“She’s fine,” I say, gently. “Really. We talked about it, and she completely calmed down. If you ask me, though, she still carries a lot of guilt about the whole thing.”
Hollis takes the bait. “Guilt? Why the hell would she feel guilty? You do know what happened? She did tell you, right?”
“Um, yeah. She slept with her brother-in-law.” I pause for effect. “Marla told me all about it tonight.”
“She what?” Hollis’s voice is strained, measured. But I can hear the disbelief laced with understanding, can feel the simmering of emotions boiling just beneath the surface.
“Um, she had an affair with her brother-in-law,” I say, and as happy as I am to be dishing out this dirty piece of intel on his wife, I keep my voice gentle. “Her ex-husband’s twin brother.”
Silence. Deep and hollow.
“Hollis? Are you still there?”
“Jesus Christ,” is his answer.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, knowing full well what the fuck is wrong.
“But she said…”
I wait patiently for it all to hit, for him to realize that his wife was the no-good cheater in her first marriage, and not the victim that she painted herself out to be. Finishing off my wine, I set the glass on the coffee table and pull my knees to my chest. Then, when I’m comfortable, I get back into character so I can nudge him just a bit further down the path of mistrust. “Wait, you didn’t know? Oh, my God. Shit, Hollis. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just…I thought you knew and…”
I let my voice trail off with a worried sniff, and Hollis picks up the pieces – just like I knew he would.
“Don’t you dare apologize for her. You didn’t do anything wrong. Marla’s the one who…Jesus,” he says again. “There has to be some explanation. Are you sure you heard her right? How much did she have to drink? Maybe she was confused, or, or…”
“I’m sorry, but Marla wasn’t confused. Nor was she too drunk to not know what she was saying.” I get no joy when I say this now, because as much as I want Marla out of his life, I don’t want to subject Hollis to pain.
But I’m not the one to blame. I’m just the messenger.
It’s Marla fault. Every bit of it.
“Marla said that he was the one who cheated on her. She told me that the asshole slept with her best friend.” Hollis laughs, dark and deep, and then curses again. “She even said it was why she had a hard time making friends, that she couldn’t trust women…”
Damn. And I thought I had issues.
“Well, she lied to you, Hollis. Your wife lied to you.”
Nicholas isn’t a liar.
I know this for a fact. And how do I know, you may ask?
Because he doesn’t care enough about me to lie.
A few years after we were married, he slept with another woman. It was some random waitress from a random restaurant during one of his random business trips. She brought appetizers with a smile and slipped him a note with his drink, and after she served him dinner, she followed him back to his five-star hotel room and served herself up for desert on a thousand count Egyptian cotton sheets.
Nicholas showed no remorse when telling me this upon his return, explaining that he had a moment of weakness he wasn’t proud of and that he wouldn’t allow it to happen again. I felt like I was in a board meeting, where we were discussing an unfortunate drop in stock, maybe a merger that fell through. It certainly didn’t feel like I was discussing my marriage, my husband’s fucking infidelity.
He claimed he told me about the cheating because he valued honesty.
Then he remined me about our prenup.
And me? I just looked at him and wondered what had happened to my friend.
Because in the beginning, our beginning, that’s what we were.
While he spoke, I cried on the inside. Was absolutely wrecked on the inside.
On the outside, though, I displayed the sort of personality that Nicholas preferred – calm, cool, collected.
Ours wasn’t a marriage of love; I knew that by then. Still, it took everything I had to hide my emotions, the ones with sharp nails and biting teeth that wreaked havoc on my mind and flayed my heart. The first ten years of our marriage ravaged my spirit, yet I didn’t dare leave. Couldn’t leave. I’d given up too much, lost too much of myself to survive on my own.
Okay. To give myself some credit, I did think about leaving. A few times, actually. Back in the early days, when Nicholas’s distance would become too much to bear, I’d think about packing a suitcase and hitting the road, maybe end up in some quaint little town where I could wait tables during the day and writing sweet poetry at night. It was all very romantic; I’d daydream about the diner where I’d serve friendly, familiar faces. And then, after work, I’d hole up in the little farmhouse that I’d rented, listening to the fire crackle in the winter and appreciating the sweet smell of prairie grass in the summer. There, I could press my pen to paper, write my way back to the girl I used to be. But the dream was flimsy at best, and eventually my mind would drift to unpleasant places. I’d remember my old landlord, the one who accepted sexual favors more readily than a check. I’d recall the way he smelled like onions and swelled in my mouth before he came. And, most importantly, I’d remember the helplessness I felt, the knowing that no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be enough. That I’d never be enough.
One way or another, I’d always end up on my knees.
Besides. What if what was out there was worse? I’d given up on love, but at least I had a grand roof over my head and fine food on my plate. I didn’t have to work anymore, didn’t have to strive so hard to make ends meet. No longer did I have to give up so much of myself in return for so little.
My marriage to Nicholas had become about survival. And survival, I understood. It’s what I’d been doing my whole entire life.
Getting by. Making it from one day to the next. Wary and cautious, with my guard always up.
I never dropped my guard with Hollis. Not once.
Only with Nicholas did I dare do the unthinkable. It was only for a brief time, but still. I offered him everything I had, opened right up and bared my heart. I craved him, the man who became my husband. I relaxed into his life, into his world, and – metaphorically speaking, at least – it killed me.
• • •
I rise the following morning feeling strangely heavy. Despite the bomb I dropped on Hollis last night that probably shrapnel-ed the shit out of his marriage, I don’t feel happy.
I don’t exactly feel depressed, either. Just to make that clear. Progress was made last night, and believe me, I appreciate it.
But there’s something inside me, a tether of sorts, keeping my mood down, pulling me back from the high I should be experiencing. And I can’t quite put my finger on it.
So I do what I’ve been doing lately.
I take to the water.
Marla was still in bed when I left, and I took special care not to wake her while feeding Gus and gathering my gear. The woman, after all, needs her sleep. Goodness knows she’s not going to get much (if any) rest in the foreseeable future. Not when she gets home today and realizes that her husband knows she stretched the truth about her last marriage like a stringy roll of saltwater taffy. Hollis wasn’t a happy camper when we ended our call, and I can’t say that I blame him.