by Robin Wells
We talked for only a few minutes—the conversation involved me giving a lame explanation for why I was there, and Lily showing me pages she’d colored in Sunday school of Moses parting the Red Sea. I would have gladly sat through another sermon just to be with them, but I knew Jessica was waiting for me at home.
“Hello,” I call now as I walk through the door of the condo. I can see she’s been busy; boxes sit by the door, each marked Bathroom, Closet, or Bedroom.
I hear noises from the hallway between the guest and master bedrooms, so I know she’s home—close enough that she should be able to hear me.
“Hi, Jess,” I call again.
Silence.
Uh-oh. This isn’t good. Guilt has me wondering how she could possibly know I went to Quinn’s church this morning.
I walk into the bedroom and discover that she’s wearing noise-canceling earphones as she packs her suitcase on the far side of the bed. She takes off the headphones as I wave. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey, yourself.” Her voice sounds raw and her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying.
I tense, every muscle on high alert. “What’s going on?”
She jerkily folds a silk blouse and sets it in her suitcase. “While I was cleaning out the closet, I discovered that the fetal Doppler you bought a couple of years ago is gone. And I saw . . .” She straightens and looks at me, her eyes both hurt and accusatory. “I saw one just like it at Quinn’s house yesterday.”
Oh, hell! “I—I didn’t know you were aware I’d bought that. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Because I hoped that I’d get pregnant again, and you’d give it to me, and that we’d be able to . . .” Her voice breaks.
I feel terrible, just terrible—as if I’ve injured her in a car accident or something. “I’m so sorry, Jess. It was just sitting there, and I didn’t think you knew about it, and Quinn—”
She holds up her hands, stopping me. “No need to explain. I get it.” The words are sharp, but it’s the sad resignation in her eyes that cuts me to the quick. “Quinn is having your baby, and I’m not.”
I don’t know what to say. I start to move toward her to comfort her, but she stays me with a shake of her head. I stand there, gutted.
“I just can’t deal with this, Zack.” She looks down at the suitcase, sighs, and briefly closes her eyes. “No; the truth is, I don’t want to deal with it.” She draws in a breath, and when she looks at me, her gaze is sure and steady. “I want out.”
“What?”
“I want a divorce.”
She’s just being melodramatic, I think. She’s saying this to shake me up. “Jessica, you’re upset. You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do. I really, truly, sincerely do. I’m done.”
“This isn’t something to decide in haste. We should go to counseling.”
She shakes her head. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. Counseling won’t change the situation.” She puts her hands on her hips. “The situation is this, Zack: I didn’t sign up to watch you co-parent another woman’s children. I don’t want that in my life. Besides, we’re not really a couple anymore. We want entirely different things. We don’t even want to live in the same city. So let’s just cut our losses and call it a day.”
I’m on one side of the bed, and she’s on the other. I stare across the mattress where we’ve slept and made love for the last three years. “Look, I know it’s been hard on you, finding out about Lily and Quinn and the baby. And maybe I wasn’t as sympathetic or involved or whatever as I should have been with your infertility procedures. I’m sorry for anything I’ve done or haven’t done that’s made you feel bad. But you don’t throw away a marriage just because something happens that you don’t like.”
“This is way beyond something I don’t like.” She picks up the remaining folded clothes on the bed and puts them in the suitcase. “This would have been a deal breaker if I’d known about it before I married you. This is a circumstance I refuse to live with.”
“Jessica, you’re overly emotional right now. Why don’t you take some time and we’ll talk later.”
“I’m not overly emotional. I’m an appropriate degree of emotional. And I’m tired of taking time and talking later, only to get another knife in the heart.” Her voice quakes, but her tone is solid steel. “Besides, there’s nothing to talk about. You don’t really want to move, and I refuse to stay.”
“We can work this out,” I say. I truly believe this. I negotiate things for a living.
“I’m not willing to try.” She fixes me with her I’m done look, a look that says further discussion is futile. “The truth is, Zack, I don’t love you enough to take this on.”
The words pour over me like a bucket of ice, chilling my blood, coldly echoing in my head. I don’t love you enough to take this on. “You don’t mean that,” I say.
“I do. I’m sorry.”
Later, I’ll realize the regret in her eyes should have convinced me.
“It makes sense to settle this now,” she says. “There’s no point in you leaving your job and moving to Seattle.” She snaps her suitcase closed and hoists it to the floor. She picks up her purse from the bedroom chair and pulls it on her shoulder.
I realize she’s about to walk out the door. “Wait. Where are you going?” She can’t be leaving town; she has an important meeting in the morning, plus the hotel staff is giving her a going-away party the following afternoon.
“I’m staying at the hotel tonight.”
This strikes me as a fatal blow. If she stays at the hotel, everyone in her corporation will know by morning that she’s got marriage problems.
“You don’t have to do that! I can find a place to stay tonight, and you can stay here,” I say.
“I’ve already got it set up. The hotel will comp my room.”
Of course they will. That isn’t the issue.
