Kit pressed his hands toward her. “No, that’s not what I said. I said a trial. We don’t need to do anything rash. Just see how we feel being apart for a little while. Things have been very tense, and I’m struggling to feel any sort of joy in life, Melanie.”
She wanted to shout join the effing crowd but could find no words.
Kit continued. “I just don’t know what I want anymore. I thought I knew, but I’m nearly fifty years old. I keep wondering: Is this it? Is this all there is? And I’m sure you feel the same way.”
Melanie opened her mouth, but, again, no words came out. Her husband wondered if their marriage, their two children, their business they’d built from the ground up, the life they’d so carefully constructed into something they both desired was “all there was”?
Wasn’t the very “it” he spoke of the American dream?
What the ever-loving hell?
Kit stood and started pacing, shoving his hand into his hair. “I mean, you have to be having the same questions. Look at your sister. That was it for her. She’s done, and what did she have to show for it? Honestly, I’m not sure I want to die tomorrow having my whole life just be this.” He spread his hands and twirled around.
“What’s wrong with this?”
“Oh, come on, Mel. Think about all the things you’ve never done. ’Cause that’s all I can think about—the scuba lessons I’ve never taken, the motorcycle you wouldn’t let me buy, the mountains I’ve never climbed. Life is zipping past us, and we’re worrying about the brakes on the truck, the exterminator using dangerous chemicals, and the returns we’re getting on our stocks. I mean, who cares? We’re frittering our lives away on endless details that don’t matter. I’m done with all that. I want more.”
She didn’t know what to say. Her mouth felt like someone had crammed that crinkly stuff thoughtless people used in gift baskets, the stuff that required getting out the vacuum once you’d taken all the goodies out. If she said something, all that crinkly stuffing would come out, zipping and zagging all over the place, leaving papery pieces of herself everywhere. She wasn’t sure if there was a broom or vacuum big enough to clean up that sort of mess. So she said nothing. Just stared at her pacing husband with his exquisitely tortured face, as if he were the one wounded by the thought of their marriage being broken apart.
“Say something,” he demanded, stopping in front of her.
Melanie couldn’t. Her clogged throat, thick with unshed tears and stinging anger, remained closed. She shook her head, trying not to cry. Trying not to fall apart.
His expression softened. “Hey, I know you didn’t expect this, and my timing is, well, pretty bad, but what Tennyson said made such sense. Some things require decisiveness. You either shit or get off the pot.”
Tennyson?
Melanie turned her head and caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her frizzy, layered hair looked ridiculous, the self-tanner too ruddy, her face too pasty. Her clothes were baggy and stained. This was what she looked like when her husband declared their marriage over. Because trial separation meant divorce. She could count on one hand the number of friends who separated and had their marriages survive. In fact, she’d have to make a fist. “What exactly did Tennyson say?”
Kit stopped and looked at her. “It wasn’t so much what she said. Or maybe it was. Essentially she moved me to a place that made me examine what I really want in life.”
“And that is?”
“Fulfillment.”
Melanie bit her lip and thought about that. “So Tennyson told you that you should be seeking fulfillment? And you think fulfillment is climbing a mountain? Would that be with Charlotte beside you? And would that be before or after you’ve had sex with her?”
“Here you go again,” Kit said, waving a hand and dropping it to his side with a slap. “You’re obsessed with Charlotte. I’m not having an affair with her. Yeah, I admire her. She’s independent and seizes life by the horns. She’s not afraid to go after what she wants.”
“And I am afraid?”
Kit rolled his eyes. Rolled. His. Eyes. “Come on, it’s like what we tell the kids. Just because I’m complimenting one doesn’t mean I’m dissing the other. Of course I admire you. You’re a terrific mother.”
Yes. Terrific mother. That’s what everyone said. She’d spent the last twenty-odd years assuring that no one could ever look askance at her parenting skills. She volunteered, hand-sanitized, and organic-snacked her way into the Motherhood Hall of Fame. Yet her sister was dead, her mother was a raging bitch, and now her husband was leaving her because he wasn’t fulfilled. But she was a good mother, by golly. There was that.
“Well, thank you, Kit. I really appreciate that. You can leave now.”
He made a face. “I know you’re upset.”
She angled her eyes to the corner of the bathroom as if she were in contemplation, and then she looked at him and shrugged. “Um, no. I’m not upset. In fact, I think it’s an excellent idea. You go. I don’t want you to have to worry about the obligations of this house. I wish you well. Enjoy an apartment and the swimming pool. Hey, some even have a fitness center. Living away from all this will be awesome.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No, no. Feel free to have some fun while you’re on your trial separation. You know, seize the day and all that. I hear the singles scene in Shreveport is dead, but a guy like you—almost fifty years old with a great one-bedroom apartment—ought to be just the thing. I hope you get fulfilled. I hope you get fulfilled hard, buddy.”
“Mel, come on. Think of this as another form of therapy. Let’s just give each other some space, you know? It’s a trial. Not permanent.” Kit came to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Take your hands off me,” she said, shrugging him off.
He did as she asked, looking a little hurt that she’d been so firm with him.
She exhaled and inhaled a few times. “I’m not stupid. I know why you want a ‘trial’ separation. Because it gives you permission to ‘fulfill’ yourself, and if I agree that it’s some form of therapy, your divorce attorney will call it mutually agreed upon. Like it was both our idea, right? But here’s the thing, Kit. I know you won’t really divorce me, because I have the money and an ironclad prenup.”
“Oh, come on,” Kit said, his hurt fading, irritation taking its place. “The whole prenup thing? You said we didn’t have to worry about that. Remember? I signed it only to satisfy your father.”
It was then that Melanie smiled. “Well, you also said vows you’re willing to toss aside. I suppose I said some things I didn’t mean, either. The prenup stands. Thank goodness for my daddy.”
Kit’s features tightened.
Melanie crossed her arms. “You’re not stupid, Kit. You’re not willing to give away half the company and almost all the assets we’ve built just to schlep around with Miss Independent Size 4. Have you told her that you’re only worth about twenty percent without me?”
“Mel, come on.”
“I bet you haven’t. I bet she’s talking about all the fun she’ll have when y’all get married. But she just doesn’t know, does she? All that delicious money belongs to the Brevards.”