Chapter 4: Everything
I made pasta because it was Lily's favorite and because my hands needed something to do.
Max set the table.
We moved around the kitchen the way we always did, passing each other, opening the same drawers, and it felt obscene how normal it looked.
How practiced.
Lily talked through dinner.
A girl at school had said something mean about her drawing.
The juice box at lunch had been the wrong flavor.
She wanted a hamster.
Max laughed at the hamster part.
A real laugh.
I watched him.
After dinner I gave Lily her bath, read her two chapters, and sat on the edge of her bed until her breathing slowed.
Then I went downstairs.
Max was at the kitchen table with two cups of tea.
He'd washed the dishes.
He always washed the dishes when he felt guilty.
I'd thought it was just a habit.
I sat down across from him.
"Start from the beginning," I said.
He wrapped both hands around his mug.
"We met at the Henderson account.
She was brought in as a consultant in January."
"January." Six months ago.
"You said four months."
"It wasn't anything in January.
We just worked together."
"When did it become something?"
"March."
I did the math again.
Lily's birthday.
His hand squeezing mine in the dark.
"Were you with her that week?
The week of Lily's birthday?"
He looked down.
"Not that week."
"But close to it."
He didn't answer.
That was an answer.
"Does anyone at work know?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Max, I need you to understand something." I kept my voice steady.
"I'm not going to sit here and have you drip-feed me the truth over the next six weeks.
I want all of it.
Tonight.
Because I can't make a single decision about what comes next until I know what I'm actually deciding about."
He looked up.
"Do you love her?"
His hands tightened around the mug.
"I don't know."
The honest answer was worse than a lie would have been.
"Okay," I said.
"Then here's what I need to know.
Did you tell her we were over?
Not complicated.
Not a rough patch.
Over."
A long pause.
"I told her I was thinking about leaving."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"And are you?" I asked.
"Thinking about leaving?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
His eyes were wet.
I noticed that the way you notice weather — as a fact, not a feeling.
"I don't know that either," he said.
I stood up.
Picked up my tea.
Walked to the counter and stood with my back to him for a moment.
"Then you need to figure it out," I said.
"Because I'm not going to wait in a marriage while you decide if you want to be in it."
"I don't want to lose you."
"That's not the same as wanting to stay."
He had no answer for that.
I set my mug in the sink.
"I'm going to sleep in the guest room tonight.
We'll talk more tomorrow, after Lily's at school."
"You don't have to—"
"I do." I turned around.
"I need one night where I don't have to look at you and pretend I'm fine."
He nodded slowly.
I walked to the door, then stopped.
"One more thing.
Dana said she didn't know you were married.
Is that true?"
"Yes."
"You never told her about me?
About Lily?"
He hesitated just a fraction too long.
"Max."
"She knew I had a daughter.
I may not have — I didn't talk about you much."
I stood there for a moment, taking that in.
"Goodnight," I said.
I went upstairs.
I didn't cry.
I sat on the edge of the guest bed in the dark and I thought about the wreath on the front door that I'd kept meaning to take down, and I wondered how many other things I'd been meaning to deal with that I'd simply stopped seeing.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
*I think we need to talk.
May you like
There are things about Max you don't know.
— Dana*
