The Unbreakables

by Lisa Barr

  “Sophie.” He bolts upright with surprise. He places the bottle onto the small round glass table next to him. “I thought you were leaving.”

  “I was, until I realized I forgot something.”

  “What’s that?”

  I scan the length of Gabe’s lanky body. Hate him or love him, the man doesn’t age. He is still lean and fit, still boyishly handsome with the kind of unfair face like Bradley Cooper’s that just gets better, more refined, with each passing year.

  “The truth, Gabe. All of it.” I sit across from him on the twin chaise, peer into his bloodshot eyes. “When Ava called I was focused on her and we didn’t finish our conversation. But now . . .” I can barely get the words out. “No more lies.”

  He averts his gaze, stares down at the bluestone at his feet, then looks up in slow motion, his mouth dropping. “What more do you want from me? You already know everything.”

  “See, that’s the thing. I have this nagging feeling that I don’t.” I grab the bourbon and drink straight from the bottle too. The alcohol burns right through me as though it were lighter fluid—exactly what I need right now. “I need to know if there is more. More than just Ashley Madison.” I place the bottle down, meet his wide-eyed gaze squarely. “When exactly did we end and the betrayal begin? I have to know before I go.” My voice begins a shrill climb to a sharp peak, and I don’t try to tone it down. He remains unnervingly silent, and it’s infuriating. “Damn it, Gabe, tell me now.”

  He buries his face in his hands, then looks up with those remorseful eyes. “I’m so sorry for hurting you. How many times can I say it so you believe me?”

  I shake my head. “ ‘Sorry’ doesn’t begin to cut it.”

  He lets out an exasperated sigh. He’s a guy. An apology should have been enough. “I don’t know what more you want from me.”

  “The hell you don’t,” I snap. I have zero energy for pulling teeth. “Let’s start with this . . . when did you have time to fuck forty-three other women?” My voice is getting louder and I can’t control it. “Tell me now, goddamnit.”

  Gabe shakes his head, guzzles more bourbon, then slams the bottle back down on the table. “Okay, fine. You really want to know? Things began to change between us with the Tuesday at 7:54,” he says, shamefacedly. “That’s when.”

  I furrow my brow. “Tuesday at 7:54? Is that some kind of cheater’s code? What does that even mean?”

  His jaw constricts. “It means when we couldn’t conceive after Ava . . . all the treatments, all those months of monitored ovulation, all that goddamned timed-to-the-minute sex—if you could call it that. I remember specifically watching a Bulls play-off game and you came downstairs and said, ‘It’s Tuesday, 7:54—exactly one day before ovulation and the exact time when my eggs are strongest. So it’s right now, Gabe—let’s give it a go.’ And I remember thinking all I want to do is watch my fucking game and not ejaculate on call. That I was so sick of how scheduled it all was, what we’d become . . . so tired of how exacting you were, like my dick was some kind of science experiment.” He points a finger. “That’s what killed us.”

  I stare at him and that menacing finger. My stomach twists, and if my eyes could shoot bullets, he would be dead on arrival. Sound and motion begin to split all around me. With this admission, everything comes to a screeching halt and then a sudden lurch forward. And that’s when I stand, pick up what’s left of the bourbon and dump it over his head. “Let me remind you that I wasn’t the problem. It was you, your goddamn low sperm count. So screw you for making me out like I wanted to ruin the Bulls play-offs so I could . . .” I can’t even finish. My head is reverberating with 7:54, 7:54.

  But I’m not done. I can actually feel my blood pressure elevating beneath my skin, the steam oozing out of me, and I’m about to blow. I tower over Gabe like a shrew from medieval times—even my voice has taken on a strange cackle. “You have low sperm count and I deserve to be betrayed forty-three times because you missed a stupid Bulls game that they lost anyway? I was the science experiment—not you—you selfish prick!”

  Gabe bows his head in silence. And I know his brand of silence. It is the kind which says that’s not all, that there is more to this story, more depth to Tuesday at 7:54. I know this man better than he knows himself. Although who am I kidding? I clearly missed the Ashley Madison gang bang going on right under my nose. But I do have options right now. I could retreat and slam the patio door behind me. I could throw more things and berate him, but if I want real answers, it’s now or never. This is the conversation—there won’t be another chance. His defenses are down. Choose now.

