If You Only Knew(69)

“Go ahead,” I say, taking another swallow of martini.

“Well...I dreamed I was alone. I wasn’t sure if you were away, or if we were divorced, but it was just me and the girls, and as the dream went on, I realized that you weren’t coming back. At first I thought you left me. Then I realized it was because you...died.”

He waits for my reaction. “I have those dreams about you all the time,” I tell him. “Daydreams, I call them.” And I laugh, and Adam gives me a bemused look, then laughs, too.

“No, you don’t,” he says.

“No, I do,” I say. “I’m always checking to make sure your life insurance is paid up, because I’m going to be really comfortable. It’s all very tragic and noble, because you’ll die a horrible death. Also, I might get highlights, go a little blonder.” I laugh, quite entertained by this person who speaks her mind in so entertaining a fashion.

“Jesus, listen to you,” he says, but he’s laughing, too. “Do you get remarried in this happy fantasy?”

“I do,” I say. “He’s wonderful. A firefighter, I think. Very brawny, with a tattoo on one shoulder.”

“Shit. I guess the selfless thing for me to do here is sleep on the train tracks tonight.”

“I’d appreciate that. I’ll make sure the girls remember you. Fondly.”

And we’re flirting. I don’t know how it happens, but we’re flirting, and God, he’s so attractive, so handsome and sexy, and yes, there are women in the bar looking at him, but he doesn’t look away from me, and I suddenly feel like I can do this, I can get past his indiscretion. People get through these things. Our marriage can be better because of it. I’m not so naive anymore. I’m a woman of the world; I’m very European—sure, my husband had an affair, but it’s so last month. And soon it will be so last year, and then last decade, and we’ll barely remember it, except, ironically, almost as a joke. Remember when you cheated on me? With what’s-her-name? and Adam will say, Yeah, my head was really up my ass, wasn’t it?

We don’t wait to get home. We do it in the backseat of the car, and it’s dirty and fast and amazing, as if we’re twenty years old. I come before he even gets his pants down, and I come again when he shoves into me, and the smell of his neck, the sounds he makes are so familiar and wonderful; they’re a part of my life, and I don’t want to give him away. I want us back. I’ll get us back.

Adam wants porno sex, and he’s getting it, by God.

* * *

For the next few days, I feel a little smug. It’s easier to be happy, and while I’m not my old self, I’m not a bitter, hateful shrew, either.

I try to put this into words when I’m on the phone with Jenny during the girls’ nap time. I’m baking oatmeal raisin cookies, Charlotte’s favorite for this week. The girls just finished the Snickerdoodles—Grace’s favorite—and next week, I’ll go back to chocolate chip for Rose. Oatmeal is my favorite, too, and if there’s a smell for love, it’s warm oatmeal raisin cookies. Or the girls’ heads when they first wake up from naps.

Or Adam in the morning, slightly salty and sweaty mixed with the smell of sun and fresh air from our line-dried sheets.

“I guess we turned a corner,” I tell my sister.

“So you’re sleeping together again?”

I feel my cheeks warm. We’re f*cking, is what we’re doing. “Mmm-hmm.”

“Condoms still?”

“Jenny! Can you give us a break, please?” The residual shame of that doctor’s visit makes my stomach curl, and Jenny’s reminder makes me both mortified and furious.

But yes. Just in case.

I add the raisins to the batter and stir them in. Jenny is still quiet.

She does this sometimes, just slips under like a submarine diving, following urgent orders for a top secret mission. Whatever she’s about to say will be momentous, if it follows her pattern.

“You ever wonder about Mom and Dad?” she asks quietly.

“Wonder what?”

Another pause. “If their marriage was as good as Mom says.”

I frown. “Jenny, we were there. It was good. They were so happy. Why would you even ask that?”

“It just seems a little too perfect when Mom talks about it.”

“Well, first of all, it was pretty goddamned perfect.” New Rachel, who f*cks her husband, also swears with great relish. “And secondly, so what if she embellishes the past? That’s all she has.”

“She could have the present.”

It’s a familiar refrain. Jenny can be too judgmental. I can’t count how many times she’s told our mother to take a class, a trip, volunteer, get a job. I used to worry about what she’d think of me being a stay-at-home mom, but she’s only ever told me how much she admires me for it. She’s always seemed sincere.

“Mom’s doing the best she can,” I say. “Cut her some slack, Jenny. Her husband was killed in his prime.”

“Twenty-two years ago.”

“I know how long it’s been.” There’s an edge in my voice. New Rachel is allowed to have an edge.

“Of course you do. I’m sorry. What did the girls do today?”

“We had Mommy and Me swimming. Rose finally went underwater for real.”