Chapter 4: Eight Months of Ordinary Mornings
I drove home alone.
Andrew had tried to follow me to the car.
I had held up one hand without turning around and he had stopped at the front step.
Nicole rode with me.
She sat in the passenger seat with her knees pulled up and didn't speak until we were two streets from home.
"How long have you known?" I asked her.
"Since the hallway."
"That was the first night."
"Yes."
I kept my eyes on the road.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"I didn't know what I saw.
Not for sure.
I thought maybe I was wrong." She pressed her forehead against the window.
"And then every day that went by made it harder.
Because if I told you, it meant I'd been sitting on it.
And I didn't want you to be angry at me too."
"I'm not angry at you."
"I know."
"Nicole.
Look at me."
She turned.
"None of this is yours to carry.
Do you understand that?"
She nodded.
But her eyes were wet and I could see she had been carrying it anyway, every day, for two weeks.
We got home.
I made tea I didn't drink.
Nicole sat at the kitchen island and watched me move around the room without purpose.
"Do you want me to stay down here with you?" she asked.
"Go to bed."
"Mom—"
"I'm okay.
Go."
She went.
But I heard her stop at the top of the stairs, and I knew she was sitting there in the dark, listening for me.
I sat down at the kitchen table with my phone.
Eight months.
I went back through my memory of the last eight months the way you go through a drawer looking for something specific.
Every ordinary morning.
Every dinner.
Every time he had been on his phone and I had not thought twice about it.
Every weekend he had worked late.
Every business trip.
There had been three.
I opened my contacts and found the number for my friend Carol, who was a family lawyer.
I didn't call her.
I just looked at her name for a long time.
Then I opened Instagram again.
Diane's profile.
I scrolled back further this time.
Six months ago she had posted a photo of a restaurant I recognized.
Andrew had told me he was in that city for a conference.
Five months ago.
A weekend trip to a lake house.
Andrew had told me that weekend he was helping his college friend move.
I set the phone down.
I picked it up again.
I went to Andrew's profile.
Found the photo I had posted tonight.
The one that had started all of this.
Our family at the beach.
All three of us smiling.
Nicole with her hand shading her eyes.
Andrew's arm around my shoulder.
Diane's comment was still there.
Forty-seven people had liked the photo.
Three people had commented asking which resort.
And then her comment, sitting underneath all of it like something that had always been there, waiting.
*Beautiful family.
Does she know you were with me at that same resort?*
I deleted the photo.
Then I went upstairs.
Andrew was sitting on the edge of the bed.
Still dressed.
He looked up when I came in.
"We need to talk," he said.
"Not tonight."
"Rachel—"
"I said not tonight, Andrew."
He stood up.
"I need you to understand that it's over.
With her.
It's been over for—"
"I don't want to hear about when it ended." I opened the closet and took out a pillow and a spare blanket.
I held them out to him.
"I need you to sleep somewhere else tonight."
He looked at the pillow.
Then at me.
"Rachel, please."
"Take them or don't.
But you're not sleeping in here."
He took them.
I closed the bedroom door.
I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark and listened to the house settle around me.
After a while I heard Nicole's door open and close softly.
Then silence.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Andrew's mother.
*I am so sorry, Rachel.
I should have told you.
I have been telling him for months that he needed to tell you himself.
I was wrong to wait.
Please know that.*
I read it twice.
Then I put the phone face-down on the nightstand.
Outside, a car passed slowly.
Its headlights moved across the ceiling and disappeared.
I lay back on the bed without getting under the covers.
May you like
Eight months of ordinary mornings.
And I had not seen a single one of them.
