and a plate of food I had to reheat while she was down the street with Gavin.”
“You’ve always had to reheat your dinner because I never know when you’re going to be home, Lance. That’s nothing new.”
“Yeah, except you’re usually there when I’m reheating it. We don’t even have that little bit of family time anymore, Penny.”
Dr. Lake cut us off just as we were getting to the meat of things. “I can tell the two of you have love for each other, otherwise you wouldn’t be here trying to work things out. But our time is almost up—”
“—I’ve heard separation leads to divorce eighty percent of the time, Dr. Lake. What do you think? I mean, Penny is insisting on a separation so she can go do whatever she wants. Do you think it’s fair to me?” Lance interrupted.
“In my experience, separations can help couples get the space they need to evaluate their relationships. Penny might feel smothered. She might be having a hard time working out how things got to this point, but she’s here. Penny, perhaps you can speak directly to Lance and tell him why you think separation is a good idea.”
I nodded and turned to him. “Because I’m in a fog. I want to say, yeah, let’s just sweep this under the rug, but clearly both of us are unhappy. Gavin isn’t going anywhere. He’ll go back to Denver and be with his girlfriend, but he and I will always be friends, the way we were before you and I even started dating. That has to become a nonissue or else we can’t move forward.”
He nodded. “Okay, I hear you. I’ll agree to one month. That’s all I can handle, Penny. I want a decision in a month. Until then, I’ll go stay with a friend. You can move back in and stay with Milo.”
AFTER WE LEFT the counselor’s office, Lance followed me to my car and opened the driver-side door for me. “I love you so much, Penny. I’m sad that our marriage has come to this. Please promise me that you’ll be faithful to me during this separation. I can’t bear the idea of another man putting his hands on you.”
I nodded. “I’ll keep my distance from Gavin for now. I just have to go back to his place and pick up my stuff first. Okay?” Without another word, I got into the car. Lance closed my door, gave me a sad little wave, and headed for his own car.
Looking down at my phone I saw a text from Gavin.
Gavin: How are you?
Me: Just got out of couples counseling.
Gavin: And . . .
Me: It went well. I asked for a monthlong separation and Lance agreed.
Gavin: Good. Don’t do anything crazy.
Me: How’s Briel?
Gavin: Fine. We’re out right now, let me call you later.
Me: That’s okay. I’ll be at my house with Milo. Lance is staying with a friend.
Gavin: Copy.
Copy? There was something so distant in that sign-off. Maybe he was pulling back, knowing that I needed it—or maybe he needed it in order to focus on Briel? I should have been relieved—it was exactly what I needed at the time—but something in his tone made me unsettled.