If You Only Knew(119)

I will not stay married to a man I can’t trust. Forget the sex, forget Emmanuelle. My husband lied to me, more than once, and he will lie to me again. My heart knows the truth. It always has.

I deserve better.

“I can’t believe you’re bringing this up again,” he says. There’s a hardness to his voice, and I’m oddly unaffected by it.

“I’m sorry, Adam. I can’t stay married to you.”

“Look, I’ve told you a thousand times. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

And I am. I’m sorry it won’t work between us, but something is cracking open in my chest, and instead of heartache, it feels more like...certainty. These past few months of not knowing how to be, of trying to see this situation from every angle...they’re over.

I know what to do.

His face flushes with anger, something I’ve seen more in the past three months than in the past ten years. “So you’re going to be an independent woman? You’re gonna work full-time?”

“I don’t know yet. But yes, I’ll get a job. And move, if we have to.” I’m oddly at peace with the image, abruptly aware of how much I’ve been carrying—shame, secrets, anger, loss, hurt. And now, those seem to be floating away and dissolving into the air.

“We?”

“The girls and me. I love this house, but if we have to downsize, that’s fine, too.”

That rattles him. The house, and me staying home, have always been his ace in the hole. His expression changes to worry. “Rachel,” he says. “Please, honey.” He comes over and kneels at my side. Takes my hand. “You don’t really want this. Just forgive me already. Get over it.” He flinches. “I mean, put it in the past.”

But get over it is really what he means.

“Adam,” I whisper, “if one of our daughters came to you and told you her husband had cheated, that he couldn’t help himself because the other woman was just too hot...what would you tell her? What would you tell Grace or Charlotte or Rose?”

His gaze drops to the floor at the mention of their names. “I’d tell them to work on it. To stay.” He looks back up at me.

“Really? Even after he lied to her, after he’d had sex—amazing sex—with another woman while she was home teaching our grandchildren their ABCs?”

Suddenly, his eyes fill with tears. He yanks his hand from mine. “No. I’d punch the * in the f*cking face and tell him to stay the hell away from my little girl.”

“Of course you would,” I say. “Because they deserve better. And so do I, Adam.”

He wipes his eyes. “I can do better.”

“Show me your phone,” I say.

“What?”

“You just got a text. Show it to me.”

He’s been beaten. “Give me another chance,” he says.

“No. I don’t think Emmanuelle was a fluke, and even if this was the first time you cheated, I don’t think it’ll be the last. I can’t be that sad little wife who stays home at night, hoping her husband really is working late and not screwing another woman. I have to be more than that.”

He huffs in indignation. “Well, I’m not going to be an absentee father,” he says. “I’ll want joint custody. I love them, too, you know.” Again, his eyes fill.

A wave of mourning for our old life rolls over me, taking my breath away. So, so sad that it’s gone, that lovely fantasy. “It doesn’t have to be ugly,” I say. “You’re a good father. I want the girls to see the best in you. We’ll always be their parents, and I have no intention of hating you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He’s bitter. His actions have come home to roost, and he’s not getting his way, and he’ll be angry.

I can handle it.

“Do you want me to come to the wedding?” he asks. “Or do you want to make a big announcement and make sure everyone hates me?”

“Let’s be a happy family today,” I say. “Because we have been that, and we can be again. We just can’t be married.” I pause. “But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

He swallows and wipes his eyes again. “I do. I want to see the girls do their thing.”

“Okay.”

One last time to appear as a happy family. I bite down on a sob.

Then something crashes in the girls’ room, and he stands up. “I’ll get them ready.” He gets up and heads out of our room, but pauses in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he says, and this time, the words mean more than all the other times he’s said them.

“Me, too, Adam.”

And so my marriage ends, just an hour before Jared’s begins.

I hope Adam and I can be that couple who stays friends. That he’ll come here for Thanksgivings and Christmas mornings. That we’ll always care about each other. That we’ll be kind to each other. I’ll try for that. I hope Adam will, too.

But a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders, as if a rock has rolled off my soul.

No. As if I pushed it off, and stand blinking in the sun.

Jenny

When my phone rings, I fall out of bed reaching for it, because my night table seems to have been stolen. Wait. Where am I?