Daddy's Girls (57)

They agreed to have lunch at a restaurant near his office. It was noisier than she would have liked, if they were going to have a serious conversation about their future. But someplace quiet would have scared her. She didn’t feel ready for an intense exchange, didn’t want an angry confrontation, and didn’t want to cry in public. Noisy was better. Maybe she wouldn’t hear him say it when he told her he wanted a divorce and was marrying Veronica Ashton. She was afraid of what he’d say, but she wanted to know.

She dropped both kids off at their respective schools on the first day, and went home to dress for lunch with her husband. She didn’t know what to wear. Sexy, no, ridiculous and pathetic. Formal. She took out a suit she hadn’t worn in two years, and would look like she was going to court or a funeral, which was why she had bought it, when a friend’s mother died. Casual looked too sloppy, jeans like she wasn’t even trying. She looked in Morgan’s closet since they traded clothes sometimes, but she’d look like she was trying to compete with his twelve-year-old girlfriend. She finally settled on a black skirt and white sweater, and a pair of heels she pulled out of the back of her closet, and brushed her blond hair back in a ponytail. She wore mascara and lipstick, and had a deep tan. She didn’t want to look like she was trying to seduce him, she wasn’t, but she wanted to look good enough that he’d have some regrets about destroying their marriage when she asked him for a divorce, if that seemed like the right answer over a salad.

    She had indigestion thinking about it, and arrived ten minutes late because the nearest garage was full, and she had to walk five blocks to the restaurant from where she parked.

“I’m sorry I’m late” was the first thing she said to him after not seeing him for two months. He was wearing a suit and a pale blue tie, and she assumed he had meetings that morning, although he rarely wore a tie to them, except with clients who flew out from New York. She knew all his routines, just as he knew hers, and she realized that this was different than the people she ran into in Santa Ynez who wanted to know what she’d been doing for the last twenty years. Peter had become a stranger in the last two months, but everything about him was still familiar.

He was waiting for her at the table, and was drinking a Bloody Mary. He normally didn’t drink at lunch. He looked nervous, and so was she. This wasn’t like a first date. It felt like their last one, and they both wanted to get it right.

They made small talk about the kids until after they ordered. She told him how well they rode now. He ordered a steak, and she a chicken salad and didn’t think she could eat it, but she could push it around on her plate. He commented on how much Billy had grown over the summer, and asked if she had set up the math tutor for Morgan. She had. She was back at her job as perfect mother, having failed as perfect wife. If she hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been sleeping with twenty-three-year-olds in their bedroom.

    He finally touched on the subject halfway through lunch. She had been dreading it since she got there, but it was why they were having lunch in a busy downtown restaurant, and he wouldn’t be coming home to her that night.

“So where are we headed, Caro? I’ve got the apartment for three more weeks, and I need to know what I’m doing.” That was it? The apartment? What about their life? Her heart? Their kids? Their future? Was it time to divide up the books, the furniture, and their sports equipment? And decide who got the couch?

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. Where do you think we should be going? What’s happening with you?” She wanted to sound stronger, but her heart was pounding so hard she could almost hear it and was sure he could too.

He sighed when he looked at her, and almost visibly deflated, like a balloon with a hole in it. He wasn’t the man she remembered, confident, cocky, strong, hers. She noticed that he’d lost weight over the summer, and he noticed the same about her. She looked fit, and her tan was golden brown. He hadn’t dared tell her she looked great when he saw her.

“I think I went a little crazy two months ago. Some kind of midlife crisis or something. Maybe I was afraid of getting old. I can’t make excuses for what I did. And I don’t know if you can forgive me. It might have just screwed us forever. I hope it hasn’t, but I wouldn’t blame you.” She had never heard him sound so humble and contrite.

“Interesting choice of words,” she said tartly, and he looked embarrassed, as he should have.

    “Whatever. You know what I mean. Do you want a divorce?”

“Want one? No. Need one? Maybe. I’m just not sure I can get past it. I want to, but I can’t get it out of my head. I can hardly walk into our bedroom without feeling sick. You broke my heart,” she said as tears filled her eyes, and she struggled to hold them back.

“I’m so sorry, Caro. I don’t know what happened. I went nuts. That’s all I can say. I feel terrible. I didn’t want to hurt you. I wish I could erase it for both of us.”

“And now?”

“It’s over. I ended it. She quit. She went back to New York a few weeks ago. She’s young, she’ll get over it. I spent a lot of time this summer trying to figure out why it happened. It was like a drug.”

“And the next one, just like her, if you go nuts again?”

“There won’t be a next one. I love you.” He had finally said it. She wondered if he would. She didn’t say it back, because she was no longer sure if she still loved him. That was the problem. Her feelings for him had been frozen since June, and nothing she thought or said or tried to remember seemed to defrost them. After the initial agony, she had been numb and confused ever since. “I love our life, our kids. I don’t want to do this to them or to you.”