She looked like she was about to start crying. I asked if she wanted to sit down. She moved slowly and sat across from me. The table was long enough that she could keep the gun resting on it and pointed at my neck without worrying about my reaching and trying to grab for it. She talked as though we were friends and she needed to unload. Like she was me and I was Alice.
—Two days before the trip, he said he couldn’t go. Literally two days. My mom was devastated. She had all their stuff packed in one suitcase. She’d been walking four miles every day to lose her “pooch” and she’d bought all these outfits. She said they should just postpone it and he said no, no. We would lose all our money, the flights, the house we rented. He was really smart, I’m sure you know, calculated like that. He told her after it was too late to do anything about it. He said, The kids deserve it, you deserve it. You’ve got to go. I didn’t get it then. She knew what was going on and it was killing her, that he was sending her away so he could be with you, uninterrupted or whatever.
I thought back to the previous April. Big Sky had gone on a camping trip with friends to Chile. It was probably the second darkest time of my life after what had happened in the Poconos. In my apartment I looked at the couch where we had fucked and everything else he had touched or commented upon. I felt empty and scared because even though deep down I knew it was almost over, I didn’t want to believe it and anyway nothing is sure. I didn’t feel like drinking wine.
It was the early evening, five or so. I saw on social media the pictures his friends had posted. He was not online in any way and so I had to dig to find them. His group of friends, thirty-six to forty, wealthy and sure of their next forty years. There is no more powerful group in the world than men in that age range with money, with tasteful wives and pretty children. Family homes in Bridgehampton and Nantucket. Brunches.
I couldn’t help thinking about the women who would let their attractive and wealthy husbands take group trips to Chile and Argentina where the men would get together with a group of girls in their twenties, building fires and drinking maté and climbing mountains with all the right gear. There was a blond girl in one photograph wearing rainbow leg warmers and holding a sausage on a stick to the fire, leaning toward the fire on slender haunches, and there was Big Sky beside her, looking at her. The picture came alive in my brain. I could see them close to each other the whole trip, walking in a pair up rocky terrain. I could see him helping her across a slim river, experiencing that brand of breathtaking crush that developed over time back in middle school. I could see day seven of the trip. I imagined it was cold and warm at once; they were together at the fire, everyone else asleep, sharing a thermos of whiskey, laughing quietly. He would bring her a thick serape blanket and wrap it around her shoulders the way he had done for me in the bar that night with his jacket.
That was the ridiculous moment when I arranged myself on the same side as his wife, like here the two of us were in homely New York City, waiting at home for him. I felt absurd.
I texted him, How goes it, Montana?
And a full day later, he wrote, Hella fantastic chile is tops.
The air went out of me. It was the end. I called Vic. I told him I was feeling suicidal and would he like to take me to dinner?
And now here this girl was because of what Vic had done to his wife, because of what Big Sky had done to me, because of what my father had done to my mother. The pattern must end with you.
—Do you remember April? she asked me.
—Yes, I said. The weather was beautiful.
—Were you with my father?
—We went to dinner every night.
—And he stayed overnight with you?
—No, I said. Which was true, because by then our sexual relationship was completely over. He would just sit across from me, watching me eat, listening to me talk.
—Why not?
—Because I didn’t want to. I was in love with another man.
—Another married man?
I nodded.
—How did you become such a fucking whore?
—It’s a long story.
—I don’t want to hear your long story. I want to tell you about Anguilla. My mother tried to kill herself.
—What?
—That’s funny that he didn’t tell you. That’s really fucking funny to me.
—He didn’t tell me.
—That’s probably the sickest part of it. My fucking mom tried to kill herself because she knew he was fucking you, or whatever, not even fucking you, but paying for your whore dinner. Actually, I think that’s the part that really got to my mom. All the dinners. She spent like two weeks after his funeral just going over all the credit card statements and looking up the restaurants online and checking out what you both ordered. Looking at the dishes on Yelp.
I felt tears coming to my eyes. Not for Vic’s wife but for my mother.
—Oh, are you feeling something for us? Wow. Cool. So let me give you the full picture. We ate dinner at Picante, our favorite Mexican place. It was really fucking weird to be there without my dad. And Robbie, who was three years old and would always have been three years old, you know he had Down’s, right, Robbie was acting out. He threw a fork at the waitress. The fork hit her in the face and she started bleeding. And that was the last straw for my mom. We’re there with the crab guacamole appetizer that was my dad’s favorite and Robbie throws a fork at the waitress and Mom was just staring at this family at the next table, this young family with two little kids, a boy and a girl like us, but this boy was normal and the mom and dad looked happy and they were both in shape. Even though my dad wasn’t, like, the most good-looking man, my mom always treated him like he was a movie star. Anyway, Mom didn’t even apologize to the waitress. She left a bunch of bills on the table and walked out and I picked up Robbie and we followed her. None of us had eaten. Robbie was crying and hitting himself and Mom just kept moving. We took a taxi back to our bungalow. Later that night I found her in the bathroom, passed out on the floor. The grimy-ass bathroom that wasn’t even nice because my dad had been renting a cheaper house the past few years. Probably to save up for buying you dinners and following you around Mexico.
—Jesus Christ, I said. I remembered the night she was talking about. Vic and I were having late drinks at a tiki bar in SoHo that dressed their drinks with pink orchids and green shards of shiso.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and he took it out. When he answered the phone in public, he always covered his mouth. I believe this was somewhat out of decorum, but likely he also did it for privacy. Vic kept so many secrets from all of us.
He rose and walked out the door of the bar. He was gone for ten minutes or so. In that time I sipped my drink morosely and checked all the relevant outlets of social media for new information on Big Sky’s vacation. His wife had posted on Facebook, He’s home! with a kissing emoji, plus one of champagne and a bubble bath. Would they fuck tonight? I wondered. I had no idea how often they did. He never talked about her. Just as Vic rarely talked about his wife. The wives of cheaters lived in private rooms with white lotions in thick jars and soft lighting.
When Vic came back inside, he was not visibly shaken. But he was changed. I didn’t think too much of it. Often after a few drinks he would begin to sulk in my presence. He spent so much energy during the day trying to convince me that he only wanted the best for me—even if the best thing for me was not him—that at night his goodwill would run dry and the whiskey he drank would turn him into a goblin.