The issue is that she’s already made up her mind. I don’t love you enough to take this on. She wants out, and she doesn’t care if the whole world knows it.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Jessica
Wednesday, June 5
BRETT IS DRIVING me to a dealership to see about leasing a car on Wednesday afternoon when my phone rings. I ease it out of my purse and look at the screen. Every muscle in my body tightens as if I’m braced for impact.
Brett pulls his eyes from the road and quirks up an eyebrow. “Is it him?”
I nod.
“You want me to pull over so you can get out and talk in private?”
“No. No, it’s okay.”
“What the hell, Jess?” Zack says the moment I answer.
I draw in a steadying breath. “I guess this means you were served.”
“At my office? Are you kidding me?”
I feel a twinge. I knew that would embarrass him, but it was the only address where I could be certain that the server would find him. “Does it look like a joke?” It’s a stupid comment, but it’s all I can think of to say.
“No, damn it. There’s nothing freakin’ funny about it. When did you have all this prepared?”
“I told you it wasn’t a hasty decision.”
“You didn’t tell me you’d already had the fucking papers drawn up!”
The f-bomb jars me. Not because I’m sensitive to bad language, but because I can count on one hand the number of occasions I’ve heard Zack use it the entire time I’ve known him. “I didn’t,” I say. “But I consulted an attorney before my last trip back to New Orleans. I wanted to know all my options.”
“Must have been one hell of a consult.”
“He emailed me the paperwork in case I decided to file. I filled it out on the plane last night and sent it to him. All he had to do was drop the info onto boilerplate divorce papers.”
This must placate him, because Zack is silent for a
moment. I hear him breathe. I can picture how he looks right now—his dark eyebrows scrunched in a scowl, his lips pressed together, his eyes blue-hot with hurt and anger. My heart aches.
“I told him to draw up an even split of things, taking into consideration what each of us brought into the marriage. Look through the papers and see if you think it’s fair.”
“Oh, I’ll go over it, all right. Rest assured of that.” Silence beats through the phone, then his tone softens. “So you’re sure about this, Jess? You don’t want to talk about it?”
“I don’t think there’s anything left to say.”
“I guess not. I suppose these papers say it all.”
Tears pool in my eyes. He’s waiting for me to say something, but I’ve got nothing.
This—this right here—is why I filed. This distance, this silence. The divorce is as much about that as it is about Lily and the baby and Quinn. I can talk to Brett and my sister—hell, even my mother, with all of her heavy expectations of me—more easily than I can talk to Zack.
“Well, I’ll be in touch,” he says.
“Okay.”
“Okay. Bye.”
He hangs up before I can say another word.
“Are you all right?” Brett asks.
“Yeah.” I wipe my eyes. “It’s just hard.”
“It’s supposed to be.”
I look at him. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
“It’s not for me to say.”
“There was no point in dragging it out,” I say. “I didn’t want him to quit his job and move out here just for me when he really wants to be in Louisiana.”
“True.” He glances at me. “That’s definitely a consideration.” He pulls into the parking lot of the dealership. “I haven’t heard you say anything about love.”
“No.” I look out the window. “Although I still do. A part of me might always love him. He’s a great guy—a really good, decent, do-the-right-thing kind of man.” A better man than I am a woman. The thought is sobering. “I don’t think we brought out the best in each other, though. I hated what I was doing to him. And I hated the person I was becoming in our marriage.” I twist toward Brett. “How about you? Do you still love Sue Anne?”
“Yeah. But now it’s more like affection than ‘capital L’ love. It took me a while to sort it all out. At first, it just felt like a huge loss.” He turns into a parking spot. “I was so used to her being there every single day.”
“Well, Zack and I have already worked through that part.”
He gives a small smile. “That’s true.”
“And I have a new big job to focus on, and he has Lily and Quinn . . . and the baby.” I choke a little on the last word.
“It’ll be okay.” He looks over and covers my hand with his. “And for what it’s worth—which is zip, because it’s your marriage and your life and I’m just an outside observer—yeah. I do think you’re doing the right thing.”
“Thanks.”
He gives my hand a little squeeze, then lifts his to turn off the car engine. But I feel the imprint of his warm palm on my skin for a long time after he moves it away.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Quinn
LILY IS SEATED at the vanity in her bedroom on Wednesday morning while I fix her hair. She’s decided she wants to wear it parted on the side and fastened with a barrette shaped like a butterfly. “Is Daddy coming over today?”
I put down the brush and pick up a comb. “I don’t know, honey.” I haven’t heard from Zack since we saw him on Saturday, and I’m a little disconcerted by how much I miss him. I tell myself I need to get used to it; after all, he’s moving across the country. Still, I find myself thinking about him all the time. I wonder if he’s thinking about us.
“Is the sad lady still with him?”
“Miss Jessica? I think she went back to Seattle yesterday.”
“You should call him,” Lily says.
“Oh, I don’t want to bother him.”
“He won’t be bothered.”
