The New Husband(112)

Nina nodded. She got it now. Glen didn’t just lose his job. He’d been blackballed. He was persona non grata in a career and an industry he loved.

“I thought I was finally earning enough to stop worrying about every little expense—and then overnight, I couldn’t get a job as a teller in Podunk, Anywhere. My U5 followed me like a curse.”

“That’s outrageous,” Nina said, sounding genuinely upset. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have understood that story a heck of a lot more than you secretly draining our bank accounts.”

“Why didn’t I tell you?” Glen repeated the question with a pitiful little laugh. “God knows, I should have. I didn’t start out intending to do what I did. I thought I could handle it on my own, that eventually I’d land another bank management job, one that didn’t need a U5. I only went to Carson to fish, away from everyone who knew me, so I could think, come up with a game plan, a plan B.

“Instead, I found out that when you’re approaching fifty and you’ve had only one career path, forging another isn’t a quick and easy thing to do. In my case, it was impossible. I kept thinking my luck was going to change. My résumé would land on the right desk, or something like that, but no. After a year of failure and constant rejection, I had to accept my fate. We were destined for bankruptcy no matter what I did.”

Nina puckered her lips, looking unconvinced. “I still don’t see why you didn’t tell me. You were the noble knight in this tale, trying to do a good deed, and you got a raw deal for it. I would have been on your side. What? You didn’t want to worry me, is that it?”

“You don’t get it,” Glen said, hiding his face in his hands. His breathing turned shaky. “The job was all I had. It was who I was.”

“That’s not true. You also had a family. You were a dad.”

“Was I?” Judging by Glen’s expression, either the whiskey or some memory had suddenly turned bitter. Nina poured them each another splash. “I was a father, sure, but I wasn’t a dad.”

“Not sure I’m clear on the distinction.”

“You’re not a father. You couldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Nina thought Glen was going to clam up. This was the hard part. She took a sip of her drink, and Glen did from his as well. The alcohol was loosening them both. Maybe they could be honest with each other for a change. It wasn’t about money and work. This was about their relationship. A rift in the marriage, the same kind of gulf the Coopers couldn’t cross, had made it impossible for them to see and hear each other. That is, until Simon.

It was obvious to Nina now—so many signs, signs she’d missed. Simon had wanted the best possible source of information to make Nina fall in love with him. Glen was Simon’s Cyrano de Bergerac—the man who could teach him what to say, how to act, how to be around her.

She fit perfectly into Simon’s picture, and Glen was his guarantee that he wouldn’t fail with her, and to her continued astonishment his plan had nearly worked. The gifts Simon bought her, that opal necklace, the eggplant dish he’d made, movies and TV shows they both enjoyed, his orangey-woodsy smell, things he’d say to her, even the truck he owned—all so comforting to a woman in distress, so familiar. And that special attention he’d paid to Connor, his eagerness for time together as a family, it had all come from the same source, little tips Simon extracted to ensure he got his prize.

It sickened Nina to think of the time she had spent in Simon’s bed, making love to him, while her husband had been chained up below, perhaps aware she was there, calling out to her in a voice she couldn’t hear. Her children, too, had come to Simon’s, toured the house, gone to the lake, unaware their missing dad was so close by. Simon was so twisted that he probably got off on the danger.

“You and the kids. That’s what I thought about the most down there. I thought how I’m going … to … miss you all so much.”

When Glen’s voice broke and he began to weep, Nina reached over to take hold of his hands, consoling him.

“It wasn’t all your fault, Glen,” Nina said. “It took me a lot of therapy to come to terms with the role I played. Maybe if I had helped you forge a stronger bond with the kids, you would have taken a different path. But I was selfish. I think I wanted them all to myself. I liked making all the decisions, liked having them come to me. I needed them, maybe even more than they needed me. But I’m not that person anymore.”

Nina took her hands away. It was her turn and she wanted no comfort as she fumbled her way through her admission.

“I know you’re carrying a lot of guilt for what happened, but I’ve got my fair share of it, too,” she began. “I’m the one who let Simon into our lives so quickly. I ignored my better judgment, my own doubts, Maggie’s warnings, misgivings from my parents and my closest friends. I was needy and vulnerable, and I put us all in danger and I have to live with that now.

“You’ve paid your price and I’ve paid mine. We can’t erase the decisions we made, we can’t undo what happened to us, but hopefully, we can try to rebuild.”

“With what? I have no job. We have no money.”

A slim smile crested Nina’s lips.

“I thought about that,” she said, “so I got us a cushion.”