Chapter 4: Everything He Didn't Say
My parents took the children inside.
I didn't ask them to.
My mother simply appeared at my side, touched my arm once, and then gathered both kids with the quiet efficiency she had used our entire childhood to move us away from things we shouldn't see.
My father followed without a word, pulling the back door shut behind him.
Rachel and Michael and I stood in the backyard.
The food was still on the table.
Someone's glass had left a ring on the paper tablecloth.
A bee was working its way around the edge of a fruit bowl as though none of this was happening.
"I want to hear it," I said.
"All of it.
Not the version you've been rehearsing.
The actual truth."
Michael sat down.
He put his elbows on his knees and looked at the ground.
"It started two years ago," he said.
Two years.
Not fourteen months.
The apartment was just where it had landed after two years.
"At Rachel's birthday dinner," he said.
"You left early because Emma had a fever.
Rachel and I stayed to help clean up."
I remembered that night.
Emma had been burning up.
I had kissed Michael goodbye at the door and told him not to rush.
"I told you to stay," I said.
"I know."
"I trusted you to stay."
"I know." He didn't look up.
"It only happened once that night.
I told myself it wouldn't happen again."
"But it did."
"Yes."
Rachel was leaning against the fence with her arms still crossed.
She hadn't spoken since Tom left.
She was watching Michael the way you watch someone defuse something dangerous — very still, very careful.
"Did you love her?" I asked.
Michael's head came up.
He looked at me, then at Rachel, then back at me.
"I don't know," he said.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I have."
Rachel pushed off the fence.
"Michael—"
"Don't," I said.
I didn't shout it.
I didn't need to.
"You don't get to manage this conversation."
Her mouth closed.
"Did you want to leave?" I asked him.
"Were you planning to leave me for her?"
He was quiet for too long.
"There was a conversation," he said finally.
"A few months ago.
About what it would look like.
If things changed."
The bee had moved on to a different part of the table.
Somewhere in the house I could hear my daughter laughing at something my father had said.
"A conversation about leaving me."
"It didn't go anywhere."
"Because you decided to stay?
Or because you couldn't agree on the details?"
He didn't answer.
That was its own kind of answer.
"I need you to leave," I said.
"Not the backyard.
The house.
Tonight."
Michael stood up.
"The children—"
"Are with my parents right now and will be fine.
You can call them tomorrow.
But tonight you need to go."
"Where am I supposed to go?"
I looked at him steadily.
"I think you know where."
Rachel's head turned sharply toward me.
"Don't look at me like that," I told her.
"You wanted him.
You planned for him.
Now you can have the conversation about what happens next without me in the room."
"It's not like that," she said.
"It fell apart.
We — it was already over between us."
"When?"
She hesitated.
"Three months ago."
"So you ended the affair three months ago and then came to your anniversary party and kissed him in front of everyone." I picked up the lease agreement from the table.
"And the apartment?"
Silence.
"Is it still active?"
More silence.
"Rachel."
"The lease runs until next month," she said quietly.
I set the document back down.
"Then I suppose you both have some decisions to make." I walked to the back door.
"I'll be inside with my children.
Michael, your things will be in the front hallway by the time you're ready to go."
I opened the door.
"Wait." Michael's voice.
"Just — wait.
Please.
Can we talk about this properly?
Not like this."
I stopped with my hand on the door frame.
"You had two years to talk to me properly," I said.
"You chose not to."
I went inside.
I stood in the kitchen for a moment with my back against the counter.
Through the window I could see them still in the backyard.
Rachel said something.
Michael shook his head.
She said something else.
He turned away from her.
Whatever they had built together, it didn't look like much from where I was standing.
My mother appeared in the kitchen doorway.
"The children are watching a film," she said carefully.
"Your father is with them."
"Good."
She crossed the kitchen and put both arms around me.
She didn't say anything.
She just held on.
I didn't cry.
Not yet.
I stood very still and let her hold me and looked out the window at the two people who had taken two years of my life and spent them on each other.
Then my phone buzzed on the counter.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
*There's something else you need to know about the apartment.
I should have put it in the envelope.
May you like
I'm sorry.
— Tom*
