chapter twelve

MEREDITH

If you don’t want to have sex with me, maybe I should find someone who will.

Those are Nolan’s exact words when I rebuff his Monday morning advances, and the first thing I share with Amy once I’m settled on the white slipcovered sofa in her Midtown office for my monthly appointment. The comment has been echoing in my head all day as I draft a response to an emergency motion to compel, prepare for a hearing on a motion to dismiss, and attempt to negotiate a global settlement on behalf of one of my top (but least likable) clients.

“He said that?” Amy asks, leaning forward in her usual straight-back chair across from me, looking the slightest trace appalled. She doesn’t often overtly disapprove of Nolan, but I relish it when she does. It is my validation, an excuse to feel the way I do.

“Yes…He said it jokingly,” I reluctantly confess. “But he still said it.”

Amy nods, her calm, inscrutable mask returning. “And how did you respond?”

“I told him to go for it,” I say, reclining into the sofa cushions. “If he can find someone who wants to have sex at six-thirty A.M. on a rainy Monday, all power to him.”

“Did you really say that?”

“More or less, yes,” I say, as I admire Amy’s polished ensemble—wide-legged, cuffed navy trousers, a bright white button-down blouse, and black pumps that look fresh-out-of-the-box new. Everything about Amy is crisp, uncluttered, smart—her clothing, mannerisms, and advice.

“Hmm. Well, try to avoid responses like that in the future,” Amy says. “Joking or otherwise.”

“He started it,” I say.

“Yes. But you don’t have to play along….He just might take you up on your suggestion.”

I shake my head and say, “He would never do that.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Don’t be naïve, Meredith,” Amy says. “Pretty much all men—and all people—are capable of cheating under the right circumstances.”

It is the sort of concrete insight that sets her apart from so many other therapists, and the main reason I keep coming back to her. She actually adds to the conversation, rather than just listening to me talking away self-indulgently.

She adds, “Do you know how easy it is for a nice-looking, successful man like Nolan to find someone who will have sex with him?” She taps her mechanical pencil on her tablet, the rhythm of a rhetorical question.

I give her a little shrug.

“Well. It’s easy to be cavalier when you’re confident nothing is going on,” Amy says. “But what if he actually had an affair?” She crosses her legs. “How would you feel?”

I sigh and tell her that I can’t fathom Nolan ever cheating on me. “He’s far from perfect, but he’s not a liar,” I say, thinking that his flaws fall more under the heading of not doing things. Not listening. Not helping with Harper. Not putting his clothes in the hamper.

“Well, I’d like you to try to imagine it anyway,” she presses. “Picture Nolan…spending time with one of his more attractive female friends. Innocent at first…They simply enjoy a strong rapport—a genuine, platonic affection.”

“He doesn’t have female friends,” I say.

She gives me a skeptical look.

“What?” I say. “He really doesn’t.”

“Okay. Then perhaps a colleague. Someone he likes and respects at work.”

“Honestly, I can’t picture anyone that fits that bill,” I say, just as Diane West, our new neighbor and a recently divorced mother of one teenaged son, pops into my head. Diane is a decade older than I am, somewhere in her mid-forties, but has a fantastic figure, an elegant sense of style, and an impressive career as an equine veterinarian.

“Okay. I just thought of someone,” I say, deciding to play along with Amy’s game. “Our neighbor Diane.”

“Okay.” Amy nods. “Tell me about her.”

“She’s a horse vet. She also rides. Pretty, very confident.”

“Comfortable in her own skin?” Amy says, an expression she often uses, and one of her litmus tests for happiness.

“Yeah. That’s a fair description,” I say, thinking that Diane also looks quite comfortable in tight riding pants.

“Okay,” Amy says, nodding as if we’re finally getting somewhere. Her sleek black bob swings forward, then settles right back in place. “So one night, Diana—”

“Diane,” I correct her. Somehow this seems like a relevant detail.

“Right. Diane stops over to borrow a cup of sugar—”

I laugh. “Does anyone do that anymore? That’s so…fifties.”

“Please forgive my gender stereotyping…especially given Diane’s remarkable career….Do you know it’s harder to become a vet than it is an MD?”

I roll my eyes at her transparent attempt to make me jealous. “Hmm, yes, I’ve heard that. Go on.”

“Right. So Diane drops by to borrow a…Phillips screwdriver. Her washing machine is on the fritz….”

“Pity,” I say.

“Yes. So Nolan finds one in the garage, then offers to take a look. While you stay home with Harper—in mid–temper tantrum—Nolan and Dr. West depart together.”

“And then what?” I ask, smirking. “Wait! Lemme guess….Do they have sex atop her broken washing machine?”

Amy doesn’t react. “No. Not as far as you know, anyway. He simply returns over an hour later, mission accomplished. The machine is all fixed….”

“Nolan’s good deed of the day,” I say, rearranging the loose pillows behind me and shoving one against my stiff lower back. “Good for him. Good for her. All’s well that ends well.”

“Yes…Yet you also notice that his teeth are a bit red…stained from a glass of pinot noir. She happened to have a bottle open….”

“Nolan doesn’t drink red wine.”

“Fine. Then you note a trace of bourbon on his breath. She poured him a glass while he worked. One for herself, too. She loves whiskey. They toasted the fixed machine and finished their lively discussion about thoroughbreds.”

“How lively?” I ask, still more amused than jealous.

“Very lively. He finds her work—and her rapport with such large animals—fascinating.”

“Actually, I think he does,” I grant her. “He’s mentioned it more than once.”

