Chapter 6: The Woman on the Other End
I did not put the phone on speaker.
I looked straight ahead at the road and I kept my voice completely flat.
"How did you get this number?"
"Marlene gave it to me.
A while ago." A brief pause.
"She said I might need it someday."
Ethan glanced over.
I held up one finger.
He turned back to the road.
"What do you want, Diane?"
"I want you to understand that none of this was meant to hurt you."
"Taking my clothes wasn't meant to hurt me."
"I didn't take anything.
Marlene offered.
I didn't know — not at first — that she was telling you it was for a charity.
When I found out, I told her that wasn't right."
"And yet the clothes kept coming."
Silence on her end.
Then: "Yes.
They did."
I gave her credit for not pretending otherwise.
"Why did you keep accepting them?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Because Marlene made me feel like I still had a place in that family.
And I know how that sounds.
I know exactly how that sounds.
But after Ethan and I ended, I lost everything connected to that part of my life.
His friends.
The people I'd known for two years.
And Marlene kept calling.
She kept inviting me for coffee.
She kept saying—" She stopped.
"What did she keep saying?"
Diane's voice was quieter when she answered.
"That things might still change."
The car was very quiet.
Ethan's hands were tight on the steering wheel.
He had heard enough to understand the shape of it.
"She told you there was still a chance," I said.
"She implied it.
For a long time." A breath.
"I want you to know that I stopped believing her about two years ago.
I moved on.
I'm in a relationship.
I have my own life.
But by then the visits had just become — normal.
She was kind to me.
And I was lonely when it started and I made choices I shouldn't have."
"Wearing my clothes."
"Yes." No hesitation.
"That was wrong.
I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway because Marlene made it feel like they were just clothes.
Like it didn't mean anything." A pause.
"But they meant something to you.
I could see that.
When I wore the green coat I thought about who had worn it before me and I felt — I felt bad.
I want you to know that."
I watched the road.
"Why are you calling me?" I asked.
"Because Marlene just called me.
She told me what happened.
She told me what she said to you." Diane's voice shifted slightly.
"What she said about you.
About your marriage.
That wasn't fair.
And it wasn't true.
Ethan loves you.
Anyone who has spent five minutes around him in the last few years can see that.
Marlene sees it too.
That's the problem."
"You're defending my marriage to me."
"I'm telling you the truth.
Because I think you deserve it and because Marlene isn't going to give it to you."
I looked at Ethan.
He was watching the road but his jaw was set and I could see him processing everything.
"What is she going to do next?" I asked.
"I don't know exactly.
But she called me before she called Ethan.
That tells you something." A pause.
"She's going to try to make this about me.
About us.
She's going to try to make Ethan doubt things.
She's done it before when she felt like she was losing control."
"Done what before?"
Diane was quiet for a moment.
"There was a woman before you.
Ethan dated her for about eight months.
Marlene didn't like her either.
By the end of it, that woman believed Ethan had said things about her that he never said.
Messages she thought were from him.
Conversations that got reported back wrong." A pause.
"I don't know how much of that was Marlene and how much was just a bad situation.
But I've thought about it a lot since then."
The car slowed for a red light.
I stared at the dashboard.
"Thank you for calling," I said.
"I'm sorry," Diane said.
"For my part in it.
Genuinely."
The line went quiet.
I set the phone in my lap.
Ethan looked at me.
"Tell me everything."
So I did.
By the time I finished, we were parked in our own driveway.
Neither of us had moved to get out.
"The woman before me," I said.
"Do you know who she is?"
Ethan's face had gone very still.
"Her name was Carol.
We ended things because—" He stopped.
"Because she told me she thought I had said something cruel about her to a mutual friend.
I never said it.
I never would have said it.
But she was certain."
He looked at me.
"I thought she was wrong," he said.
"I thought she had misheard something or someone had gotten confused.
I never thought—"
"You never thought your mother would do that."
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
May you like
I picked up my phone.
"I need Carol's last name," I said.
