Do we all live in such oblivion? I thought he loved me. I thought the ring on his finger meant something, that my taking of his last name bound us in some way. I thought, when he smiled down at me, when he reached over and cupped my face, his lips lowering to mine… I thought all of that is brick, solid and strong, the building blocks of a lifetime together.
The letter, folded over and tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, rescued in the moment before they drop into the washing machine, changes all of that. In that letter, in the moment I read her words… everything pure and lovely between us implodes.
I should have left him, right then. Maybe then, no one would have died.
“Who was she?” Mark passed the hot cocoa over, and I took it cautiously, watching the creamy liquid almost slosh over the rim. I lifted it to my lips and stole enough off of the top to reduce the risk of spillage.
“I haven’t had hot chocolate in forever,” I remarked, lifting the giant can of whipped cream and carefully dispensing a giant mound of it into the cocoa.
“Helena.” He leaned against the counter, his arms crossing. “Who was she?”
“I don’t know.” I pick up a handful of mini marshmallows and drop them into the cup. Picking up the concoction, I move through the empty dining room and to the living room, carefully settling down on the floor before the fire. “I never found out.”
I’d always wondered about Simon’s fidelity. A man that attractive, that funny, that kind… I knew how women looked at us, compared us, plotted against us. He was the husband they all wanted. I was the odd girl with the big ears and flat chest, the one who nagged, and scowled, and never let Simon have any fun.
“Did you try?” He follows me into the room, crouching before the fire and grabbing the poker from the hearth.
“No. I think…” I close my eyes and try to remember that day. “I think I was afraid of finding out too much. If she loved him, then maybe he loved her. And where would that leave us?”
“You were worried he’d leave you.”
“Yes.” I set down the mug and hug my knees to my chest. I had attacked Simon the moment he’d gotten home, screaming accusations, my insecurities raging. I’d swore to leave him, and he’d begged me to stay. I’d called him names, and he’d told me he loved me.
Standing before my husband, that note in hand, I’d considered a scenario where Simon and I parted. I’d thought of a life without him and Bethany. I’d thought of another woman, playing with my daughter before dinner, and spending the night in bed with my husband.
The thought had filled me with such fear, such despair, that when he’d pled innocence, I believed him. I caved and I accepted—and pushed aside the words of the note. I love you. I want you to kiss me again. I believed him when he swore he’d found the note, that it hadn’t been his. I want to be yours.
I’d decided to believe him, but I’d never trusted him again. And that difference, that small tweak to our relationship… it started a crack in our armor that we never recovered from.
I tilt back the mug and avoid Mark’s eyes.
The front door swings open, and I turn my head and watch Mark’s boots trek inside and across the polished floor. He has firewood in hand and moves out of sight, to the left side of the house. When he reaches the living room, I hear the loud tumble of logs onto the tile, the clack of wood as he stacks it. The front door hasn’t fully shut and I eye it, watching it slowly swing, just a little more open. Ridiculous of a man to bring in the cold while trying to warm the house. His boots clump back, the sound of him similar to an elephant, and I relax only slightly when he pushes the door shut and flips the lock. The housekeeper will have to come back. Mop the floors, clean up his mess. Another person. Another invasion. I stab at a piece of Debbie’s reheated broccoli and lift it to my mouth.
He takes off his boots and comes into the kitchen, moving straight for the coffee pot.
“You need a refill?”
I shake my head and turn the page.
“Thought I’d build another fire tonight. We’re supposed to get a cold front. Temperatures are dropping into the thirties.”
“Okay.” He’s obsessed with the weather, his most frequently used app one that shows radar and dew points, as if anything outside will affect our writing progress. We have a thermostat, our heater works—I don’t understand the dogged interest in what my front yard feels like. I cross through an unnecessary line and he settles into the other chair. “Kate’s coming into town tonight. She’s asking if you’d like to go to a movie.”
My pen stops, halfway through an exclamation point. “A movie?” A familiar prickle, one of paranoia, moves through me. They’ve been talking about me. Together, alone. Comparing notes, making assumptions, calculations, assessments of my health and mental state. Perhaps they’ve decided that I am crazy. Perhaps they think this book is ridiculous, and I am throwing away my money. Perhaps Mark has told her everything—about my postpartum, about the hospital. Maybe she thinks I should be committed. Maybe she is reviewing all of my contracts, and pulling the ones she doesn’t like, ones she can reject for reasons of incompetency. I feel hot, for the first time in a week. I scoot back against my seat, and the pen drops from my fingers.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t talk to her.” The words hiss, and he looks up at me, confused. Simon had once looked confused, his face an innocent mask that hid all of the scheming he had done with my mother.
“Who? Kate?”
“She’s my agent.” She’s my daughter. He’s my husband. This is my family. I shouted those words once, at my mother. She looked less confused than Mark.
“I’m not trying to steal her away.”
I close my eyes and try to focus, my mind loose from the Vicodin and Klonopin cocktail, one that was supposed to relax me but only seems to make everything worse. Already I can’t remember why I am upset. Something about Kate. Mark and Kate. I let out a breath and remind myself that they are not Simon and my mother, that their friendship is not an attempt to take my child away from me.
“You want to talk to her?” He sets his phone down in front of me. “Fine. Here’s my phone. You talk to her.”
My jaw clenches, a painful flex of muscle that didn’t used to hurt. “I don’t want to talk to her. Neither one of us needs to talk to her, or go to movies, or do anything except write. That is why you are here.” I stab the pages before me and my finger slips a little on the page. “This is what we need to focus on.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I look up at him quickly, just in time to see the sympathy cross his face before it is gone. “Don’t,” I snarl. “Don’t look at me that way.”
Simon would have asked what I was talking about. My mother would have moved down a list of questions designed to uncover the root of my feelings. Bethany would have scrunched up her face and begun to cry. Mark only smiles. No wonder he has so many damned wrinkles. I’m surprised his teeth aren’t bleached white from all the exposure.
“Relax, Helena.” He picks up his coffee cup and stands, leaving his cell phone in front of me. “You’re screwing this cat. I’m just holding its tail.”
“That’s disgusting.” I stare at his phone, the screen dotted with fingerprints, and it has to be a cesspool of bacteria. I haven’t seen him clean it once. He only washes his hands after the restroom. When I looked through his overnight bag, he didn’t even pack floss.
“The movie’s a comedy,” he says from his place by the sink, speaking loudly over the running water. “Might be good to clear our heads.”
He’s talking about the movie like it’s still a possibility. I’m not going to a movie. The last movie I saw was an animated one with Bethany. I checked her out of kindergarten and we played hooky and shared Twizzlers and an Icee, and Simon said I was setting a bad example.
“No movie.” I use the end of my pen to push his phone away. Maybe the simple sentence structure will get through to him. Bad Author. No Movie. Write Now.
“Want to work through the next chapter?”
Another chapter? I’m still exhausted from the last, which had taken three days and left me emotionally drained. Up next, Bethany’s fourth year and the square off of Me against Them. We are climbing the hill toward the climax, though Mark doesn’t know that yet. He has no idea that all of these pieces, all of the stories, are blocks of dynamite, carefully placed and positioned for the eventual explosion.
“Helena?” Mark prods. “Want to do the next chapter?”
“I’m still editing this.” He should know this, should see I still have a dozen pages to go.
“Then I’ll head out. Do you need anything before I go?”
I can feel something lingering in the air, something he is hiding. He wants to leave, yet he never leaves early. I set down the pen and turn in the seat, really looking at him for the first time.