Never Have I Ever(46)
Davis sat silent for a moment, digesting. Then he asked, “Do you believe Tate?”
“I don’t know. That’s part of the problem.” Davis’s dark eyes were serious, empathetic, but they held no answers. I asked him, “Would you want me to tell you?”
“If you were cheating on me? Yes, please,” he said, very dry. “Preferably before you give me syphilis.”
That made me smile in spite of myself, but at the same time I felt another question rising. And it wasn’t only about Charlotte.
“Let’s say Tate’s telling the truth. Put yourself in Charlotte’s shoes. Would you want to know?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “If you made out with Tate Bonasco at a barbecue? Hell yeah, I’d want to know. I’d probably want pictures.”
I smacked him lightly on the chest, laughing in spite of myself. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m a little funny,” he said, smiling back.
“I’m serious, though,” I said, because I was, and this wasn’t only about Phillip now. The stakes were higher than that, and I thought I could let him decide, right now, my larger course. “Really think about it. What if I had done something. Something bad, but it was in the past, and I was never going to do it again. Knowing it would hurt you, though. There would be consequences. It might wreck us. Would you want someone to tell you?”
He did think about it then, and I could see he was taking it seriously. He asked. “Does everyone know your secret thing? Are they all feeling sorry for me?”
I shook my head in an emphatic no. “Only me, and I’m not talking.”
“Then I think I wouldn’t want to know.” His answer clearly surprised him as much as it surprised me. But it had the ring of truth.
“Why?” I said.
He smiled then, his beautiful smile. “Because I’m happy, Amy. I’m really happy. I want to stay that way.”
I thought about our son, asleep in the little nursery room next door, snug and warm inside the house I’d made into a loving home. I thought of Maddy, with all her bounce and vigor, the way she spilled out her exuberant love all over us and crept to me for solace when she was caught inside her stormy sorrows. And Davis, this good man who smelled like sandalwood over his own essential warm, male smell and who quietly made any room we were both in feel complete.
“I’m happy, too,” I told him.
But he wasn’t finished. “If Tate’s lying, though, if it was more than one mistake, if it’s still ongoing . . .” He trailed off, then swallowed. At last he said, “I didn’t know last time. I should have. If betrayal of any kind is ongoing, then yes, I’d want to know.”
In his words I felt the ghost of Laura, the woman I had banished from this room with cherrywood furniture, new paint, and my own scent. He sounded so hurt, remembering, that I scooted close, pressed myself against his side, resting my head on his broad, bare chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. I was sorry for a thousand things. Not least of which were all the things my silence allowed him to assume. No, all the things my words led him to assume. This was what Roux did, wasn’t it? Davis was having one conversation, honest and truthful, and I was having at least three. I didn’t want to be that kind of person, but it was in me. It was a part of me, and it was oh, so very useful at this moment.
He put his arm around me, still talking, pulling me in closer. “By the end she was drinking all day every day. Driving Maddy to kindergarten blasted. Toting Maddy’s little friends around in the car, too. Every minute of her life, she was lying. She never said a word, but it was lying, all the same. God, yes, I wish I’d known. I’d have gotten out much sooner.” He shook his head. “It sounds like I’m off topic here, but it applies. You need to be sure what happened before you act. If Tate’s telling the truth, then stay out of it. But if it’s an ongoing lie, an affair, you have to tell Charlotte. So she can get out and not waste any more time.”
I had my answers then. For every question. Even the one I’d actually asked, the one about my friend. Char was in real trouble, separate and distinct from mine. I’d let my worries about her husband slip off my radar, and that wasn’t like me. I had her back, always.
But I had to know if Phillip was seeing Tate before I acted. If he was cheating, he wouldn’t be too hard to catch. Smug, entitled Phillip would leave a trail. As soon as this ugly business between Roux and me was settled, I would devote myself to finding out. When he told Char he was golfing, I could call the course and ask for him, to see if he at least was where he said he was. I could keep up with Tate on social media, see if her absences matched his “boys’ weekends.”
The answer to my unstated question was even more clear.
Davis preferred the past in the past, so I would leave it there. Even though my lies were a living thing, they were not about him, or us. Not really. I was not actively betraying him, so that was that. Of course, he might not see it that way. His old hurts from Laura, they ran deep. I wouldn’t risk it. Silence was my best, my only, choice.
Yet I couldn’t simply hand the money to Roux. Not if I could help it. I’d done good with the first half of Nana’s trust. I had put a little justice, that word that Roux had tried to use against me, back into the world. I needed to do good with the second half as well. It would be wrong to use it to save my own ass, to let Roux bask in unearned luxury.