  Exhaling deeply, I feel the tears forming once again in the corners of my eyes, and I will them away. “So just to be accurate, you stopped seeing me as a love object while we were trying to conceive.” I blow more air out of my cheeks. Keep it together. “If I do the calculations beginning with Tuesday at 7:54 p.m., then it’s clear the Ashley Madison harem were not the only cheats, were they? They came later . . . much later.”

  His eyes are glued open, a thirteen-year-old boy caught with his dad’s Playboy. I’m no longer me. I’m Gloria Allred, investigating a highly controversial case, deposing the defendant, who is so guilty—and now it’s just a matter of finding out how guilty.

  A faint sweat breaks out across Gabe’s forehead, but he admits nothing, knowing that it’s in everyone’s best interest to take the Fifth. Feeling my cheeks growing feverish, I begin to enumerate the facts on my fingers. “Let’s see . . . that pretty nurse, Holly, right? She was always lurking whenever I popped in for lunch. I’m guessing she was on your journey.”

  He nods without moving his head; just his eyes confirm my worst fears. The first dagger goes in. “Then I’m betting on that trainer at the club—Tammy with the boobs? Her too?”

  Nod two. Twist in, thrust hard.

  I can barely breathe now, but push myself to keep going. I snap my fingers. “Oh, oh—and of course, that bartender over at Billy’s. You know the one I’m talking about with the purple hair, or was it magenta? She was in a band, played drums. You kept asking her about her concerts—as if you actually give a shit about alternative goth rock. On your bucket list as well, am I right?”

  Gabe’s cheeks are now stained the color of cabernet. He starts to say something, some form of apology, that he has a problem—maybe the words “sex addiction” come out of his mouth, but I don’t hear it. I just feel it. Stab, repeat, stab, repeat.

  I’m floating out of my body and not in a good way. The man I’ve loved for so long, gave my whole self to, raised a child with, not only Ashley Madisoned me, but also cheated on me practically our entire marriage. How long would it have continued? How long would I have been blindsided had those hackers decided to get their LOLs elsewhere?

  I gather whatever remaining scraps of breath I can find to pull out the final accusation—the lone allegation that matters most: “Did you ever cheat with someone I know?” I silently pray for one morsel of manna, one toss of a dog bone. Say no. Spare me that, at the very least.

  Gabe is silent. And not just monastic silent, but stock-still, like a soldier who finds himself standing in the middle of a minefield. That’s when I hit him for the first time ever, a swift slap across the face. “Who? One of our neighbors? Who?” I yell, feeling like I could go all-out postal. “One of our friends? Who?”

  His hand soothes his stinging cheek, then he squeezes his eyes shut, too tightly, too briefly, and lets out a deep exhale. The final tell. The one truth too awful to even release. I circle him now, a lion trainer with an airborne whip. “You sack of shit—who?”

  His terrified eyes are dilated saucers and I know exactly what he sees: the blushing girl who stood at her decorated locker when he asked her to prom. That girl. The young bride walking toward him, aglow with all that possibility. The first-time mom cradling their newborn baby girl—after giving everything she had, her whole body, to that pregnancy. The woman in the messy kitchen who made him his favorite pasta fo
r the first time, homemade spaghetti with those special meatballs—his grandmother’s recipe—and his mouth forms the one word that I hear but fail to process: Lauren.

  “What?” I say, squinting.

  “Lauren,” he whispers.

  “My Lauren,” I confirm, leaning in. “Lauren, Lauren?”

  His eyes—Ava’s eyes—are brimming with tears. Any prospect of saving us, any chance of recovery is gone, destroyed, decimated. Lauren, Lauren. So many lies, so much betrayal, no beginning, no end.

  “Just once . . .” he says, his voice so far away that it sounds like an echo.

