“Jack’s having an affair,” she heard herself say.
“God, Holly. I’m so sorry.” Then, while she fought to control her breathing, Brian asked, “You’re sure?”
“The signs are all there,” she said, her eyes welling. “I haven’t told anyone . . . it’s so strange to say it out loud.”
Brian was out of his seat, coming toward her. He guided her to the living room, discreetly snagging a box of tissues on the way.
“Tell me,” he said, as she sank into a corner of the couch and he pulled a chair into place opposite her.
“I don’t know too much about her except that she works at Cancura, she’s from Phoenix, and apparently she likes to change the color of her hair.” Holly dabbed the corners of her eyes, not letting the tears actually fall. “He picked a fight on New Year’s Eve so he’d have an excuse to storm out and leave me alone.”
Brian looked stunned. “You were alone on New Year’s? I had no idea. We could have—”
“Invited me over?” she said, shaking her head.
He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed ruefully. “We could have both watched Nancy sleep on the couch.”
“I wasn’t completely alone. I had to make his excuses and suffer through an intimate dinner with two other couples. I left early and got home in time to share some popcorn with the kids. Jack stayed out all night, but the next morning he began the apology tour. Flowers, jewelry, promising a special trip sometime soon. He said he spent the night alone in Cancura’s corporate apartment in the Loop.”
“But you don’t believe him?”
Holly looked across the living room at Jack’s reading chair, the place from which he held forth like the benevolent patriarch of a happy family when he was home. Which was almost never these days.
“He’s with her now. He told me he was in Omaha, which could even be true. I don’t know. But it means they’re together.”
“And you’re sure,” said Brian, looking pained. “Absolutely sure.”
Suddenly, she ached to be held. “Sit with me?”
Very slowly, as though he were thinking about each movement before he made it, Brian sat next to her on the couch. Inches away. Holly shifted until their thighs were touching and leaned her head on his shoulder. She laced the fingers of her left hand through the fingers of his right. Her heart pounded so loudly she wondered if she was feeling his heartbeat, too.
“He had a one-night stand the night before we were married, and then he had an actual affair when the kids were little. When I confronted him, he confessed and cried and swore it would never happen again. He called it a moment of weakness and said he despised himself. He’s just so . . . believable . . . he almost makes you feel sorry for him. And as angry as I was, I also had this feeling that I was damned if I was going to let another woman take my happy life from me. I didn’t want my kids to grow up in a broken home. And so I found a way to look the other way. I’ve done a lot of that, over the years.”
“But this time, you want to know?” he asked.
One tear escaped, rolling hotly down her cheek. She wiped it off with the back of her hand, forgetting momentarily about the tissues. “He hired her to work for him. How can I look the other way?”
“I’m so sorry, Holly.”
She looked at him. “I’m sorry you have to hear this.”
“It’s okay. I mean, this is nothing like what you’re going through, but Nancy and I have our own problems. As you know. I don’t suspect her of anything”—he laughed wryly—“at least, I didn’t until now. But it’s more like things have just . . . stopped. I can’t remember the last time she looked at me and I thought, This woman loves me. It feels like we’re colleagues whose project is our children.”
“That’s awful in its own way.”
They were facing each other, inches apart. It was so easy and so natural to just lean forward and kiss him, and once she had, her anxieties suddenly melted away. They kissed intently, hungrily, holding each other close like they were afraid to let go.
Brian pulled away. “I don’t want this to be because you’re angry at Jack.”
“I’m not—”
“Of course you are. I’m furious at him, too.”
Her body was telling her to keep kissing Brian. To take him upstairs to her bed. But was he right—was she giving herself permission because of what Jack had done? Was she using Brian to take revenge on Jack?
Now the tears came freely, silently, as she realized that Jack had once again outfoxed her. He was doing whatever he wanted, and she was still bound to him.
“I’m not going to let him get away with it this time,” she told Brian. “But I don’t know what to do.”
“I assume you have evidence that he’s cheating?”
“Not exactly.”
“You don’t destroy a marriage without facts. You need to play this smart.”
“I’ll get proof,” she said. Worrying what she’d see when she found it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
LARK
There have always been people who doubted me, but I’ve never for one second doubted myself.
—“How I Lied about My Name and Discovered My Truth,” a TED Talk by Jon M. Wright
Gregory Zapatka, who insisted his name was pronounced Greg-ORY, sat in his chair like it was a throne. He had flamboyant sideburns and purple aluminum ear gauges, and he had chosen to come to the interview wearing cargo shorts and a black concert T-shirt that barely covered his belly. Lark thought of herself as musically knowledgeable, but she couldn’t even read the band’s name due to its runic font and abundance of umlauts. Gregory had a weird body funk that smelled like a mix of Axe body spray, Red Bull, and spicy Indian food.
The moment he’d taken his seat opposite them, Lark and Callie exchanged a silent look that said, Unless
