The Ever After

by Sarah Pekkanen

  Josie started by obtaining duplicate copies of their credit card statements for the duration of Frank’s affair. This was surprisingly easy. She simply phoned the credit card company, answered a few security questions, and less than an hour later, an email containing the documents pinged into her in-box.

  At the noise, her stomach clenched. Her body grew rigid.

  She stared at the attachment, her hand resting on the computer’s mouse. If Frank had charged hotel stays to their credit card—if she caught him in another lie—the fragile relationship they’d rebuilt would be demolished. Josie would close her computer and call the lawyer Karin had recommended, the woman who was supposed to be a shark.

  She felt as if she’d been plunged back into the icy void that had nearly swallowed her immediately after she’d learned of Frank’s affair. She was so angry at him for putting her through this again and again.

  She muttered a curse, then quickly clicked the attachment and began scanning the charges. She finished, then read through them again.

  There were no line items for a hotel stay, other than Josie’s escape to the Marriott.

  She expelled the breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding, relieving the tightness in her lungs, and slumped in her chair.

  Then she went through the charges more carefully.

  There were fees for groceries, gas, a vet’s visit for Huck, and a few restaurants they’d gone to as a family, including the place where they’d celebrated her birthday. Josie had bought some things for the kids at the Gap outlet, and Frank had lots of lunches at the salad bar across from his office, where he never actually ate salad but instead got an overstuffed sub and chips.

  There were no charges for dinners Josie didn’t recognize. That was a relief, too. Frank must have paid cash for those killer margaritas, because the only charge listed as originating on that date was a small one from the dry cleaner’s.

  Near the top of the statement, on the date that everything had changed, was the charge for Starbucks. Josie closed her eyes, trying to remember how her last normal day had felt. She’d chatted with Frank in the kitchen that morning as she’d tidied the kitchen and he’d poured Cinnamon Toast Crunch into a bowl and ate it noisily. She knew he’d put the bowl in the sink without rinsing it, which would mean a few hard shards of cereal would stick to the bowl even after it had gone through the dishwasher.

  “The present for the birthday party,” Josie had said. “Don’t let me forget it.”

  “Yup,” Frank had responded, slurping up more cereal. She was certain he hadn’t eaten this sloppily when they’d first been together.

  She saw herself setting her phone down on the kitchen counter as she reached into a lower cabinet for a bag of fruit gummies, then walking out of the room, leaving her phone behind.

  What would have gone through her mind if someone had told her that an hour later, because of that simple, absentminded moment, their marriage as she knew it would no longer exist?

  She wouldn’t have believed it. She would’ve looked at Frank singing “Mary had a little rhinoceros,” and Izzy giggling, and Zoe saying “That’s dumb” but trying to hide a smile behind her DS, and Josie would have shaken her head. She would have said, “Nope, not us. You’ve got the wrong family.”

  Josie rubbed a hand across her forehead as she looked at the credit card statement again, making sure nothing had slipped through her scrutiny. Then she reached for her phone to begin the next part of her investigation.

  She scrolled through her photos until she found the ones she had taken in the Marriott when she’d been in possession of Frank’s iPhone. The photos revealed the names and numbers of unfamiliar women in Frank’s contact list. There were a dozen or so. They were likely work contacts, people Frank interacted with during the course of his professional day.

  She could reach out to each of them, maybe using a borrowed phone from Karin so caller ID wouldn’t reveal her name. She could see whether the number connected her to a business line, and pretend it was a wrong number if anyone answered. But what would that really reveal? It was also possible Frank had the cell phone numbers of clients.

  When she’d checked Frank’s call history in the hotel, she hadn’t seen any recent contact with any unfamiliar women, Josie remembered. And his emails, other than the exchanges with Dana, were clean, too.

  This she could let go, Josie decided. Her gut told her that these contacts weren’t threatening.

  Still, she would save the photos.

  There was one more piece left.

  Josie could still hear the echo of Frank’s footsteps slapping against concrete as he ran for his car in the middle of the night.

