Lies She Told(9)

He blinks. For a moment, I swear the pink drains from his face. The blood quickly returns, flushing his neck. “At work,” he speaks slowly, examining my face. “As I told you in my message.”

The bald-faced lie should inflame my rage. But he’s looking at me with those intense eyes, blazing as a summer sky. They open so wide it seems his soul could slip out. He has honest eyes. I’d thought so the moment we met in that courtroom. I remember the way he looked at me as I loitered beside the prosecutor’s desk. Him, a handsome young lawyer on his first murder trial. Me, a new recruit to the paper’s law-and-order desk, struggling to project enough confidence to believably ask him hard questions. His brow had wrinkled at the sight of the press pass hanging from my neck like tacky statement jewelry. Then he’d seen my face, and those baby blues had sparkled like December birthstones. He’d looked at me and grinned, as though he’d been waiting his whole life for me to show up beside him in some airless courtroom. Now that I’d arrived, we would escape and be happy.

And I’m bawling. Tears cascade down my face. Convulsions shake my body and twist my mouth into grotesque shapes. Fluid fills my nose. I cry so hard I start coughing. I’m drowning.

He holds me to his side, cooing like a mourning dove. “What is it? You can tell me.” The concern in his tone sounds so real. Yet how could it be? How could he care at all about me and lie to my face?

I gasp, unable to speak without screaming. His arms wrap around my back. When I shudder, he pulls me into him and rubs his hands over my spine, as though I’ve caught a chill that he can soothe with body heat and friction. My nose presses against his white button-down. I inhale in short bursts, trying to compose myself. At the same time, I sniff his clothes. What does she smell like? Jasmine? Linen? Sex?

The green scent of his deodorant soap and the mossy perfume of his aftershave assail my nostrils. He’s applied this recently. Liberally. I push back and stare at the bulge bobbing in his neck. No trace of a sheen at his collar, despite the hot day. If he stunk of this woman, I could convince myself that they’d hung out, maybe necked a bit in the car, at worst had a one-night fling that he’d fled in a shameful daze. But he’s made an effort to clean up. An experienced cheater move. How long has this been going on?

He brushes my long bangs off my forehead, tucking the limp hair behind my ear. Part of me wants nothing more than to close my eyes and erase the memory of hours earlier. Him, me, and baby makes three. This is all I want. I hate myself that this is all I want.

“Is it Vicky?”

The mention of our daughter encourages me to get it together. I can’t have a breakdown. I have a baby to care for. I inhale and exhale. Breathe. I need to breathe.

“Is it being cooped up all day in the house without anyone to talk to? You feel lonely.” He rubs my back as though I’ve been ill. He’s the sick one. How can he comfort me after trying to destroy me with his selfishness? He strokes my hair. “You know, a lot of women go through this after birth. Moodiness. Depression. Anger. You were on those drugs before we conceived. Everything is probably out of whack.”

His audacity is a blast of hot air, evaporating my distress. He thinks he’s so slick that I can’t have any upsetting suspicions. I’m irrationally angry because he came home late. It’s the crazy hormones. He continues watching me, expression sincere as a begging puppy. I have an urge to poke my fingers through his sockets and scratch out his eyes. It would be a public service—keep them from tricking anyone else.

“You should talk to someone. We have free sessions with a psychiatrist through the health insurance. I can give you numbers.”

Without my tears, I feel brittle and empty. All I can do is gawp and blink. Why do I love this man?

“What do you think?”

Do I even know him?

“You want the number?”

I don’t need a shrink; I need not to be married to a lying scumbag. The insult freezes on my tongue. Any argument will end with me shouting and him storming out. He’ll call me nuts, claim he never left the office. I’m delusional, he’ll say. I imagined it. New York City has eight million people. He’s sure to have a doppelg?nger somewhere.

“Should I make an appointment?”

I should have confronted him at the restaurant. Better to have embarrassed myself than to have my accusations dismissed as postpartum hallucinations.

“I don’t know.” My voice creaks like a broken hinge.

“Tomorrow.” Again, he brushes my hair behind my ear. Fingers rub my head. He’s petting me. “I’ll book tomorrow.” He yawns, a jaw-dropping expression that he covers with his hand. “I have to get to bed. Early morning.”

He stands and stares at me, waiting for me to follow. My hands are barbells in my lap. My stomach glistens from fallen tears. One drop has settled around my still distended belly button.

He kisses the side of my head. “I’ll give you a minute.”

I grit my teeth. A minute? You’d promised me a lifetime.





LIZA


The gynecologist chair is a modernized medieval torture device, coated with vinyl and topped with wax paper. Every time I’m in it, bare butt falling off the edge of the seat, legs spread in metal stirrups, I believe medicine has not come much further than the days of leeches. I’m wrong, of course. Researchers grow entire human organs from a smattering of microscopic stem cells. Babies are conceived in glass cylinders and installed in willing hosts. Yet none of these advances are aiding me.