His commanding tone both irked and flustered me, even over e-mail. I quickly scanned another e-mail from Bill, which ended by asking what I was making for dinner. I groaned, surrendering to the fact that there would be no peace today.
And about that, I was right. Hearing from David stuck with me all afternoon and hurtled me into an open state of brooding. I played Saturday night over and over until my hands shook as I edited copy. My mind wouldn’t let it rest. He wanted to talk. What was there to say? He said it wasn’t over – but didn’t he know that it was over before it had even begun?
I dreamed violently that night. Bill, David and Mark Alvarez each angrily demanded something from me. I had lied to them, they told me. I had made fools of them. I was the cancer in their lives. When Mark called me names, David and Bill somberly nodded their agreement.
I woke heavily at the edge of dawn, wishing I could sleep for days upon days. Grey clouds mirrored my unrest. I crawled out of the warm bed and slogged into the kitchen for coffee. I didn’t want to upset Bill again, so I decided to cover my foul mood with pancakes, prepared with equal parts guilt and love.
As planned, the pancakes diverted his attention. “This is a surprise,” he said excitedly. He sucked his teeth and rubbed his stomach. “This is exactly what I wanted, and I didn’t even know it. Such a good wife.”
I let him kiss me on the cheek as I stared at the griddle with my spatula cocked.
“It looks like rain,” he commented after retrieving the newspaper from the doorstep.
“Great,” I muttered and flipped one pancake after another. Flip, splat. Flip, splat. Flip, splat.
“Hopefully it won’t be too bad. I made an appointment with Jeanine on Saturday.”
I pushed a stray hair from my face with my forearm and turned to him. “What?”
“She has three different places to show us. Sounds optimistic, too.”
“Aren’t we supposed to see your sister?”
“On Sunday. It’ll be a productive weekend.”
“I wish you’d checked with me. I have plans with Lucy.”
“Priorities, honey. We’ve already rescheduled once, remember? If we’re going to start trying, we need to get going on the house. At this point, time is not on our side.”
I gulped audibly, and my shoulders sagged with the weight of the news. Had he not heard anything I’d said over the weekend? Couldn’t he see that I was already making my sacrifice by going off birth control? I needed time, not another excruciating car ride with Jeanine. “About that . . .”
“About what?” he challenged.
“Maybe it would be a good idea to get settled in a house before we start thinking about a baby.”
He resumed scanning the front page of the paper. “It takes some women months for birth control to wear off,” he said. “By that time, we could potentially be in a new place.”
I felt my throat closing. Months? “No,” I said. I struggled to get the words out. “No baby until we’ve found a home.”
He glanced up at me. I waited for him to react, uncertain of which way he would go, but he only gestured behind me. “Liv, the pancakes.”
Liv, the pancakes? LIV, THE PANCAKES? Are you completely fucking oblivious, Bill? He turned back to the Tribune. After a moment, he chuckled at the newspaper.
“I am not going off birth control.”
He licked his finger and flipped the page. “Hmm?”
“And I cheated on you.”
It took a moment until his head shot up, and he glared at me. “What did you just say?”
I actually felt my muscles liquefying as panic flooded my body. My eyes lowered and darted over the linoleum floor. The spontaneous confession hung in the air, thick and palpable between us.
“Hey,” he said. “What did you say?”
I looked up and shook my head, a silent beg that he wouldn’t make me say it again. It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m not ready. But he waited until I couldn’t stand the silence another second. “I – I slept with someone else.”
“When?” he cried, standing. “Who?”
“It’s not important,” I mumbled. “I did it, and that’s it.” The smell of burning batter filled the kitchen, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from him.
He fell back into his chair blindly. “This is some twisted way of trying to get out of the birth control thing.”
If only. I shook my head at the floor, shrugging my shoulders helplessly.
“Isn’t it?” His voice was hopeful, but it turned soft and despondent. “How? Who?”
I continued to shake my head silently. Did it matter? Why make things worse with details?
“When?” he asked.
“About five months ago.”
He laughed in a burst of dead air before dropping his forehead in his palm. “All this time, I thought . . .”
My hands flew to my face, an attempt to hold in the tears. We sat that way for a long moment, not speaking.
