The Good Liar(52)

He was funny, and he wasn’t showy about it. He’d just come up with the perfect hilarious summary of the conversation you were having at the exact right moment. And he’d take the joke one step further, like the best comedians, mining an ordinary situation for comedy gold.

He was generous, and again, he wasn’t showy about it. I thought I knew about most of his charitable work, but after he died, I received notes from people I’d never met who told me how Tom had come through for their organization, or even them personally, right when they needed it. Even as my restaurant folly sunk us into debt, he still found the money to help pay the heating bill of an old friend long out of work so he could stay another cold winter in a house he couldn’t afford but could not give up.

He didn’t blame others for his faults, his mistakes . . .

I had to leave off there because, no matter what, I didn’t want my children to know what their father also was. A liar, a cheater, a man who took his pleasure where he could find it rather than delay his own gratification. Not that I knew for certain that there had been others, but of course there could be. I didn’t ask when I had the chance, so I’m left to wonder. How many? When? And who was she, goddammit, who?

He didn’t deny it, though, when I finally confronted him in that New York hotel room, both of us still too drunk to have the conversation. He didn’t deny it, and he didn’t blame me, didn’t make excuses or bring up our dwindling sex life or do anything but apologize abjectly. He’d “fucked up,” and he was ashamed and mortified I had to find out at all, and especially that way. His hope had been that I thought it was a joke.

“A joke?”

He stepped toward where I was sitting on the edge of the bed and tried to take my hand.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why?”

“There’s no excuse. No explanation.”

“There has to be.”

“Come on, Lil. Do you want to get into this? I made a terrible mistake, one I’ve regretted from the beginning.”

“The beginning? That means there was a middle. How long—no, stop. I don’t want to know.”

“It wasn’t as bad as you think . . . Nothing actually happened.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Maybe if you let me tell you—”

“No, shut up. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t. How could you?”

His chin trembled, and this made me angrier. How dare he cry at his mistake?

“I wish I could take it back,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you stop? Why did it happen in the first place?”

“It was . . . The only thing I can say is that it felt like an addiction. And I don’t mean that as an excuse. It just felt like I couldn’t stop. Not even when I wanted to.”

“Do you love her?”

“No.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“I don’t expect you to believe me, but . . . no. No, I don’t love her. I’m not in love with her.”

“You’re right.”

“I am?”

“I don’t believe you.”

Round and round and round we went until I crawled into the soft sheets and told him I needed to sleep. Even though I knew I wouldn’t, I needed that day to end.

He didn’t try to press me; he just took a blanket from the closet and a pillow from the bed and set himself up on the floor.

It was a pitiful sight, and something about that, that I couldn’t stand to have him near me even when I most needed comfort, broke my heart for good. I stuffed the end of the pillow in my mouth so he didn’t hear my sobbing, but the bed shook around me. Tom rose and climbed into bed, wrapping his arms around me, and I let him. I needed comforting, and the only person there to do it was the source of my distress. I hated him for that, too, but it worked after a while.

“Lil?” he asked when I finally spat the soaked pillow from my mouth.

“Yes?”

“Have I fucked up our family for good?”

I pushed him from me and fled our room, those words chasing me, finally, away, because somehow, I hadn’t factored the children into it yet, what this could mean for them. I felt the selfishness of that, and then reasoned it away. I was in shock, I told myself, blameless. But he’d forced the thought on me, like his texts, and now all I could think of, as I stood shaking at the end of the hall, was our children and our home and our life, and how I didn’t want anything to end. How it would’ve been so much easier for me to remain in ignorance.

How could he have done this? How could he be so careless with our life, our children, our future, our family?

Why couldn’t he have died instead?



In the end, the easiest thing was for Teo to come to me. I asked him to wait until the kids were in bed, till after lights-out, and to come through the backyard, climbing over the neighbor’s fence, because there’s a man sitting in his car across the street, the firefly wink of his cigarette giving him away. I can’t tell if it’s the same man from this morning or even if he’s there for me, but I don’t feel like taking any more chances.

Teo’s punctual, his hand rapping on the patio door seconds before I start to listen for him. He’s got a dark fleece on, zipped up to his chin. The cold night air follows him in.