Chapter 5: The Conversation at Six O'Clock
Ethan's car pulled into the driveway at 6:04.
The moving truck was gone.
Dana's car was parked where it had been.
He got out and stopped when he saw Dana's car.
Then he saw me standing in the doorway.
He came inside without saying anything in the driveway.
Colleen was in the living room.
Dana was in the kitchen, close enough to hear everything.
Ethan looked at his mother.
Then at me.
"We should talk alone," he said.
"No," I said.
"We shouldn't."
He set his keys on the table — the dining table I'd bought myself, which was still in the room because the movers hadn't gotten to it.
He pulled out a chair and sat down.
He looked tired.
He looked like someone who had been dreading this for a long time.
"How much do you know?" he asked.
"I know you filed.
I know your mother showed me the document.
I know she hired movers and told them to take our furniture while I was at work." I sat down across from him.
"Tell me the part I don't know."
He rubbed his face with both hands.
"I was going to tell you this weekend."
"You filed two weeks ago."
"I know."
"You sat across from me at dinner.
You asked how my day was."
"I know, Brooke."
"So tell me why." My voice stayed even.
I was surprised by that.
"Not why you want a divorce.
Why this.
Why her.
Why movers and a document and a driveway."
Ethan looked at his mother.
It was a quick look — a fraction of a second — but I saw it.
"Don't look at her," I said.
"Look at me."
He did.
"Mom thought it would be easier," he said.
"If the house was already—"
"Easier for who?"
He didn't answer.
"Ethan." I leaned forward.
"Is there someone else?"
The silence that followed was its own answer.
Colleen shifted in her chair.
Ethan's eyes moved to the table.
"How long?" I asked.
"Brooke—"
"How long?"
"Eight months."
Eight months.
I counted backward without meaning to.
Our anniversary dinner.
The weekend trip he'd taken for work in March.
Christmas, when he'd seemed distracted and I'd thought he was stressed about his job.
"Does she know you're married?"
"Yes."
"Did your mother know?"
Colleen spoke before he could.
"Brooke, this is between you and Ethan—"
"I asked Ethan." I didn't look at her.
"Did your mother know?"
He nodded once.
"How long has she known?"
Another pause.
"Six months," he said.
Six months.
Colleen had known for six months that her son was having an affair.
And then she'd called Ethan to say her kitchen was being renovated.
And Ethan had asked me — kindly, casually, over dinner — if his mother could stay with us for a few weeks.
I stood up.
"Get out," I said.
Ethan stood too.
"Brooke, we need to—"
"Both of you.
Get out of this house tonight."
"This is my house—"
"Then get a court to say so." I walked to the front door and opened it.
"Until then, you don't get to bring your mother into my home to intimidate me out of it while you hide behind your phone.
Get.
Out."
Colleen rose slowly from her chair.
She picked up her handbag.
She looked at me with something that might have been respect, or might have been a new calculation.
"This isn't finished," she said.
"No," I agreed.
"It isn't."
They left.
I closed the door.
Dana came out of the kitchen.
She didn't say anything.
She just put her hand on my shoulder and stood there.
May you like
After a moment I said, "I need Paul's number."
"Already texted it to you," she said.
