The Good Widow(25)

But all I hear Nick say is six months. And something about that number makes my chest feel cold, like my heart is folding up inside itself because all of the warmth has been sucked out of it. If it had been going on for that long, how did I not see it? I’ve done a fair amount of reading online about affairs since I found out. One site laid out signs that your spouse may be cheating.

He dresses better.

Definitely not. He was wearing those awful gray pants the last time I saw him.

He guards his cell phone.

Not that I ever noticed. But like I said, I wasn’t concerned with his phone or computer the way other wives were. I didn’t care to learn his passwords.

He takes new credit cards out in his name.

Obviously he had done this one and I had no idea. How would I?

He has mood swings.

This one is hard. I would have never guessed his emotions were linked to an affair. Because James’s moods had always been unpredictable. He wrote it off as being Latin, but I would sometimes wince at how the littlest thing could ignite him. He once punched a hole in the wall in our living room because the Dodgers lost an important playoff game.

James had a temper.

He could also be incredibly thoughtful. But that was mostly before we became broken, back when I’d have days at work that felt two weeks long. Like when my fourth graders refused to listen as my voiced ticked up louder and louder, and the time passed so slowly I thought I might explode. Or when a parent-teacher conference went south and ended in confrontation. Back then, James would show up with a salmon-and-avocado roll from Fusion Sushi, driving thirty minutes out of his way to pick it up. Those were the moments that I could recall the man I fell in love with hard and fast—the man who once believed we were a team.

But other times, it was a different story. Boy, could he get pissed off. That last fight we had? That was nothing. Doors rattling, voices raised to yelling? Well, we’d had much worse. In fact, one time, and it was only the once, he grabbed my arm, twisted it, and pushed me up against a wall.

He drops the name of the person he’s cheating with into conversation.

This one strikes me as odd, but then again I’ve never had an affair. I get it. It’s supposed to throw you off the trail, because why would he talk about the person he’s sleeping with? But this one, I’m quite sure, never happened. She wasn’t a colleague, a friend, anyone I knew, and if he’d so much as breathed the name Dylan, I would have remembered.

He doesn’t want sex.

Our sex life was sporadic, but good. He traveled so much that it’s hard to say how often we did it. But when he was home, it would happen. Over those last six months, did I see a difference? Not that I can say.

My lip quivers, and I bite it to make it stop, looking up at Nick, who’s watching me.

“I was wondering about something,” Nick says.

“What?”

“Is the pill you took to help with this? Is it for anxiety?”

My cheeks get hot. “You saw that?”

“Not much gets past me,” he says, then stops short, both of us realizing that nothing could be further from the truth. Dylan had hidden an entire life from him.

“I took it to deal with the car ride. I have trouble since . . .”

“You don’t need to say any more.” Nick rakes his fingers through his hair. “Why don’t we put our bags in our rooms, then grab a drink? I think we could both use a mai tai.”

“Agreed,” I say, following him to the elevator bank, relieved we’ve stopped talking about my self-medication. It makes me feel like more of a victim that I have to take pills so I can handle what my life has become.

Nick steps out on the fourth floor of the ocean tower, and I keep going up to nine. As I’m sliding my key card in the slot for 955, my cell phone rings and Beth’s face appears on the screen. I could ignore it, but we haven’t spoken live since I left her house, and I know she’ll keep calling until I answer. She’s always been that way—relentless. It’s why she’s excelled at everything—her SATs, tennis, childbirth. She never gives up. It’s something I both love and hate about her, depending on what it is. Right now, I hate it.

“Hello?” I pull back the heavy drapes and open the sliding glass door to reveal a small patio. I see the island of Lanai in the distance and take in a panoramic view of the beach: a deeply tanned, shirtless runner sprinting, the deep-blue ocean dotted with sailboats, and one catamaran with a vibrant-yellow sail that has Gracie painted on the side in large gold script. How had Nick pulled this off?

“You’re there, aren’t you?” Beth launches in.

I lean against the railing and look down at the resort, counting three swimming pools, the largest right below me, the shadows in the water making it look like a tortoiseshell. “Yes,” I finally answer as I watch a young couple in matching orange inner tubes holding hands. I can’t see their faces, but they seem so happy. Blissful even.

Beth sighs loudly. “I can’t believe you actually went. To Maui.”

“Well, I did. I’m here. So, go ahead.”

“Go ahead and what?”

“Lecture me.”

“Come on, Jacks. Give me a break here, okay?”

“So you’ve called to give me your blessing?”

“I just wish you’d told me.”