I section off some of her golden hair to put in the barrette. “Well, he might be, so I don’t want to do it.”
“Can I call him?”
I think about it; I actually do. But my phone number would show up on his screen and he’d know I’d punched the buttons. He’d think I put Lily up to it.
Or maybe he wouldn’t. But then again, he might.
Why am I overthinking this so much? It’s not a good idea. Neither Lily nor I need to get used to having Zack around all the time. He’s moving.
He’s married.
“No,” I say, angling in the barrette. “He’s at work and he’s busy.”
“Mommy was never too busy for me. An’ you’re not, either. I bet Daddy’s the same.”
“We’d be interrupting an important meeting,” I say, although I have no proof.
“Well, maybe we can call him after work.”
“Maybe.” I can’t get the barrette’s clasp to fasten. I reinsert it and try again.
“Is that a real ‘maybe’ or a no ‘maybe’? Because there are two different kinds.”
“You’re such a smarty-pants!” I laugh, finally getting the barrette to snap.
“A good smarty-pants, or a bad smarty-pants?”
“Both!” I say, making a dive for her. I swoop her up in a giggling hug.
* * *
—
I NEVER TAKE clients to my storage space. It’s air-conditioned—that’s a necessity with the New Orleans heat and humidity so that upholstered items don’t get moldy and delicate woods don’t get warped—but I always bring items to the store, because I understand the importance of setting. Today, however, I’m breaking my own rules. I’m pressed for time, the client is young and chill, and the upholstered spoon-back chairs I want to show her are at the very front of the storage unit.
I’ve just raised the garage-like door and pointed out the chairs when my phone buzzes. My heart skips when I see Zack’s number. It’s out of character for him to call instead of text. “Excuse me a moment,” I murmur, and step into the hall to take the call.
“Do you have a moment to talk?” he asks.
“I’m with a client now,” I say. “But do you want to come by and see Lily this evening?”
“Sure. What time?”
“If you can make it around six thirty, you can join us for shrimp étouffée.” I’d doubled the recipe and frozen half the last time I made it, and I’d pulled it out of the freezer this morning to thaw in the fridge.
“Sounds great.”
“See you then,” I say, thinking the call is at an end.
“There’s, uh, something I need to tell you,” Zack says. “Probably without Lily around.”
“All right. Do you want me to call you back, or do you want to just talk after Lily goes to bed?”
“I’ll tell you quickly now, and we can talk more later.”
“Okay.”
“Jessica—well, she’s filed for divorce.”
“Oh!” The word comes out fast and startled.
“That was my reaction, too.” His tone is sardonic. “Anyway, I’m staying here. In New Orleans, I mean. I’m not moving to Seattle.”
I’m shocked. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.
“We need to talk about how much you do or don’t want to have me in your life,” he continues. “In Lily’s life, I mean—and the baby’s.” He pauses. “And in yours, too.”
“Yes.” My voice comes out oddly breathless.
“Come to think of it . . . maybe it’s better if I don’t come to dinner. Until this week, I’ve been seeing Lily a lot because I was trying to forge a relationship before I relocated, but now that I’m staying here . . .” He draws a breath. “Well, I don’t want her to think I’ll be around all
the time if that’s not how it’s going to be.”
“No, come to dinner. She’s been wanting to see you.” And I have, too.
I hang up, feeling dazed. Divorced. Zack is going to be single! My heart starts to dance against my ribs.
Stop it, I tell myself. Get a grip. Just because his marriage is unraveling doesn’t mean he and I will end up together. Didn’t Brooke always warn me that fairy-tale endings only happen in children’s books and Disney movies? When something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
Still, my mind is fizzing with the possibility that he and I could . . .
Stop it! Look at the facts, I advise myself. He’ll need time to get over a broken marriage, and you don’t want to be a rebound romance.
Besides, he’s the father of Lily and my baby. If we get involved and it doesn’t work out, it will affect them for a long, long time. Far better not to start anything than to risk having them go through anything like I experienced as a child.
Manage your expectations and you’ll manage your disappointments. I’d read the advice in the Reparenting Your Inner Child book before I even knew I was pregnant, then again in a parenting guide this morning. The topic had been potty training, but it seems applicable all the same.
And just last night I’d read something else that fits this situation: Everything requires money, time, or energy. Evaluate the costs before you set your heart on anything.
“What’s the cost?” the client calls to me from the storage room.
It’s a sign, I think. The universe is warning me not to get overly invested in a personal relationship with Zack. “There, um, should be a tag on the bottom,” I say.
If only, I think, potential relationships came with price tags, as well.
* * *
—
“THIS LOOKS DELICIOUS,” Zack says as he spoons the étouffée on top of the rice on his plate. I’ve gone to some trouble with dinner—salad, whole-wheat rolls, and green beans, as well as the rice and étouffée—but I’m downplaying the effort by having us eat in the kitchen, with everything in bowls on the table. Zack and I have large glasses of iced tea on our green print placemats, and Lily has a cup of milk.
