Swimming Naked

by Laura Branchflower

  The image of another picture flashed in her mind, of Phil holding Kim in his arms in a similar pose. The picture had haunted her for months. It was one of four photographs Kim had sent Lina on her forty-first birthday. They say a picture speaks a thousand words. In Lina’s case they brought Phil’s betrayal into stark reality. Seeing him with Kim, smiling at Kim, dancing with Kim had been impossible to erase from her mind.

  Now, as she looked at the image of herself in her husband’s arms, she was transported once again back to that picture. Her stomach turned at the memory of how she’d felt when she’d seen him holding Kim in his arms, looking down at her with an expression she believed was reserved for her.

  “Aren’t you going to get up?” Phil had come out of the bathroom without her realizing it and was at his bureau, opening a drawer. “We have less than half an hour if we want to make the nine thirty service.”

  “I’m skipping today,” she said, darkening the display on her phone. “You can go with the kids.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m tired.” She lay back against her pillow. “I’m going to go back to sleep.”

  “That’s not a good enough excuse. Come on.” He stepped into his boxer briefs. “We’ll go to brunch after.”

  “Why did you take her dancing?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  He didn’t respond at first, staring at her from across the room. “Lina?” he finally asked, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “I don’t—”

  “Dancing is ours. Why would you dance with Kim?”

  “No.” He shook his head, his lips turned down. “I never danced with her.”

  “The pictures Kim sent me. One of them is of the two of you dancing.”

  “I don’t remember dancing with her.”

  “You were dancing.” She’d looked at the copies of the photos enough times to have them permanently burned into her memory. “You were in a bar or something.”

  “Then it was only a moment. Maybe a song came on at the bar and we danced for a second. I honestly have no memory of it.”

  Annoyance rushed to her chest. How could he not recall something that caused her so much heartache? She sat up on the bed, frowning across the room at him. “Did you look at the pictures she sent me that day? I left them in your robe pocket so you could see them.”

  “Why do you want to talk about this?”

  “Probably because we never did. I created stories around those pictures, stories that probably aren’t even true. Like believing you took her dancing.”

  “I never took her dancing.”

  “Where did you take her?”

  He dragged his hand down his face. “How is this moving forward? A new beginning, remember?”

  “I don’t think that’s possible until we’ve fully dealt with the past.” She felt the truth in the words as she said them.

  “It’s eight thirty on Sunday morning. Do you really want to do this right now?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “I do. I want to put her behind us as much as you do, but I need to know the truth about the pictures first.”

  “Can we wait until after church?”

  “No.” She slowly shook her head. It was as if now that she’d decided to discuss the pictures, she had to do it at that moment, before she put her head back in the sand about them.

  “Let me tell the kids we’re going to a later Mass,” he said, reaching for a pair of sweatpants.

  ***

  It was fifteen minutes before Phil returned to the bedroom, balancing two mugs of coffee as he carefully closed the bedroom door. Lina was still in bed, sitting cross-legged on the center of the mattress, nervously twisting her wedding band. She’d slipped on a silk nightgown.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said after lowering himself onto the mattress beside her and setting the coffee on the nightstand. “What if it reopens everything?” And you want me to leave again, he thought but didn’t say.

  “It won’t,” she said. “Not talking about it is keeping it alive in my head.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where you took her.”

  “I didn’t take her anywhere.”

  “You weren’t in your office in those pictures, Phil.”

  He thought back to the pictures. He’d come home from a night in the ER after punching the brick wall in front of Nick Drayton’s town house instead of his face as intended. He was exhausted, in pain, and vacillating between rage and devastation at the knowledge that Lina had spent the night with Drayton. He’d been wrongly convinced at the time they’d had sex. He’d found the photos in the pocket of his robe, where Lina told him she’d left them. The only one he could clearly remember was the one from Steamboat. The other photos had seemed insignificant in comparison. He had a vague memory of one from Kim’s bedroom, taken while he was sleeping. The others, like the one Lina was now talking about, he couldn’t recall.

  “I never took her anywhere that wasn’t somehow an extension of business. We ate out when we were traveling for work, never locally.”

  “You were wearing casual clothes in the photos.”

  He racked his brain. She’d clearly spent time analyzing the pictures, which he’d literally lit on fire minutes after finding them, wanting no reminder of his time with Kim. “Maybe in New York. Sometimes the trips went into the weekend. I didn’t wear a suit to the office on weekends.”

  “You didn’t look at them, did you?” she asked. “You don’t remember the pictures.”

  He rubbed his hand over his forehead. “No. Not really.”

  “Those pictures destroyed me,” she whispered. “How could you not even bother to look at what she sent me?”

  The pain in her eyes was like a punch to his gut. “Baby, don’t.” He stroked his hand around her shoulder, gripping her gently. “Don’t read anything into it. I knew what I had done. I didn’t need to see the evidence.”

  “You looked at her like you loved her.”

  “No.” He pulled his head back, shaking his head in denial. “That isn’t true. I didn’t love her.”

