“You will always be welcome with both of us, and neither of us is going away,” she’d told him, privately certain Jack would love nothing better than to have them one weekend a month so he could fully capitalize on being the fun parent.
And while Jack had respected the physical boundary she’d set, his calls and texts were so frequent she’d more than once considered blocking him. Even though she wasn’t picking up, the notifications alone were a constant distraction.
Especially now, as she drove to lunch with Brian, where her plan was to update him on the latest developments without crying or falling into his arms.
Just in case, she’d suggested Bob Chinn’s Crab House in Wheeling. It was fifteen miles away, it was dark inside, and nobody they knew would go there for lunch. Brian had accepted the location without comment, just one of the many things she appreciated about him.
As she rolled up to a stop sign at a deserted intersection, her phone buzzed four times in a row, and the lock screen filled up with messages from Jack. It sounded like a wasp. She hesitated before she picked it up, dreading a sting.
Call me, please, Holly, he had written. I want to do better. I want to BE better.
She turned left onto Otis Road, leafy in summer but now a tunnel of stick-fingered trees with skirts of dirty snow. The asphalt was clear, and with a careful check of her mirrors, she unlocked the phone and texted back, keeping her speed right at the limit.
Where are you? she wrote. With her?
NO. I’m alone.
Where?
I’m in an intensive therapy program.
What kind of therapy? she asked, thinking Jack’s definition of alone didn’t match anyone else’s.
She dropped the phone and put both hands on the wheel as one car came toward her, then another, while her phone buzzed with his answer. Then there was a car behind her, and she couldn’t look until it turned off at Hawley Woods. Texting and driving was just as stupid as giving more attention to Jack. But therapy? That was new. It was almost as if he’d finally realized mere apologies were not enough.
Almost.
She turned right on Hawthorne Lane and picked up the phone again.
It’s a residential program, he’d written. Only wish I had done this years ago. Without you and the kids I’m nothing.
There it was. Unmoved, she wrote back, Therapy for what?
Then traffic got just heavy enough to make her worry whether texting and driving would leave her children motherless as well as, for all practical purposes, fatherless. While Jack thought about what to write next, she synced her Bluetooth so notifications would come up on the dashboard screen. She could use voice recognition to reply. A call would have been easier, but she didn’t want to hear his voice. Especially after his next message.
It’s to address the problem of my unfaithfulness, the root cause of which is typically low self-esteem.
That made her laugh out loud, which made her swerve, prompting a panicked honk from an oncoming driver.
If Jack has low self-esteem, she thought, what hope is there for any of us?
Funny, I never thought of you as insecure, she replied.
It’s different from that. I think I’ve never felt worthy of you, of your family.
Don’t put this on me, she warned.
It’s all on me. I have a problem and I want to get better. I want things to be like they used to be. I understand and accept that you’re angry. Just PLEASE don’t write me off. Our kids still need us.
Their kids were exactly why Holly hadn’t done anything about this sooner. They needed to be provided for now and in the future. And she did, too. After all she’d given up for him—all she’d given him—it was only fair. And until she had that sorted out, there was no need to give him a definitive answer on anything.
“I’m not writing you off,” she said out loud, watching the words form on her dashboard screen. “But right now, I’m having a hard time thinking of our marriage as anything more than a business relationship.”
She would maintain just enough communication to keep their affairs in order and to coparent the kids as much as he was inclined to do. And this afternoon she would call the highest-priced divorce lawyer in Chicago to begin discussing her options.
It is so much more than that to me, but I know I need to prove it, he wrote contritely.
As she drove on autopilot along Dundee Road toward Wheeling, Holly tapped satellite radio, which immediately began playing her favored nineties stream. But those songs were songs from the era when she and Jack had begun dating. She changed it to Today’s Pop Hits, the station Ava and Paige preferred. The music wasn’t to her taste, but at least it was new.
Brian’s Volvo was already in the lot. Inside, the restaurant was practically empty. He stood up from his corner table and gave her a hug she gratefully accepted.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I picked this place,” she said. “I haven’t been here since my dad’s birthday years ago.”
Brian raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with it?”
It took Holly a moment to put her finger on the problem. “It’s the kind of place you go on a special occasion.”
“Time with you—I’d say that qualifies,” he said with a wink.
She smiled as the waiter came and took their drink orders. Holly wasn’t hungry but imagined she could manage some soup and salad.
“Jack’s attempt to woo the Yadaos seems to have fallen flat,” Brian said.
“I guess you called it. Did he make things worse for us?”
The word us hung in the air between them.
“I don’t think he did too much damage. A developer friend of mine told me about something Larry needs, so we might have some leverage. But we can talk about that later. I’ve missed you. How are you doing?”
She was summoning the energy to tell him the latest developments when her phone vibrated. She glanced
