The Marriage Lie(13)

The helpless fury that had me shaking under my comforter earlier threatens to bubble to the surface, and I swallow it back down. I love my husband. I miss him and want him back. The emotions are so big and wide, they leave no room for anger. I barter with a God I’m not entirely sure I believe in: Bring Will back, and I won’t even ask where he’s been. I promise I won’t even care.

“One lie doesn’t negate seven years of marriage, Dave. Does it piss me off? Maybe. But it can’t erase the love I feel for my husband.”

He concedes the point with a one-shouldered shrug. “Of course not. But can I ask you something else without you biting my head off?” He pauses, and I give him a reluctant nod. “What’s in Seattle? Besides rain and Starbucks and too much plaid, I mean.”

I lift both hands. “Beats the hell out of me. Will grew up in Memphis, and he moved to Atlanta straight out of grad school at University of Tennessee. His entire life is here on the East Coast. I’ve never even heard him talk of Seattle. As far as I know, he’s never been there.” I twist on the couch, stare into cat eyes the same dark olive shade as mine. “But what you’re really asking is, do I think Will is having an affair.”

Dave gives me a slow nod. “Do you?”

My stomach twists—not because I think my husband was cheating on me, but because everybody else surely will. “No. But I don’t think he was on that plane, either, so clearly I’ve not got the tightest grip on reality. What do you think?”

Dave falls silent for a long moment, contemplating his answer. “I have a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to my brother-in-law. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the guy, mostly because of how fiercely he loves you. You can’t fake that kind of love, the kind that, every time you walk into the room, fills his face with so much happiness that I have to turn away—and I’m a gay man. I eat that shit up. So to answer your question, no. I don’t think your husband was having an affair.”

My heart, which was already hanging by a thread, cracks in two. Not just at Dave’s belief in my husband or his talking about him like he’s still here, but more so that my brother’s love for me is so intense, it extends by default to another person. I curl my palm around his biceps and lay my head on his shoulder, thinking I’ve never loved Dave more.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, Will came into your life solo. His parents are dead, he has no siblings, he never talks about any other family or friends. Everybody has a past, but it’s like his life began when he met you.”

Dave is only partly right. Will has a lot of colleagues and acquaintances, but not a lot of friends. But that’s because, for techies like Will, it takes a lot for him to open up.

I sit up, twist on the couch to face my brother. “Because he lost track of all his high-school friends except for one, and he’s moved off to Costa Rica. He runs a surfing school there or something. I know they still exchange regular emails.”

“What about all the others? Friends, old neighbors, workout partners and drinking buddies.”

“Men don’t collect friends like women do.” Dave gives me a look, and I amend. “Heterosexual men don’t collect them. They don’t feel the need to run with a huge pack of people, and besides, you know Will. He’d rather be at home on his laptop than in a loud, crowded bar any day.” It’s part of the reason we eloped to the mountains of North Carolina seven years ago, with only my parents and Dave and James as witnesses. Will doesn’t like crowds, and he hates people fussing over him.

“Even introverts have a best friend,” Dave says. “Who’s Will’s?”

That’s an easy one. I open my mouth to answer, but Dave beats me to the punch. “Besides you, I mean.”

I press down on my lips. Now that my name is off the table, Dave’s question has me perplexed. Will talks about a lot of people he knows, but he never really defines them as friends.

Dave yawns and slumps deeper into the couch, and it’s not long before he forgets his question and nods off. I sit there next to my snoring brother, watching the horrific images flash by on the television screen but not really seeing them.

I’m thinking about our first anniversary, when I surprised Will with a road trip to Memphis. I’d spent weeks planning it, my version of a this is your life tour along all his old haunts, puzzling the stops together from the few stories he’d told me of growing up there. His high-school alma mater, the street where he’d lived until his mother died, the Pizza Hut where he’d worked evening and weekend shifts.

But the closer we got to the city, the more he fidgeted, and the quieter he became. Finally, on a barren stretch of I-40, he admitted the truth. Will’s childhood wasn’t pleasant, and his memories of Memphis weren’t exactly something he wanted to revisit. Once was hard enough. We hung a U-turn and spent the weekend exploring Nashville’s honky-tonks instead.

So, no, Will didn’t like to talk about his past.

But Seattle? What’s there? Who’s there?

I look over at my sleeping brother, at his chest rising and falling in the darkness. As much as I want to keep Dave’s suspicions at bay, to barricade his doubts about Will from my brain, the questions sneak back in like smoke, silent and choking.

How well do I know my husband?





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