Chương 4
She hated herself slightly for doing it.
At 2:07 she powered her phone back on.
Twenty-three messages appeared.
Fourteen from Ethan.
Three missed calls from a number she did not recognize.
Two messages from her sister, Leah, asking whether dinner Sunday still worked.
One bank notification.
One pharmacy reminder.
Two messages from Vanessa Reed.
Rachel opened those first.
I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t mean anything right now.
Then:
He told me you had been separated since January. He said you were still living in the same house because you were deciding what to do with it. I did not know.
Rachel read the message until the letters stopped looking like language.
January.
In January, Rachel and Ethan had spent four days in Vermont.
They had gotten snowed in one night and played cards in a hotel lobby with an elderly couple from Baltimore. Ethan had cheated so badly at gin rummy that Rachel made him buy everyone drinks.
Separated.
In February, he surprised her with concert tickets.
In March, they had sex in the laundry room during a dinner party because Leah’s children were asleep upstairs and the whole thing felt stupid and reckless and twenty-five.
In April, Rachel’s father had minor surgery. Ethan sat beside her for six hours in a hospital waiting room and peeled the paper sleeve from a coffee cup into narrow strips because he was nervous.
Separated.
Rachel placed the phone facedown.
She walked upstairs.
Their bedroom door was open.
The bed was unmade because Ethan had been the last one out of it. Rachel usually made it. That morning she had left in a hurry after spotting the airline charge.
On his pillow lay one of her blonde hairs.
She sat on the edge of the mattress.
For the first time all day, she cried.
It was not cinematic.
No sobbing into her hands. No graceful tears.
Her nose ran.
She got angry at the wetness on her face.
At one point she pulled a tissue too hard and half the box came out with it.
She cried for perhaps seven minutes.
Then the doorbell rang.
Rachel froze.
A second ring came.
She wiped her face and went downstairs.
Through the glass she saw Ethan.
His carry-on stood behind him.
No Vanessa.
Rachel did not open the door.
He knocked.
“Rachel.”
She leaned against the wall beside the entryway where he could not see her.
“Please.”
She said nothing.
“I know you’re there.”
That irritated her enough to answer.
“Congratulations.”
His forehead touched the glass.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel stared at the deadbolt.
“I need to talk to you.”
“No.”
“Please don’t do this through the door.”
“You did a lot through a phone.”
Silence.
Then, “I deserve that.”
The sentence angered her more than denial might have.
“You don’t get points for identifying the obvious.”
“I’m not asking for points.”
“What are you asking for?”
“To come inside.”
“No.”
“Rachel, this is my house too.”
She almost opened the door simply to slap him.
Instead she stepped back.
“Then use your key.”
There was a pause.
Ethan reached into his pocket.
Rachel heard the key slide into the lock.
She unlocked the deadbolt before he could turn it, opened the door, and stepped aside.
He entered cautiously, as though the house might reject him.
His carry-on remained on the porch.
“Bring your bag in,” Rachel said.
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want the neighbors thinking I locked you out.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?”
“No. But apparently I’m capable of worrying about more than one thing.”
He retrieved the bag.
Rachel walked to the kitchen.
Ethan followed but stayed on the opposite side of the island.
He looked tired.
That offended her too.
“You canceled the trip?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Did she?”
“She left.”
“I mean Paris.”
“I canceled everything.”
“Good.”
“Rachel—”
“How long?”
He looked down.
Rachel waited.
“How long, Ethan?”
“About four months.”
She stared.
“About?”
“Four.”
“When?”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
The gesture was so familiar she wanted to break something.
“Late April.”
Rachel looked toward the window.
His tomato plants leaned uselessly against their wire cages.
“After my dad’s surgery.”
“Yes.”
“You sat with me in the hospital, drove me home, slept with me that night, and then sometime after that you started sleeping with her.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Careful.”
He stopped.
Rachel leaned both hands against the counter.
“Whatever sentence you were about to say, think very carefully.”
Ethan swallowed.
“It didn’t start physically.”
Rachel laughed once.
“There it is.”
“I’m trying to be honest.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what else to do.”
For the first time since the airport, his answer sounded true.
Rachel studied him.
His face was pale beneath the airport flush. He seemed less attractive than he had that morning, though nothing about him had physically changed.
“Did Vanessa know you were married?”
“She knew.”
Rachel nodded.
“Did she know you weren’t separated?”
“No.”
“She says you told her January.”
“I did.”
“Why January?”
Ethan looked away.
“Why January?”
“Because she asked how long.”
“And you just picked a month?”
“Rachel.”
“That’s a question.”
“I don’t know. It sounded… believable.”
She stared at him.
The casual cruelty of that answer arrived slowly.
January had not been selected because something happened.
It had been selected because it made the lie convincing.
“So you invented a separation.”
“Yes.”
“For months.”
“Yes.”
“Who else did you tell?”
Ethan hesitated.
That was the first moment Rachel became afraid of the answer.
“Who else?”
“A couple people.”
“Names.”
“Rachel, I don’t think—”
“Names.”
He exhaled.
“Mark knew things weren’t good.”
“What things?”
“That we were having problems.”
“We weren’t having problems.”
“We were.”
She went still.
Ethan looked at her directly now.
“We were, Rachel.”
There it was.
Not the affair.
The first argument he seemed prepared to defend.
Rachel folded her arms.
“Tell me.”
“You were gone all the time.”
“I worked.”
May you like
“So did I.”
“You were traveling three weeks out of eight last winter.”