“Right,” she says, nodding. “So then it doesn’t altogether surprise you when Diane begins to drop by on a fairly regular basis. Just to say hello. Always when Nolan’s home. Often when you’re not. One evening, she drops by with a book. The one she told him about. The one she promises he will love…She casually touches his arm, but looks a little too comfortable in doing so….” Amy cocks her head and bites her lower lip suggestively.

“Okay, okay,” I say. “I get your point.”

Amy nods vigorously, smugly, as if we’ve just had a major breakthrough when what I’m really feeling is standard-fare competition with another woman. “So I don’t want my husband to cheat on me,” I say. “So what? Who would want that?”

“Some women do,” Amy says.

“Why’s that?” I ask, although I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

“So they have an out,” she says. “So they can do the same thing, guilt-free. So their situation becomes black and white, and they can get out of their marriage.”

“Well,” I say. “I don’t want that.”

“You don’t want Nolan to fall in love with Diane West?” she says. “Or you don’t want to get a divorce?”

“Neither,” I say firmly.

She nods, then writes one word on her tablet. I strain to see it, but can only make out a capital D.

“What did you just write?” I ask. “Divorce?”

“No,” she says. “Diane.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes. Nothing is going on with Diane! Or anyone else, for that matter,” I say, now full-fledged perturbed, which happens about once a session, to Amy’s clear satisfaction. “Why are you trying to scare me?”

“Are you scared?”

“No,” I say. “I’m not. I mean, nobody wants to be the fool. Nobody wants to be deceived. And I like to think that the father of my child has more integrity than to cheat on me. Or have some meaningless affair—”

Amy cuts me off, which she seldom does. “Okay. Well, let’s make it a deep emotional connection….But they never cross that physical line, both of them too principled to cheat.”

“I’d still be hurt,” I admit. “Is that what you want me to say?”

“I don’t want you to say anything,” Amy says, which for the most part, I believe. “I simply want you to understand your feelings on this subject.”

“Okay. Well, I would be very upset if Nolan cheated on me, whether physically or emotionally,” I admit, just before I let the word but slip out of my mouth.

“But what?” Amy’s expression is misleadingly placid.

“But if he simply wanted a divorce…without an affair…or another woman involved…I could probably live with that,” I say, wondering why I feel so tricked into this admission. I remind myself that Amy is on my side, or at least neutral. Besides, she’s a professional secret keeper—and certainly not in the business of judging.

“So you could live with it,” Amy says. “But it isn’t what you want?”

I say an emphatic no, it isn’t what I want.

“Do you ever think about divorce? What it would be like?”

I say no, not really. I tell her my thoughts mostly consist of how to get through the day.

She stares at me, perfectly still, a wax therapist statue.

“But if we got a divorce, I think it would be fairly amicable. I don’t see us fighting over money or things. Over really anything,” I say, talking quickly now, words spewing out of me. “Except maybe time with Harper…though I would be willing to share custody fifty-fifty. I think that’s only fair, really. To him and to Harper. He’s such a good father—and she loves him so much….I think she’d be resilient….It would kill my parents, though. And his. Especially mine. Our friends would be shocked, too….Everyone thinks we have the perfect life. Once we have that second child, that is.” I stop suddenly, Amy familiar with the controversy over a second child.

“Have you made any progress with that?” she asks.

“No. I’m still not ready,” I say, the statement suddenly ringing hollow, the word ready a farce. You get ready for a vacation, or a job interview, or a move. You even get ready to actually give birth to a baby. But do you really get ready for pregnancy? Especially a second pregnancy? Or do you just take the leap and do it?

As if reading my mind, Amy asks the exact question Nolan posed to me. “Do you think you’ll ever be ready?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I think so. At some point. Maybe.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to have sex this morning?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m on the pill….I didn’t want to have sex with him this morning because I didn’t want to have sex with him this morning.”

“Fair enough.”

“But regardless…I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having just one child.”

“Of course not.”

“There are actually advantages to being an only child,” I say.

“Certainly,” Amy says, knowing a smoke screen when she sees one. I wait for her to call me on it, get back to the real subject at hand, and when she doesn’t, I’m almost disappointed.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I say, knowing that it has nothing to do with the pros and cons of being an only child.

“Okay,” Amy says, nodding, her hair swinging again. “I was wondering whether you love Nolan….”

The question, veiled as a statement, is so simple that it catches me off guard. Yet my answer is easy, automatic. “Of course I do. He’s a good man. A great father,” I say, thinking that we’ve covered these points exhaustively—along with our history, the fact that Nolan was Daniel’s loyal and kind best friend. That he was there for me and my family. That now he is my family.

“Yes,” Amy says. “I know that you love Nolan and care for him as a person and a partner and the father of your child. But are you in love with him?”

I stare at Amy, feeling rankled over what, for years, I’ve told myself is an adolescent distinction. The fact that my heart doesn’t race over Nolan, and I never feel overwhelmed by lust, and I don’t melt when our eyes meet across a crowded room (hell, I seldom even look for him in a crowded room), doesn’t mean I don’t love him or that I’m not committed to our marriage.

Yet deep down, I know what she’s asking me, just as I know the answer, and have since that day in the dugout. It is an immutable fact, the same as Daniel being dead, impossible to change simply by wishing things were different. So I finally make myself confess the truth. I am telling my therapist, but as these things go, I’m really telling myself.

“No,” I say aloud. My voice is soft and low but clear and very, very certain. “No, I am not in love with my husband.”