THE AIR IN THE ROOM is suffocating.
Something is terribly wrong.
With my hand still holding the door knob, I take a quick glace around my dimly lit kitchen. I’d dropped the girls off at Connie’s as promised, the whole time replaying tonight’s events in my head.
Mason with Sabrina. His eyes on her. Her hands on him. Sharing a drink and buying her dinner. The way he cared for her, pushing in her chair as she stood, helping her with her coat.
My heart broke to pieces comparing the two men in my life, and how they treat their women over something as simple as a dinner.
“Almost thought you weren’t coming back,” Thomas breaks through to utter.
He’s sitting at the kitchen table, his hand wrapped around a bottle of beer. Studiously, he’s watching his fingers as they spin it in a small circle. His chest is unusually bare and his legs are stretched casually out in front of him.
His tone deceives, he’s anything but relaxed.
“Thomas?” I call once I enter, quietly closing the door behind me.
As I take off my jacket, Thomas’ gaze remains steady on his drink. The television in the next room is on. At some point this evening, he’d been watching baseball.
Thomas Dyer doesn’t watch baseball. Or any sport but golf.
“Tell me I haven’t already lost you,” he voices, its pitch sad and broken.
“What?”
“Mason Cole,” he clarifies. “Tell me I haven’t already lost you to him.”
Standing straight, I stay quiet as I flip on the light. Thomas’ face is pale. His body, once virile and strong, appears defeated. His posture, once straight and proud, is slouched.
“Be honest with yourself,” he bids, finally looking up. His eyes are narrowed, his brows furrowed, and his jaw tight. “How long have you loved him?”
“How long have I loved him?” I copy, ready to drown myself in guilt.
“Christ, Kat,” he hisses. “The way you looked at him tonight…”
The drive home was quiet, neither Thomas or I mentioning what we both saw. Thomas gave no indication he noticed I was upset, either. After we’d gotten the girls from my dad’s, I dropped Thomas at home and took them to Connie’s for a girls’ weekend together. Averie was excited. Amelia less so, but she went anyway, if only to get out of the house.
“So, tell me,” Thomas prods. “How long have you loved him?”
I don’t answer. If I told him, he wouldn’t understand. Or maybe he would, being that he and Grace may have what Mason and I once did.
“Have you loved him since the beginning of us?” he questions.
Yes.
“Thomas, why now? Why are you doing this?”
“Because you’re my best friend,” he states plainly. “I can’t remember a time we weren’t together.”
I suppose it’s common that some couples romanticize their past, in order to remember it without remembering the mistakes they made. I, however, don’t romanticize anything about my marriage. Other than our girls, there’s nothing left of it that I want to remember.
“Was there a time we were ever really together?” I query, trying to not sound as bitter.
“So, it’s true. You are in love with him,” he whispers, his tone firm.
“I am,” I confirm.
“So, how long?” he prods.
“I don’t think I’ve ever not been.”
The pain of Thomas’ confession with Grace was so vile, I wasn’t certain I’d survive the next day. I wasn’t sure how to start again, how to move on. Months passed before I could so much as look at my husband again. Nearly a year before I let him touch me as a husband should. And now, in turn, he’s coming to understand.
With this, he admits, “I’ve hurt you. I know I have.”
“That’s not why this is, Thomas. This isn’t about getting even for you and Grace.”
“Then why?”
“Because he’s Mason. He loves me.”
“I love you,” Thomas clips. “That doesn’t matter?”
“You love who you want me to be. Mason loves me for who I am.”
“That doesn’t make a lick of sense,” he decrees, his tone no longer hurt but cruel.
To him it probably doesn’t make sense. But this doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.
In the past, especially early in our marriage, Thomas tolerated everything about who I was. My dark hair, my comfortable clothes, my even more comfortable shoes. Everything.
As years went on, he encouraged I dye my hair, wear classier clothes and expensive shoes. He urged me to dress our girls the same. But on that, I always refused. They were born to be whatever they wanted to be. As I was once myself.
“I don’t think I’ve ever loved her,” he tells me with regret. “But, even now, when I’m with her she makes me feel…”
When he trails off, I add, “Cared for.”
Nodding small, he agrees in shame, “Yes.”
I swallow hard. Though knowing all about the two being together, and knowing how hurt I felt at his betrayal, and also mine, hearing him talk of her as if she’s part of our marriage hurts.
Pushing to get him to see my point, I add, “She makes you feel as if you’re everything to her.”
He quietly tells his bottle of beer, “Yes.”
“And no matter what you do, or don’t do, she wants you.”
Thomas sucks back the dregs of his drink and pushes the bottle away. He rests his hands in his lap, holding one over the other.
His broken eyes come to mine and he admits, “I live with the ghost of Katherine Dyer because Mason Cole took the heart of Katie Morris.”
How Thomas knows Mason calls me Katie, I’ll never know. And I’ll never ask.
Tears plague my vision. A heavy weight pushes against my chest and my stomach turns.
“Yes, Thomas.”
“Are the girls mine?” Thomas suddenly questions to my surprise and also to my direct insult.
I try not to scream, but inside I’m angry.
When I drop my bag to the floor and walk over toward him, Thomas moves his feet to the side, giving me room to take the chair next to his.
Holding my composure, I quietly punish, “You already know both those girls belong to you—to us.”
“I do know,” he agrees. “Wouldn’t hurt to hear at least something in our fifteen-year marriage was real.”
“Our daughters are real. And every bit of both of us.”
“Do you still love me?”
Half-smiling, I place my hand on Thomas’ arm. He doesn’t pull away as I thought he would. Instead, he covers my hand with his and squeezes.
“You know I love you for all you’ve given me.”
Succumbing to understand, with tears threatening to break, he prods, “We did good for the girls, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” I answer without hesitation.
“We just didn’t do good by each other.”
Shaking my head, I smile again. “No.”
“Will you go to him now?”
God. Hearing his question so bold makes what’s happening true. Our marriage is ending.
“I don’t know what I’ll do. I hadn’t thought—”
Thomas releases my hand, holding his up to push me quiet.
“Don’t answer. I’m not ready to know.”
“More importantly, what will we do now?” I press.
There’s no documented memorandum defining how to end a marriage. Even if both parties agree what they had is no more. We’re treading on new ground and each step must be taken carefully.
“I want the girls to stay here. This house is their home. I’ll find a place closer to the office.”
“You don’t have to do—”
“I have to,” he assures. “I owe you all that.”
Standing, Thomas bends to where I sit, brushing his lips against my cheek. For the first time in years—his touch is sincere—with meaning. And I’m thankful, even if its meaning is goodbye.
“I’ll take the couch in the den until I can find somewhere else to be,” he tells me.
I don’t ask about Grace. Then again, I never did. Not because the pain of their affair hurts like it used to. But because I don’t care.
Nodding, tears fill my eyes. Not tears in sadness or remorse—but relief.
The worst is over and it happened quickly.
The future is mine and I’m open to possibility.
Even as I sit in the kitchen alone, staring at the ring I’ve worn for years, after saying goodbye to all it stood for, I’ve never felt so free.