Never Have I Ever(45)

Davis, at book club we played an awful game. It was a lot like Never Have I Ever.

I could line up shots on the kitchen counter, though Davis, a one-beer-on-a-hot-day guy, hated to see people getting sloppy drunk. Still. I would need to kill both my inhibitions and my instincts for self-preservation.

Davis, never have I ever lied to you. Drink.

Never have I ever kept a secret. Drink.

Never have I ever taken a human life, or stayed silent and let my best friend bear the blame, or watched him go to prison for three years while I said nothing. Drink. Drink. Drink.

And after that—

No. It was unendurable. Roux was unendurable.

I was so preoccupied as I made dinner that the salmon came out rubbery and the broccoli was practically mush. When we sat down to eat, I was snappy and distracted, daring them with my eyes to say a word about the food.

Davis and Maddy filled up on rolls and salad, and I saw them exchanging a purely Whey look, coming to a silent agreement that they would tiptoe around Monster tonight. It made me furious and guilty all at once, and after that I did my best to be quiet and spoon peas into Oliver and not bite anyone’s head off.

At bedtime, when Oliver was down for the night and Maddy was in her room reading or, more likely, sneak-texting Luca on her phone, Davis called me out.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked as I emerged from the bathroom, teeth brushed, in one of his big T-shirts that I salvaged from the hamper. I liked to sleep in them after he wore them, when the smell of his aftershave and his own warm scent was caught inside the fabric.

He was already in bed, propped up against his pillows, a book about Civil War spies open facedown on his lap. I was putting lotion on my arms, getting ready to climb in on my side, but I froze at the question, feeling how serious his gaze was.

I’d redone this bedroom right after we married, wanting to make it ours instead of his. Or rather his and Laura’s. I’d replaced her stark modern furniture with a sleigh bed, queen instead of king, making room for a pair of cherrywood nightstands. I’d painted the walls a warm, rich gold, bought chocolate-brown and cream bedding, added a few pops of cranberry and rose with throw pillows and in the print of the love seat I put by the window. This room was a haven. No TV and a lock on the door. It was a place where we were two, a couple instead of a foursome. I didn’t want to barefaced lie out loud to him in this room.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. I sat down on the edge of the bed, an excuse to turn my back on him, and began putting lotion on my legs. “I’m having a bad day.”

“You’ve been having a bad week,” my husband told me gently, and a week ago—that was the day we had book club. I hadn’t realized how much the strain I’d been under was showing.

I shrugged, and a waiting silence fell. We were both quiet people, neither of us big on chitchat. We talked at dinner about family things, but at night we liked to sit side by side, reading in bed, exchanging a few words about our books or plans for the week or events of the past day. His physical presence, his heartbeat, his breath usually combined to make me feel content and safe, but now the silence felt brittle.

What would happen if I simply let all the silent truths I kept deep buried spill into the room? Davis loved me, I knew this. It would hurt him, but it might not be a fatal wound. He might forgive me, and I knew how relieved and free and lightened I would feel. Roux, damn her eyes, had taught me that. There was such solace hidden in confession.

Her power over me would be instantly cut in half, and I would have an ally. Davis had such a strong, sure moral compass. He would know the right thing to do. Or the rightest anyway, because there was no purely good move I could make.

I teetered on this cusp, a thousand words piling up in my mouth. I looked over my shoulder at him, the tube of lotion forgotten in my hands.

“Honey, what?” he said, genuinely concerned now, his spine elongating, his brow furrowed. “What is it? Just say it.”

I opened my mouth, and what came out was, “The Vegetables might be cheating on Charlotte.”

I wasn’t sure if I said it as an alternate truth or as a way into a larger conversation. I only knew that these were the words my mouth made when I let it open.

Davis was quiet for a moment, but I could feel his concern change direction, moving out of our inner circle to the larger world that Char inhabited.

“That idiot,” he finally said.

“You don’t seem surprised.” I put the lotion back in my nightstand and got under the covers by him.

“Well, the Vegetables,” he said, like this was explanation enough. It almost was. I had never trusted Phillip with Char’s heart. “Still, how can he sit through dinner every night, face her across the table?” I didn’t answer, even though I certainly could have. I understood the mechanics bone deep. Amazing, the human capacity to compartmentalize, and, dear God, Roux was right; I was made out of origami, and so was Phillip, though I hated having anything in common with him. Davis, still thinking it through, asked me, “Did Charlotte tell you? Is she sure?”

“Char doesn’t know,” I said, and his eyebrows went up.

“Then how do you?” he asked.

I broke it down for him, but I left out the game. It was too complicated, and it opened a conversational door to questions I wasn’t yet sure I would answer. I didn’t want him wondering if I’d won any of the rounds. So I told him only what I’d overheard Tate saying to her friends at book club, how I’d guessed it was Phillip, how Tate had shown up the next day in a move that was tantamount to a confession. I also told him that Tate had written it off as sloppy-drunk kissing, a meaningless, unrepeated mistake.