I avert my gaze, feeling my face grow hot. What my wife feared… had actually happened… Strangely enough, only now does the extent of my betrayal sink in. I betrayed my wife despite all she’s been through, even though I knew that another man’s infidelity in the past had almost destroyed her. How could this have happened?
Before I learned how my wife got the scar on her stomach, I had never even looked at another woman. I was so strongly and unwaveringly convinced that it would be the two of us forever. But the truth upended everything, made me view the woman I thought I knew so well in a different light. Something stole in between us, and I let it happen. I betrayed her, disappointed her, and lied to her. But have I stopped loving her? No, I don’t think I have.
I’m about to move forward and take her into my arms, but then I picture her eyes the way they just looked. I remember how black they became, how I had the sense that she was going to shove me over the edge. I think about Anna’s worry and discomfort, about the questions she asked me about my wife when we last spoke on the phone. Has she shown any other signs of violence or a desire for revenge? The doubt has returned, and instead of pulling closer to her, I lean back a bit.
“What you did to yourself then, what you were prepared to do to your ex-boyfriend—how do I know that that’s not how you still are, deep down inside?”
She doesn’t answer right away, and when she eventually does, her voice is quiet, scarcely audible.
“There were times when I myself was unsure. Now I know, without a doubt, that what my mother said was true. That’s not what I want, not who I am. But only you can say how you feel about that.”
Seconds turn to minutes as we sit there in silence. I know what she’s waiting for, but I can’t give it to her. I just can’t, not right now, not yet. Finally I look up and into her eyes again.
“I don’t know what I want. I need more time.”
I’m prepared for these words to cause her to break down and start crying. Or return to the bedroom and descend again into her passive state. But nothing like that happens. Instead she nods and clasps her hands in her lap.
“All right, then.”
Then she says that she thinks we should separate, that she loves me, but that she can’t do this anymore—that it’s better that we each reflect and decide what we want as individuals and how we will proceed together.
Separate? She can’t be serious, can she? But yes, I can tell from her face that she is. Suddenly it feels as if all the oxygen has gone out of the room. Perhaps I’m unsure what I need and want, but I know one thing: Loneliness isn’t it.
My wife straightens up.
“I hope you’ll decide that you can love all of me, who I once was and who I am, without fear and without disgust.”
Then she gets her suitcase.
Then she starts packing.
Then she’s gone.
47
ELENA
It’s really late by the time I park my sister’s car on the street outside the yard. It’s Friday night, and I meet a group of dressed-up happy young people moving down the sidewalk. The group parts to let me through. I feel like a shadowy figure as I pass them, a dark spot in the middle of all that glitz and merriment.
The light is on in the Storms’ kitchen, and I see two people sitting across from each other at the table in there: Philip and Leo. I wonder what they’re talking about, wonder if Veronica’s precipitous departure forced a new and different type of conversation between father and son, one that will lead to something good.
I sent Leo a text before I left the cabin.
Your mom is OK. She’ll be in touch with you.
The response came right away.
I know. I’m talking to her right now.
I turn toward my house across from theirs, the one I will soon have spent half of my planned time in. Unlike the Storms’ home, none of the lights are on. My sister is somewhere in there, waiting. Maybe she fell asleep, although I doubt it. I haven’t called. I made do with texting her before I left Veronica. I wrote that I was on my way but didn’t respond to her question about reading the manuscript. Opening the front door, I wonder if she’s really read it. At any rate, I’ll tell her everything now, everything. I kick off my shoes, hang up my jacket, and call out hello. I don’t get an answer.
She’s sitting in the dark in the kitchen, in the same seat where I myself have spent so many hours. I didn’t see her from outside, but she must have seen me through the window. The stack of papers I printed out earlier today is sitting on the table in front of her. Even without any lights on, she notices my borrowed clothes and the bandage on my forehead and asks how I am, but her voice is somewhere else, lost in other thoughts.
I cautiously set the car key down on the counter. I don’t need to wonder anymore if she’s read it. Or if she understands the nature of what I’ve written.
“How far did you manage to read before you… understood?”
“Before I realized that the story was about you and Peter?”
I nod.
“Maybe the part about the… scar.”
I tense up and want to bring my hand to my abdomen. My fingertips twitch, but I resist the old, ingrained impulse. I don’t need to hide anymore. The truth is free. I have set it free.
“Although I had been told it was from an appendectomy. The barbed-wire-fence-when-you-were-a-kid explanation wouldn’t have worked on me.”
No, it wouldn’t have. My sister and I know all about each other’s childhoods, every accident, every scrape. That’s how close we were back then.
“Thomas,” she says now, “your first boyfriend. I hardly remember him. I think I only met him a couple of times.”
I shift my weight from foot to foot as she mentions his name.
“We were going to move in together. We had just decided that.”
My sister slowly shakes her head.
“I never had any idea that your relationship was so serious. I guess I thought it was one of those teenage things that would pass.”
She had lived abroad for so many years, moving back and forth between various places. It’s not so strange that she doesn’t remember every single detail in the life of her little sister, who’s six years younger. But it’s time for me to correct her about this specific part.
“I was a teenager when we started dating, but I was twenty-one when it ended.”
My sister’s eyes gleam. She is quiet for a while.
“And that thing Mama told me,” she said then, “about the anorexia. How does that fit into all this?”
I lean back against the counter.
“I stopped eating when I found out that Thomas was seeing someone else behind my back. More as a reflex than a conscious choice. I just didn’t have any appetite anymore. I lost a fair amount of weight, but it wasn’t anorexia. After what happened… after what I did and what I could have done. It was such a terrible disgrace in Mama’s eyes. She could say anything, just not the truth.”
My sister turns to the window. Perhaps we’re thinking about the same thing. Of the secret Mama had kept. And of what she chose to say instead. Perhaps my sister is also wondering why.
“You didn’t want her to tell the truth, not even to me.”
“Especially not to you.”
I wonder if my sister detests me now. Will she distance herself from me, just when we were starting to become close again?
“I mean, just look at how things turned out with Papa,” I add.
She turns on the kitchen chair, wondering what I mean. I explain that the relationship between Papa and me was never the same after that night when he and Mama came home earlier than expected and caught me in the front hall, sick and thirsty for revenge. Sure, he was present and involved in the beginning. He must have been. But then, once I recovered and returned to living, he pulled away, and I noticed that he had a hard time looking me in the eye. I don’t know if he was feeling fear or revulsion, and I don’t know if it was mostly the self-harm or the thought of what I was capable of doing to Thomas. I just know that the distance between us grew and grew.