  Fun night. Let’s do it again soon.

  She needed to finally have an answer about what had transpired on that night.

  • • •

  “How could you find out?” Sonya asked.

  Josie shrugged. “I have no idea. I asked Frank about it at the time, and he said he was getting his car from the hotel garage. Then when we were in couples therapy again last week, he swore nothing ever happened with Melissa when I brought it up.”

  “But that isn’t enough for you.”

  “I just wonder if he knows that admitting to another affair would mean the end of us,” Josie said. She hugged the familiar chenille pillow to her chest.

  “Would it?”

  Josie nodded. “I think so. One is bad enough. But if he had two . . . and especially with someone I’ve met. Well, I’d have to leave him.”

  “So you think he may be hiding the truth because he’s terrified you’d divorce him.”

  “Yeah.” Josie put down her pillow and pulled a tissue from the box on the end table next to the couch. She began to tear off little pieces and roll them into balls.

  Sonya nodded and jotted something on her legal pad. Then she changed the subject.

  “You’ve talked about how at night sometimes, Frank wanted you to remain downstairs with him and watch TV, and how you often went to bed to read,” she said. “How regularly did that happen?”

  “Pretty regularly, I guess,” Josie said. “We had a couple of shows we watched together—Modern Family is our favorite—but Frank really likes sports, and I don’t. And he’s into violent shows like Game of Thrones, and they kind of freak me out, all those beheadings, especially right before I go to sleep.”

  “So you’d go upstairs how many nights a week?” Sonya asked.

  “Most of them,” Josie said. “By the time I’d gotten dinner cleaned up and given the girls baths and put them to bed, I’d be so tired, even though it was only around nine. I liked to unwind with a bath and then herbal tea and a book in bed.”

  She hesitated. “I was thinking about something the other day. This isn’t really relevant, because nothing happened, but I did have some affairs in my mind. I did think about other men, like that guy who invited me and the girls over to swim.”

  “You fantasized about them?”

  “Sure,” Josie said. “I had crushes, I guess.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Two or three. Like, there was this old boyfriend I found on Facebook. We dated freshman year in college, then he transferred to a school in California so I haven’t seen him in ages. Anyway, we reconnected a year or so ago and we chat now and then.”

  “How did you find him on Facebook?” Sonya asked.

  Josie rolled another tissue ball with the pads of the thumb and index finger of her right hand. “I did a search for him.”

  Sonya nodded. “And now you have a crush on him?”

  “Sure,” Josie said. “But that’s all it is. A harmless crush.”

  Sonya looked at Josie with her clear blue eyes. “I’m just curious about why you brought it up.”

  “I guess because I can see why Frank wanted something new, something fresh,” Josie said. “Maybe I wanted that sometimes, too. But I never would have acted on it.”

  Sonya seemed to be waiting for her to elaborate, but Josie didn�
�t have anything more to add.

  “Can we explore the state of your marriage before he had his affair?” Sonya finally asked.

  “I guess I thought it was pretty good.” Josie’s words came slowly; she felt as if they were being pulled from somewhere deep inside of her. “I think we coparented well. And the kids took up so much of our time and energy . . .”

  “But you didn’t want to be with him at night, and you had crushes,” Sonya said. Her voice was so soft that it was almost as if she were sympathizing with Josie—except Josie suspected Sonya was really trying to get her to see Frank’s point of view.

  “He had crushes, too, apparently.” Josie lifted a shoulder. “And he could have come upstairs to be with me. He could have read in bed next to me.”

  “Yes, he could have,” Sonya acknowledged, and Josie felt her flare of temper subside. “Did you ever ask him to do that?”

  “Sure, I . . .” Josie reconsidered what she’d been about to say. She was paying an awful lot of money for therapy, and the whole point of it was to be honest with herself.

  “Does it sound awful to say that I didn’t want him to?” Josie asked. “That maybe I only asked him when he wanted me to watch TV with him, kind of throwing it out there as a rebuttal, because I knew he’d say no? Frank isn’t a big reader. And I liked being upstairs alone. I have so little time to myself. And he’d be wanting sex—”

  She abruptly stopped. Then she felt her cheeks heat up.