  Tears came to her eyes. He knew she was recalling all the details he had no way of remembering. He should have looked at the pictures. “It was one of the looks you give me. I thought it was only for me.”

  “Oh, baby.” He pulled her into his arms and was relieved when she didn’t fight him. He could feel the press of her face in the crook of his neck. He tightened his arms around her, wanting to take her pain away. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but I promise you it wasn’t love—I only love you. I’ve only ever loved you.”

  “I have the pictures,” she said after a minute, pulling back slightly. “I want to show you.”

  He could feel his pulse increasing. “How?”

  “I took pictures of them with my cell phone.” She brushed a few stray tears from beneath her eyes.

  He had no fucking desire to see those pictures. “Delete them. You’re keeping this alive. You forgave me, remember? I don’t want to fucking do this.”

  “But I need to understand them.”

  “Understand what? I had an affair. I admitted it. There’s nothing I can say to justify it or make it go away. You have to let it go.”

  “I thought I had, but then Diane sent me a picture of the two of us from last night. It’s a beautiful picture, frame-worthy beautiful. But when I saw it, instead of appreciating it, loving it, I thought of you and Kim. It took my mind back to the picture of the two of you dancing.”

  He fell back on the mattress, covering his face with his hands. “I don’t want to relive it. Don’t you get that? It’s the lowest point of my life.”

  “I just need to understand them and then I can let them go. I’ll delete them after.”

  It was a nightmare. He’d woken to a nightmare. After making it through the evening at Gina and Bob’s he’d thought they were in a better place. This felt like they were movin
g backward. “Okay.” He sat up. “Where are they? Let’s get this over with.” He plowed his fingers back through his hair.

  “This isn’t about punishing you. It’s something I need to heal.”

  “What if it doesn’t help you heal? What if they make you angry all over again? What then?” It was his greatest fear, that she’d decide she couldn’t forgive him after all.

  “It won’t.” She crawled across the mattress and into his lap, cupping his face in her hands. “I don’t want to be without you. I love you.”

  They were side by side on the couch in the sitting room, their bodies touching from thigh to shoulder, as if each needing the contact for emotional support. Phil watched Lina tapping the display on her phone, and then just like that he was looking at the first of the four pictures Kim had sent her that day. He was lying in Kim’s bed asleep when he should have been home with his wife and family.

  “Her apartment,” he said. “It was one of the Sunday nights I spent there before an early flight to New York.”

  “How many times did you do that?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Two, maybe three.”

  She deleted the picture from her phone.

  He released a breath. One down, three to go.

  The next photo was harder to stomach. He was with Kim, touching Kim. She was sitting on a barstool and he was standing beside her with his hand resting on her upper thigh while he chatted with an associate from the firm she’d worked for in New York. He had no idea who had taken the picture. She’d clearly asked someone to. “This is a pub near our office in New York. We went there on a Saturday after working most of the day. There were a few people there Kim knew from her time working in the city. He’s one of them.”

  “He thought you were a couple?”

  His chest hurt at the pain he could hear in Lina’s voice. “Probably. I don’t know. Lina, are you sure—”

  “Yes.” She deleted the picture.

  He felt like he’d been physically punched when he saw the next picture. It was the picture she’d already asked him about. He was indeed dancing, and he had his hands on Kim’s ass. Lina’s hand was shaking slightly as she held the phone.

  He took the phone, fighting the urge to launch it toward the wall, wanting nothing more than to destroy the moment captured in the photograph. He couldn’t fathom the pain she must have experienced having to see the photo of him grasping the ass of another woman.

  Instead of pulling away from him like he’d expected, Lina’s hand slid over his stomach as she snuggled closer into his side, resting her cheek against his chest. He lifted his arm and curved it around her shoulders. “This picture wasn’t about her,” he said. “It isn’t what it looks like.”

  “What is it then?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “I’d just gotten word Braxton had agreed to settle.”

  “Braxton?”

  “The dispute over the property in New York—the shopping centers,” he reminded her. “It was the reason I was traveling to New York so much.” When she didn’t say anything, he knew she had no idea which case he was talking about. Had he really never discussed the biggest case of his career with her? “I’d just learned that it wouldn’t be going to trial,” he continued. “That they’d agreed to our settlement demand. It was the largest settlement in the firm’s history, and it was my win. I was celebrating. It had nothing to do with Kim. She was just there.”

  “The largest in the firm’s history?” She lifted her head from his chest and was looking at him. “Like, monetarily?”

  “Yes.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “Most of our discussions centered around Katie back then.” She’d been a few months into her therapy with Drayton at that point.

  “I should have known. How could you not share something so important with me?”

  “Katie was living in her room,” he said, the guilt he always felt at the memory coming back in full force. “You resented my time away. What was I supposed to say? I may be failing as a father, but look what a great success I am at work?”

  “You never failed as a father. You’re a wonderful father. We were both struggling with how to handle her. And this was your career. It had nothing to do with Katie. You should have shared it with me.”

  “It didn’t feel right, not at that time.”

