Chương 7
“No. You’re giving me whatever truth I already proved.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
He went silent.
Rachel waited.
A full ten seconds passed.
Then twenty.
“Ethan?”
“I slept with someone else once before Vanessa.”
Rachel’s body became very still.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
She pushed the coffee mug away.
“Who?”
“Someone at a conference.”
“Name.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters because I asked.”
“Her name was Claire.”
“Last name?”
“I don’t remember.”
Rachel almost laughed.
He said quickly, “I swear. We met at the hotel bar. She worked for another company. It happened once.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
Rachel knew the trip.
He had brought her caramel popcorn from the airport.
She had eaten it in bed.
“Did you use protection?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get tested?”
A pause.
“After.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Did you sleep with me before the results came back?”
“No.”
Rachel searched her memory and hated herself for doing it.
“You said you had food poisoning.”
Ethan said nothing.
“You slept in the guest room for four nights.”
“Yes.”
Rachel stood and walked toward the window.
The backyard looked offensively normal.
A squirrel ran across the fence.
Her neighbor’s sprinkler clicked.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“I am.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
She closed her eyes.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know.”
“I need you not to call me for two days.”
“Two days?”
“Yes.”
“What if—”
“There is no what if. Unless somebody dies, don’t call me.”
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
She ended the call.
Then she deleted the spreadsheet.
Ten minutes later she recovered it from the trash.
By afternoon, Leah arrived anyway.
Rachel opened the door and looked at her.
“I said not to come.”
“I waited almost twenty-four hours.”
“That isn’t how boundaries work.”
“I brought soup.”
“That’s worse.”
“Probably.”
Leah entered.
She was thirty-six, five feet three, perpetually underdressed, and carrying two grocery bags despite claiming she had brought only soup.
“I also brought bread.”
“Leave.”
“And oranges.”
“Get out.”
“And the good chocolate you pretend is overpriced.”
Rachel took one of the bags.
“Fine.”
Leah looked at her face.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Good. If you said yes I was going to slap you.”
They unpacked groceries.
For fifteen minutes they did not discuss Ethan.
Leah complained about her son’s obsession with a YouTube magician. Rachel showed her the tomato plants. Leah said they looked dead. Rachel said Ethan thought they were “recovering.”
Then Leah opened the refrigerator and found three jars of mustard.
“Why do you have three?”
“Ethan buys one every time he makes burgers because he thinks we’re out.”
Leah held up two identical jars.
“You should cite this in the divorce.”
Rachel laughed.
The laugh turned into a sob so quickly both women startled.
Leah put down the mustard and crossed the kitchen.
Rachel stepped back.
“Don’t.”
Leah stopped.
Rachel pressed both hands over her face.
“I don’t want people touching me.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t know why.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I hate him.”
“Okay.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I know.”
“I want him to be hit by a car.”
“That seems legally complicated.”
Rachel laughed through tears.
Leah leaned against the counter.
“I can hate him for you until you figure out your schedule.”
Rachel lowered her hands.
“I might stay.”
Leah’s expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Rachel noticed.
“See?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You made a face.”
“My face is independent.”
“You think I’m pathetic.”
“I think you found your husband going to Paris with another woman yesterday.”
“So?”
“So maybe the version of you today shouldn’t have to make a lifetime decision for the version of you next year.”
Rachel looked away.
“That sounded annoyingly reasonable.”
“I practiced in the car.”
They ate soup at the kitchen table.
Leah asked no more questions until Rachel showed her the screenshots.
Then she read every one.
“January?”
“Yes.”
“You were not separated in January.”
“Apparently Ethan was.”
Leah looked at the phone again.
“Vanessa believed this?”
“She says she did.”
“Do you?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because of how she looked at the airport.”
“That’s not proof.”
“No.”
“And she was sleeping with your husband.”
“Yes.”
Leah slid the phone back.
“I don’t like that you’re defending her.”
“I’m not.”
“You kind of are.”
Rachel folded her napkin.
“Maybe I don’t need to make every woman in this story responsible for managing Ethan.”
Leah leaned back.
“That was pointed.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“It was still good.”
Rachel looked at the untouched bread.
“Do you remember me saying Ethan always makes me tell him what to do when he messes up?”
“Christmas.”
“Was I joking?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
Leah hesitated.
Rachel noticed that too.
“What?”
“You two have been weird for a while.”
Rachel’s stomach tightened.
“How?”
“I don’t know. Polite.”
“We’re married. We’re supposed to be polite.”
“Not that polite.”
“Leah.”
“I’m not saying you caused this.”
“I didn’t ask if I caused it.”
“You were about to.”
Rachel looked at her.
Leah shrugged.
“You have a face too.”
For the next two days, Rachel did not speak to Ethan.
He obeyed her request.
That somehow made things harder.
She went to work Tuesday and discovered she had no ability to care about anyone’s presentation.
Rachel was a senior design director for a healthcare technology company, a job she had spent thirteen years becoming good at. Usually she enjoyed the strange mixture of aesthetics, human behavior, deadlines, and executives who used the phrase make it pop without knowing what they meant.
On Tuesday, a vice president spent six minutes discussing icon consistency.
Rachel stared at a blue circle on the screen and thought, My husband slept with a woman named Claire in Chicago two years ago.
“Rachel?”
She looked up.
Her colleague Maya was watching her.
“Sorry.”
“You with us?”
“No.”
Several people laughed because they assumed she was joking.
Rachel let them.
At lunch, Maya followed her into a conference room.
May you like
“What happened?”
Rachel opened a yogurt.
