Lorelei had been pacing in the kitchen ever since Serenity left. “Should I go up and talk to her now?” she asked.
“Not yet.” Reagan had distanced herself from Lorelei at first. She didn’t need Lorelei’s judgment and condemnation coming down on her when she was already so angry with herself. But as she’d gazed at Lorelei, sitting across from her and Serenity with no baby pictures or other memorabilia, she’d felt such empathy.
She and Serenity had both had so much more than Lorelei, at least until Lorelei got married. And maybe after. Reagan had no idea what Lorelei and Mark’s financial picture had been like, but she could easily guess that if the marriage ended, Lorelei wouldn’t be too comfortable. Not if she didn’t have a good job to help cover the bills—and good jobs were difficult to come by after being out of the workforce for even a few years.
That Lorelei’s husband could do what he’d done, to someone who’d already been through so much, made Reagan angry. She’d always been high-spirited, and her mother had trained her to be a fighter, someone who’d dig in and, if she wanted something badly enough, keep slugging no matter what. She could never have survived her first few years at Edison & Curry without that rock-hard determination. The atmosphere had been competitive there from the start. Some of the people she’d worked with had done everything possible to undermine her, or get her to quit because they felt threatened by her.
She’d persevered, but she was used to being in the right. She could stand fast because she believed in herself and what she was hoping to achieve, which was why getting involved with Drew had thrown her for such a loop. While she’d met with obstacles before, her mother being the biggest at times, she’d never been pitted against herself. To be in the same boat as Mark—to be one of those people for whom she had no respect—made her wonder if she was really who she’d always aspired to be.
As much as she was tempted, she couldn’t completely condemn him. She refused to be that big a hypocrite.
“I feel so bad,” Lorelei said, pivoting once again at the counter.
“I know. But you’re going to get through this, just like you’ve gotten through everything else, okay?”
She sighed audibly. “If you say so.”
“What’re some of your earliest memories?” she asked as she picked up the photographs and other things to get them out of Lorelei’s sight.
“They all deal with foster homes. Parents who were briefly part of my life and then gone. Other children who passed through like ships sailing on the same ocean but going in different directions. It didn’t feel as though I could hang on to anything, to anyone, you know? Everyone seemed transient. Until Mark.”
Reagan winced at Lorelei’s words. “I’m sorry—on behalf of cheaters everywhere. I can’t believe I’m one of them. It’s humiliating.”
Instead of narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips, as she’d done in the car when this subject first came up, Lorelei’s expression revealed a hint of confusion and vulnerability. “Maybe you can help me understand why he did it,” she said. “I keep going around and around it in my head, trying to figure out what I did or didn’t do that made him want to cheat on me. But I can’t come up with anything, except letting Francine stay over so often. I wasn’t perfect, but I tried to be everything he could want in a woman. Our sex life was great—maybe not off the charts but certainly robust. Our house was always clean. I’m a good cook and had dinner waiting every night. I didn’t go out and spend a lot of money. I’m a caring mom. Isn’t that enough?”
Reagan hated seeing the tears in her eyes, hated knowing she was causing someone—a wife, like Lorelei—the same kind of pain. “I’m betting it had almost nothing to do with you.”
“How can that be? I’m the one who’s supposed to fulfill him. I’m the one he sleeps with at night, the mother of his child.”
Reagan slid her wineglass out of the way so she wouldn’t inadvertently knock it over. “Drew’s wife is probably a wonderful person, too, Lorelei. She didn’t deserve what happened to her any more than you did. I’ve met Sally. I liked her. And I have no doubt Drew cares about her. So why’d he get involved with me? It was just an inexplicable attraction—a few minutes of selfishness we couldn’t overcome.”
“You told me you love him.”
“I do.”
“Does he love you?”
“He said so.”
“Do you think it’s possible to love two people at once?”
“I do. Could that be why Mark did what he did? Is he also in love with Francine?”
Lorelei’s shoulders slumped as she considered the question. “It would make my decision easier if he was. Then I’d have to leave him. But he claims he’s not. He says he loves me, wants to keep our marriage together.”
“You don’t believe he’s sincere?”
“I’ve never trusted words. Actions are the only way to determine what someone is truly thinking and feeling, and his actions suggest the opposite.”
“I hate to say this, because I don’t want you to get the impression I’m minimizing what I did, or what Mark’s done, but it’s possible he just made a mistake. That he was confronted with something that...that got the best of him for a short time. That’s what happened to me.”
“How short a time? That’s the question. Was it only one encounter? More?”
Reagan felt so bad for Lorelei. As strange as it was to think of anyone as a sibling—after growing up with no siblings at all—she had two sisters now and wanted to connect with them in a meaningful way, even though they’d lost all their childhood years and it was much harder and more awkward now. “Has he said?”
“He claims it was an isolated incident, but now that I know the truth I can point to other things—comments, times when neither of them was available—that indicate it’s been going on for some time. A month, at least.”
“So he’s still lying.”
“I think so.”
Once again, Reagan suppressed the urge to get angry with Mark. “What does she say?”
“I haven’t spoken to Francine. I don’t want to speak to her. This is all too fresh. And if it has been going on for a while, I have to wonder if the only reason Mark told me is because of the baby.”
To Reagan’s mind, that didn’t make him seem too contrite. “He would have no reason to lie about who he wants to be with, though,” she said, trying to remain positive.
“I guess not,” Lorelei agreed. “But he could always change his mind. That’s the problem. It’s not just the baby that’s making it hard for me to forgive him. I’ll wonder from here on out, especially once the baby is born, if he’d rather be with Francine and his other child. I don’t know if I can live with that constantly hanging over my head. It’s soul-crushing. I had to put up with that sort of thing my entire childhood—feeling as though, if I wasn’t the greatest kid ever, my foster parents would take me back and exchange me for a better child. I can’t face that as an adult.”