“Who?” he asked again. “Who was it?”
I kept my face buried. “You don’t know him.”
He snorted. When I looked up again, his elbows were on the table, his face in his hands. “I’m such a fool,” he said. “I feel so . . . stupid. Is this what you wanted? To make me look stupid?”
“Of course not,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows. “It just . . . happened.”
“Once?”
I cleared my throat and looked away. “Twice,” I lied. I knew I could never bring myself to tell him the truth about the masquerade ball.
“After everything that I’ve done for you.” His voice pitched. “How could you do this? And why are you telling me now?”
“I’m so sorry. You deserve better.” I approached the table cautiously. My heart pounded as I eased into a chair. “I know it’s a shock. What can I do? To make it better?”
“Seriously? What kind of question is that?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
He shot up and overturned the chair. As he bent to pick it up, he said, “I have to get to work.”
“Now?” I exclaimed. “We need to discuss this.”
“I should take the day off because you picked now to tell me?” he snarled. “Hell of a time, really, Liv. Now I have to sit through work thinking about it all day.”
I looked at him pleadingly, even though his eyes were fixed on the floor. “Don’t go. I’ll tell you anything, just stay.”
“Yes, you will tell me everything. Later. Right now, I have to go to work.”
“Call in sick,” I implored. “We have to talk about this now. Do it for us. Let’s fix this right now, today.”
He gave me a lingering look. “I just really can’t deal with this right now, on top of work? Shit.” He rubbed his temples and muttered, “Why now?”
“Are you going to leave me?” I whispered.
He looked over my head and squinted. His chin trembled slightly. “No. I don’t know. Maybe.” He turned away and snatched his blazer from the couch. “And I want the truth tonight. No more secrets.” Not long after, the front door slammed.
I straightened up and took an unsteady breath. I unplugged the grill and overturned the burnt pancakes into the sink. It was done. I sought relief, but I only felt ill to my core.
I grabbed my coat and left for the office, replaying the morning over and over on the way until I thought I might vomit. Not until I was behind my locked door did I sink into my shame with the onset of rain. I had done to Bill what I’d shielded myself from all these years: I’d ripped the carpet out from under him; I’d shattered his trust. This would destroy him.
I agonized over what would come next. Would he leave me? And what would I do? Where would I go?
I tried to understand what I was feeling. At the thought of him leaving, I was sad and scared but not surprised. I almost felt relieved that the day had finally come that my marriage would end the same way as my parents’. As if I had known all along that I was cursed.
But Bill’s belief in the bond of marriage was stronger than that. He might take this out on me forever, but he wouldn’t leave. It wasn’t him. It was part of the reason I’d agreed to marry him in the first place; he was constant and reliable.
I couldn’t blame my infidelity on a bad marriage. What had happened between David and me was unable to be contained. Before I’d met him, I wouldn’t have classified Bill’s and my relationship as anything but stable. But if Bill didn’t feel like home, didn’t that mean something? I wondered shamefully if being with Bill was still what I wanted.
And then I thought of David. Now that Bill knew, it was more than over. I had tried to forget him, but it was impossible. Nobody made me feel the way he did. He had awoken something, and I would never be the same for it.
Despite the way he had crushed me on Saturday, I didn’t want him any less. If anything, our magnetic pull intensified with every minute that passed, regardless of whether we were together or apart. I still wanted him. And I wanted him all to myself. No Maria, no Dani, no Bill.
I was an hour through revising an editorial that should have taken me thirty minutes to complete. I'd been stuck on the same sentence for five minutes when I stopped and took out my phone.
I swallowed hard as I stared at it. I didn’t want to do it. But it was no longer about what I wanted. It was about making things right – no matter how painful that might be. Because Bill and I could not move forward this way.
Maybe in some other life, we were meant to be. Soul mates, even. I smiled to myself at how he turned me into a believer.
I didn’t know how I would end it once and for all, but it had to be done. David’s e-mail told me that it wasn’t over. If there was any doubt between us, I had to put it to rest. David and Bill both deserved the truth.
With unsteady fingers, I crafted my message.
Oct 4, 2012 4:06 PM
Meet me at your office in 20 minutes.