  “But it did with her? To share a pinnacle moment of your career with another woman?”

  “It wasn’t like that. She was involved in the case and was there.” He again looked down at the photo. “At that moment, I was feeling euphoric after winning a big case and I was celebrating.”

  “With her,” she said, her voice filled with hurt.

  “I wish I could undo it.”

  “Delete it,” she said. “I don’t want to ever see it again.”

  He lifted the phone and was preparing to delete it when he remembered her comment from earlier about the photo from Diane. He quickly located it on her phone. “That’s love,” he said, looking down at the image. He flipped back to the photo with Kim. “That’s not.” He turned the display to Lina, switching back and forth between them. “There’s no comparison. Do you see the difference in my eyes?” he asked.

  “I do, but I still hate that you celebrated something so important with her. We can never have that moment back. She shared it with you.”

  “I don’t associate her with that win.” He deleted the picture from her phone.

  “There’s one more,” she said. Once again she was coming closer, pressing herself into his side as she reached for the phone.

  “I don’t need to see it,” he said. “I remember it.” It was the picture from Steamboat. Kim had photographed him asleep with a picture of him and Lina displayed on the nightstand.

  “That was the picture I couldn’t reconcile in my mind,” she began, speaking so softly he had to concentrate to hear her. “It’s the one that made me leave that day and kept me from letting you come back home. You let her in our bed.”

  “No.” He tightened his arm around her. “I never let her in our bed. I let her in our home.”

  “Don’t lie to me. I don’t want you to lie. You canceled our spring break and took her there.”

  “No. Lina, you’re wrong,” he said intensely. “I canceled spring break because of the Braxton case. I was in New York working. I didn’t take her on a vacation. We spent the night in Steamboat—one night. We were going to Denver for the Property Conference in April. Our connection from Chicago to Denver was canceled due to a storm. Instead of spending the night in Chicago, I decided to fly into Hayden and drive to Denver. It was about seven in the evening when we landed. I’d planned to drive to Denver that night, but when we were renting the car, I found out I-40 was closed because of an accident. We’d stopped for food and it was getting late. I tried two hotels, but they were sold out. I should have kept looking. Instead I took her…” He trailed off. “As soon as we stepped into the foyer, I knew it was a mistake. You were everywhere. It was our house. She didn’t belong. I should have left. She convinced me it would be okay, that she’d just sleep in one of the kids’ rooms and we’d leave first thing in the morning. It was already late, so I figured since we were already there…” He again trailed off. He could feel Lina’s nails sinking into his shoulder.

  “She came to you, though.”

  “Yes.” He’d woken to Kim giving him a blow job. It had taken his mind a moment to process what was happening, but when it had he’d shoved her away. He’d been so angry at Kim. Two weeks later the affair was over. He couldn’t look at her without thinking about Lina. “I didn’t fuck her in our bed. I swear to you I didn’t.”

  “Okay.”

  He could hear the doubt in her voice. She didn’t believe him. “I have no reason to lie to you now. You’ve forgiven me.”

  “Did you have oral sex?”

  Fuck. He hadn’t wanted to go there. “I didn’t. She tried. I stopped her.”<
br />
  “I don’t want to hear any more,” Lina said, pulling back from him.

  “Lina, don’t.” He gripped her hand when she tried to pull farther away. “I swear on our children’s lives, I’m telling you the truth.”

  “You should never have let her in our house. That was our home. Our children’s home,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “That was my favorite place, and now I can never go back.”

  His gut twisted at the raw pain he could see in her eyes. “I’m sorry, baby.” His hold on her hand tightened. “I was a fucking idiot.” Tears began to slide down her cheeks. “Come here.” He could see the hesitation in her eyes. “Please.” He released a breath when she let him pull her into his arms. He could feel the wetness from her tears on his neck. “I’m so sorry.”

  “How—how could you have cheated on me? How? I can’t get my mind to understand. It’s not you. It’s not the you I’m with right now.”

  “It wasn’t me. I was escaping. I was a fucking coward. I failed you, and I’ll never forgive myself, but I promise you nothing like that will ever happen again.

  ***

  Lina felt closer to Phil after going through the pictures. It was as if they’d been through a private hell together. They were in church. She was beside him, her hand clasped firmly in his as they rested on his thigh. She thought back to the first time she’d gone to church with him. It had been after she’d witnessed her sister, Shiloh’s, rape. She’d been only sixteen at the time. Phil had sat beside her, holding her hand like he was now. She’d found solace in both Phil and the church. She felt the same solace now, twenty-six years later.

  It was a day of healing, or at least that’s what it felt like to Lina. They spent the afternoon spreading mulch in Lina’s flower beds, and then Phil and Logan grilled steaks for dinner. When Lina sat down beside Phil in the family room later that evening, she realized they had barely spent a minute apart all day. They hadn’t spoken any more about the photographs—there was nothing to say¬—but she knew they were experiencing the same emotional hangover. He had felt her pain that morning, seeing the photographs through her eyes for the first time.