Chapter 8: Everything He Said at the Kitchen Table
He talked for a long time.
I didn't interrupt.
I sat across from him at the table where we'd eaten a thousand dinners and I listened to my husband explain how a friendship had turned into something he hadn't planned and hadn't, he said, acted on — but hadn't stopped either.
"She made me feel like I was interesting," he said.
I looked at him.
"I know how that sounds."
"Say it anyway."
"At home I felt like — like I was always getting something wrong.
Like whatever I did wasn't enough or wasn't right.
And she just — she listened.
She thought I was funny.
She asked about my work like it mattered."
"I ask about your work."
"I know."
"I have asked about your work for fourteen years."
"I know that too." He looked up.
"I'm not saying it's your fault.
I'm saying how it felt.
Which is different."
I sat with that.
"Did you tell her things about us?"
A pause.
"Some things."
"What things?"
"That we'd been struggling.
That I felt like we were more roommates than—" He stopped.
"Than what?"
"Than people who actually wanted to be with each other."
The candle I'd lit for dinner had burned down to almost nothing.
The wax had pooled and gone still.
"Do you want to be with me?" I asked.
He looked at me for a long time.
"Yes."
"Then why does she know that we're struggling before I do?"
He didn't have an answer for that.
"Grant, I didn't know we were struggling.
I thought we were fine.
I thought the laundry thing was the biggest problem we had."
"The laundry thing wasn't about laundry."
"I know that now."
"It was about feeling invisible."
"Yes," I said.
"It was."
He looked at his hands.
"I feel that too.
I just handled it completely wrong."
"You talked to another woman about our marriage instead of talking to me."
"Yes."
"And let her believe you deserved better."
"I didn't encourage that."
"You didn't stop it."
He was quiet.
"Has anything physical happened?"
"No."
"I need that to be true."
"It is true." He met my eyes.
"I swear to you.
It never went there.
I wouldn't — I don't want that.
I want this.
I want us.
I just lost track of how to say that."
I looked at my husband across the kitchen table.
He looked like a man who had been carrying something heavy for months and had just set it down in the worst possible place.
"I'm not going to pretend this is fine," I said.
"I'm not asking you to."
"I'm angry."
"You should be."
"I'm also—" I stopped.
"I'm also sad.
Because you felt invisible and you didn't tell me.
And I felt invisible and I didn't tell you.
And somehow we both ended up alone in the same house."
He looked up.
"That's not Diane's fault," I said.
"That's ours."
The candle went out.
Neither of us moved to relight it.
"What do you want to do?" Grant asked.
"I want you to end it.
Whatever it is.
Completely."
"Okay."
"Not okay like the laundry okay.
I mean it."
"I know you mean it."
"And I want us to talk to someone.
A counselor.
Someone who isn't me or you or Pam."
He nodded slowly.
"I'll find someone."
"I'll find someone," I said.
"Because we both know how your to-do list works."
Something crossed his face.
Not quite a smile.
But close.
"Fair," he said.
I stood up from the table.
"I'm going to bed," I said.
"We're not fixed.
But we're not done either."
He looked up at me.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
May you like
"Don't thank me yet," I said.
"Do the work."