  “Just because I didn’t want to have sex with Frank all the time doesn’t mean he should have gone out and found someone else to fool around with!”

  “Of course it doesn’t.” Sonya was as unflappable as ever.

  “He should have talked to me! He should have told me how he felt!” Josie blinked back tears. “Okay, so our marriage wasn’t that great. Maybe it was at one point. But Frank was downstairs emailing his girlfriend and I was upstairs trying to get some space away from him. So clearly it was a disaster.”

  “Or you’d just grown apart, as so many couples do,” Sonya said mildly.

  “Do you think that’s all it was?”

  “Couldn’t it be? Perhaps the affair was a symptom of the distance between you. That does not in any way excuse or diminish the devastation it caused both of you. It does not absolve Frank. But is it possible that it was at least partially in response to the fact that your marriage was stagnating?”

  Josie exhaled slowly. “Maybe. Yeah, I guess.”

  Sonya leaned forward. “You may not be able to get past this. Only you can decide. It’s going to be difficult and painful if you try. But I don’t want you to lose sight of the fact that if you do leave Frank for good, that’s going to be difficult and painful, too.”

  “I can’t win,” Josie said. She blinked back tears. “I know I need to stop putting off a decision. It’s probably not good for any of us to be in limbo like this. But whatever I choose, it’s going to be awful. Stay with a guy I don’t trust, or tell my kids their mom and dad are getting divorced.”

  “What would be the best case?” Sonya asked. She must have predicted what Josie was going to say, because she added, “Obviously the best case would be for Frank to never have had the affair—but since that’s not an option, what would be the ideal way for you to move forward?”

  Josie tried to think carefully before she answered.

  “If I could guarantee that Frank would never, ever have an affair again—and if I knew that this was the first time it had happened—I think I could try to reconcile with him,” Josie said. “I don’t know if I’d do it if we didn’t have the girls. But he’s an amazing father. I don’t think I could ever fully forgive him, though.”

  “So you would need to make sure that this was the only time,” Sonya echoed. “And then you would need to rebuild the trust that has been demolished.”

  At Josie’s look, Sonya added, “It can be done, you know. The rebuilding.”

  “Not if he had an affair with Melissa, too. I guess I’ll have to accept that I’ll never know for sure.” Josie slumped, feeling defeated.

  She thought of the words in Melissa’s text, which felt branded into Josie’s soul. The absence of tone muddled their meaning.

  They could have been delivered in a rushed, friendly way—Fun night! Let’s do it again soon!—which was exactly the kind of thing Josie might have said to Karin after a night out.

  Or they could have been intended to be flirty and seductive.

  Her fifty minutes were up. She felt more tangled inside than ever.

  “Josie?” Sonya usually stood up quickly to walk her to the door, but she remained seated.

  “I think you should tell Frank how important this is to you,” Sonya said. “Let him know exactly how you feel.”

  “Do you think he’ll tell me the truth?” Josie asked.

  Sonya didn’t answer for a long time.

  “I wish I had an answer for that,” she finally said.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  * * *

  Nine months earlier

  “ZOE, IN YOUR ROOM now!” Josie yelled.

  “She ruined it!” Zoe yelled back. Izzy was wailing, too, and clutching at her hair, which Zoe had just pulled. “She scribbled all over it.”

  “She’s a little kid!” Josie said. It took all of her willpower to speak calmly. “She thought she was helping you with your painting.”

  “I hate her!” Zoe said, but her lower lip was trembling.

  “We don’t talk that way,” Josie said. “Those words are hurtful.” She set the stove timer for twenty minutes, then reached for Zoe’s hand and led her upstairs.

  “Babe?” Frank appeared on the landing, his hair wet from the shower, a towel tied around his waist. “What’s going on?”

  “She pulled Zoe’s—” Josie began, but Zoe interrupted.

