Those small aggressions have been piling up, though, and Marissa has finally reached her limit.
Avery would probably tell Marissa to be direct, to cut away the veneer of false friendship and voice her frustration. The thought is oddly liberating. Marissa will relish telling Natalie off.
But for now, her most important task is to get home and check on her husband.
She slips into the house quietly. The kitchen is exactly as she left it, with Bennett’s plate and empty orange juice glass in the sink. Marissa slides a coffee pod into the Nespresso maker and brews a cup, then carries it upstairs.
Matthew is propped up in bed, checking his phone.
“Hey”—she walks over to kiss him—“you’re supposed to be resting.” She gives him the coffee.
He takes a grateful sip. “I am resting. I’m still in bed. How much more relaxed could I be?”
He sets his coffee on the nightstand and lifts up the covers, patting the empty spot next to him. Marissa smiles and slips in beside him. Careful to avoid his bruised ribs, she lays her head lightly on his bare chest. His arms tighten around her.
“Marissa, I wanted to say this yesterday in Avery’s office before we got interrupted.” His deep voice is serious; beneath her left ear, she can feel the sure, steady beat of his heart. “I’ve done a lot of soul-searching these past few days. I want to be a better husband to you. And dad to Bennett. When I woke up in the ambulance, it was all I could think about. My regrets…”
Marissa quashes the impulse to shush him, to tell him he’s a wonderful husband and father. She remains silent because his words contain truth.
“I’m going to be around more. I promise.” Matthew kisses the top of her head. “Starting now.”
“I would really love that.” Is it possible, Marissa wonders, that all the horrible things that have happened will actually make their family stronger? She has been so achingly lonely in her marriage. If she is brutally honest with herself, as Avery has urged her to be, that feeling didn’t just sprout up in the months leading up to her terrible indiscretion. It has existed throughout her relationship with Matthew, this sense that only a tenuous, gossamer tie links them, and that something as fleeting as a strong gust could blow them apart.
She shivers involuntarily and snuggles closer to her husband, soaking in the warmth of his body. She can hear her phone buzzing on the nightstand, but she ignores it. If Bennett’s school is trying to reach her, they have the home number.
“So, what’s Bennett’s schedule after school today?” Matthew asks. “Boy Scouts? Baseball? I was thinking I could pick him up.”
Marissa doesn’t correct him by saying it’s Cub Scouts, not Boy Scouts, and that they always meet on Wednesday nights. “Actually, he’s free this afternoon.”
“Fantastic! I know what we can do. I’ll take him to the batting cages. I can see how my little slugger is doing.”
Marissa hesitates. “There’s something I need to tell you. Maybe this isn’t the right time to mention it, but Bennett wants to quit baseball.”
“What?” Matthew sounds shocked. “He loves baseball! Didn’t he tell us he got on base twice last week?”
“He was lying,” Marissa says softly. “He didn’t want to disappoint us.” Disappoint you, she silently clarifies.
Matthew doesn’t immediately reply.
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” Marissa finally says. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”
“No, it’s okay.” Matthew clears his throat. “You know, I’ve actually been thinking about my dad a lot lately.”
In the pause that follows, Marissa holds perfectly still, barely breathing. She can’t distract Matthew from what he may be about to say.
Matthew never wants to discuss his father, whom Marissa calls by his first name, Chris, because she has never grown close enough to him to use the term Dad. Even though he lives twenty minutes away, Matthew sees him only twice a year, on Christmas Eve and on Chris’s birthday. Marissa and Bennett visit Chris more often, and Chris and Bennett also spend time together alone on occasion, going to a movie or bowling. Although Chris can be brusque to the point of rudeness around Matthew, he is unfailingly gentle with Bennett.
Still, her husband would clearly be happier if he and his dad had no relationship at all.
Marissa has long since given up trying to get Matthew to talk about it. It is what it is. You know I don’t like all that processing BS, he would say whenever she tried in the past.
“I did so many things I thought would impress him,” Matthew says now. “And it was never enough. I got good grades. I played sports. I married you,” he concludes with a little half laugh.
Marissa has witnessed this subtle dynamic over the years. It’s almost as if Matthew’s father disdains Matthew for being Matthew—classically good-looking, savvy, a natural athlete, and born with the proverbial silver spoon. Marissa has always sensed that Chris somehow doesn’t respect Matthew’s innate gifts. As if he wanted his son to have to work harder, to struggle more.
As he had.
Marissa waits for Matthew to keep talking, but he seems lost in thought. Finally, she says carefully, “I wonder if the way he grew up … affected his relationships.”
Matthew’s father was the oldest of four in a blue-collar family and worked part-time throughout high school to help his parents pay the bills. Chris didn’t have time to play on sports teams or join the SGA or hang out at the diner with the other students. He didn’t attend school dances because he didn’t own a suit and figured no girl would want to go with a guy in a shabby blazer. When his father fell ill, Chris got his GED and began working full-time as a delivery boy for a D.C. lobbying firm, ferrying important documents all over town on his old three-speed bike, but managed to earn his college degree by taking night classes. By the time Chris turned thirty-two, he owned his own lobbying firm, and plenty of women were clamoring to be by his side, even though he still favored sturdy, well-worn clothes. He chose Matthew’s mother, a Mount Vernon College graduate from a well-heeled family. He and the blue-blood debutante were obviously an abysmal match.
“He hated the way my mother spent,” Matthew says now. “The clothes. The trips to the salons. Our summer place. He would have bought a little fishing cottage, but she insisted on that big house.”
Marissa’s hand strokes slow circles on Matthew’s arm, an echo of the movement she makes on Bennett’s back when their little boy is upset.
“Don’t most parents want their kids to have a better life than they did?” Heat fills Matthew’s tone. “I work my ass off! I deserve a nice house, a good car.…”
“Of course you do.” Even though Matthew got a huge running start in life—the best schools, his college tuition fully paid for, and a pedigree that guaranteed doors would open to him in business—she can understand his anger.
Marissa thinks back to the first and only time Chris visited them in their new home. Dinner had gone fairly well; Marissa made sure to have Chris’s brand of Scotch, Cluny, on hand, and she served steak and baked potatoes, which was his favorite meal. The conversation never flowed easily, though. Then Chris went out to his car. Although by then he could have bought a fleet of fancy foreign models, he drove an old Buick LeSabre. It refused to start; the engine repeatedly sputtered but wouldn’t catch in the cold night air. Matthew went inside to call AAA, and when he came back out, Chris had the hood up and had gotten a toolbox out of his trunk. He was so focused on tinkering with the carburetor he merely grunted, No, when Matthew asked if Chris wanted Marissa to make him some hot tea.