  “She messed up my painting! She did it on purpose!”

  “She pulled Izzy’s hair, and she is going into time-out,” Josie said firmly.

  “Daddy, it isn’t fair!” Zoe looked at her father with imploring eyes.

  “Come on, Z, you know you can’t hurt your little sister,” Frank said. Then he walked back into the bathroom, removing himself from the conflict.

  “Twenty minutes,” Josie said as she began to pull closed Zoe’s door.

  Zoe burst into tears.

  “Zoe, calm down. I’ll be back soon to get you. But you knew this would happen if you pulled Izzy’s hair.” Plus, it was hardly a severe punishment. Zoe had a soft bed and books and toys in her room; she wasn’t being exiled to Siberia.

  Josie went downstairs to attend to Izzy, who was already over the trauma and scribbling on the construction paper that Josie had set out before the sibling crisis had erupted.

  “Beautiful,” Josie said over the sound of Zoe’s wails, which carried through the house. She gave Izzy a kiss on her head, aiming for the injured spot.

  Zoe abruptly stopped crying. Good, Josie thought. Zoe wasn’t often rough with Izzy, but her little sister was barely three. Zoe was twice her size. She needed to learn to control her temper.

  Josie checked the timer. Sixteen minutes left.

  She cooked a pot of mac and cheese and sliced up some Granny Smith apples, which she distributed between two plastic plates from Ikea. She hesitated, knowing she should take an apple slice to munch on. Instead, she scooped up the last few spoonfuls of macaroni and cheese from the pot and ate them over the sink.

  Then she walked back upstairs.

  She could hear Zoe laugh. She pushed open her door and saw Frank sitting on the edge of Zoe’s bed, while their daughter lay sprawled on the floor.

  “Hi, Mommy,” Zoe said.

  Josie looked at Frank. “What are you doing?”

  “She was crying,” Frank said.

  “Frank, she hurt Izzy!”

  “I know, but she feels badly about it.”

  “Frank, for God’s sake!” Josie snapped.

  “Don’t be mean t
o Daddy!” Zoe leapt to her feet and put her arms around Frank.

  “I’m not— Zoe!” How did this situation morph from Josie instructing Zoe on how to be kind to Zoe admonishing Josie?

  It was Frank’s fault. He could never stand to be the bad guy, so she always had to take on that role. And now he was deliberately undermining her.

  She knew that if she stayed in the room, she’d start to model the very sort of behavior she was trying to teach her daughters to avoid, so Josie whirled around and stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind her. She went into her bedroom, and a moment later, Frank followed her.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Josie snapped.

  “I know, I know . . . I just thought I’d calm her down, and then . . .”

  “Frank, how is she ever going to learn how to behave if her parents contradict each other? If we can’t even be consistent?”

  “You’re right,” Frank said.

  “You need to tell her she has to start her time-out all over again because the last one didn’t count.”

  “She hasn’t even eaten lunch.”

  “So we’ll put her lunch in her room. She can eat it at her desk.”

  Frank threw up his hands. “Okay.” She heard him go back into Zoe’s room. She waited for Zoe to erupt, but Zoe didn’t.

  Frank left the room and went downstairs, and came back a moment later with Zoe’s plate and a glass of juice. “Here you go, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll be back soon to get you.”

  She heard Zoe’s voice but couldn’t make out her words. Zoe’s tone seemed pleasant enough, though.

  “She’s in time-out again,” Frank said, coming back into the bedroom. He looked at Josie’s face. “What?”

  “I just . . . You can’t . . .” Something still felt wrong and unfair, but she didn’t know how to explain it.

  “I did what you said!” Frank’s tone straddled the line between wounded and huffy.

  “You know what, just forget it,” Josie said.

  It wasn’t worth arguing about. It would take too much effort, and there was so much else to do: the laundry was piled up, and Huck needed to be walked, and she had to call a plumber because the pipe under the kitchen sink had been slowly dripping for three days and Josie had had to stick a big Tupperware container beneath it to catch the water.