  “I’m done.” I grab my purse off the chaise and clutch it to my chest. “There’s nothing left of me to break. We’re over, Gabe. But I guess we were over at 7:54 on a Tuesday so many years ago . . . So much deception, so much of my life that you stole from me.”

  “Sophie, please.”

  I hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. I’m a shell with a voice. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m leaving now for Paris. I’m going to nurse Ava through the Jake breakup, then I’m going to tell her the truth about us. And then . . .” I don’t finish my sentence because I have no idea what then is.

  “This will destroy her,” he pleads. “Please, give me a chance to fix this, to tell Ava myself in my way, to explain.” He looks grief-stricken as if he has been violated, and I no longer care. “I’m so ashamed. But I’m still her father.”

  I’m suddenly shivering, my purse begins to shake against me. “You’ve lost all rights. You’ve lost your way.”

  I run into the house, sick to my stomach, and lock myself in the downstairs bathroom near the kitchen. I bend over the toilet and wait. Lauren, my Lauren . . . worse than all forty-three women plus bonus sluts combined. I picture her thick, red wavy hair, that voluptuous body and creamy skin in Gabe’s roving hands. I see them laughing. I can actually hear it. I replay the loop over and over in my head like it’s on redial, and I want to die. Does Samantha know? No way.

  Somehow, I manage to reach inside my purse for my cell phone. “Sam,” I barely breathe out her name. “Come get me now.”

  “Soph . . . oh no. I’m coming. I will call Laur—”

  “Do. Not. Call. Her!” I yell at the top of my lungs, dizzy, as I lean against the bathroom wall for support, my head detonating so many vivid images at once, spinning mercilessly out of control, until it expands, big-bangs, and ultimately, explodes.

  Chapter Six

  I HEAR THE SCREECH OF THE TIRES AGAINST THE DRIVEWAY AS SAMANTHA PULLS UP. I splash water on my face, quickly dry off, and head out. As I pass the kitchen windows, I see Gabe still lying out there on the chaise in the backyard. I sprint down the driveway, throw my luggage into the backseat of her car, slam the door. “Just go!”

  “That bad?” she asks softly, looking at me as she pulls out of the driveway.

  I can’t even respond. There are no words to define this kind of bad. I have nothing left to give. “I want to go to the airport now.”

  “What? The airport? No. You’re coming back to my house with me.” Samantha freezes. “Where are you even going?”

  “To Paris to be with Ava,” I say. “Jake cheated on her too. She needs me. My flight is at 5:30 this afternoon, but I’m going to try and catch an earlier one. Honestly, I don’t care how I get to Paris. I just need to get out of this town now.”

  “Jesus Christ. You’re not going anywhere like this. You need me, goddamnit!”

  “Please, Sam, just take me to the airport.” I can barely keep it together.

  “It’s barely 3 a.m. Nothing is even open. Sophie, c’mon, you’re not thinking.” She slows down. “Please, just talk to me first.”

  I burst out crying, sobbing in a way that I haven’t since Ava was born. “Stop the car somewhere,” I manage through the tears.

  Samantha gets off the main road and pulls onto a side street and parks.

  “Lauren, Sam. Do you . . .” But I can’t even finish the sentence.

  She leans forward, her lips purse tightly, her dark eyes grow wide and round like a kewpie doll. I know that look. Her tell. Suddenly, all the crying stops as if a director wearing a leather bomber jacket and baseball hat shouts “Cut!” I stare in disbelief. It can’t be. Anyone else—not her. Not Self-Righteous Samantha. Christ, she knows. “You know exactly what I’m going to ask,” I growl, shocked by the sheer magnitude of the betrayal encompassing me on all sides. “You fucking know . . .”

  Samantha opens her mouth, about to defend herself, and then stops. There’s no point. “Yes,” she confesses. Her whole body seems to contract like the bellows of an accordion. “Yes.”

  Yes?! Twenty-eight years of friendship and that’s it? The admission releases a fusillade of bullets, each tearing my heart out. “How long?” is all I can muster.

  She exhales hard through her nose, and I recognize that particular Ujjayi breath from yoga class. “A long time, Soph.”

  “When, damn it?” I hiss.

  “Five years ago.”

  I speed-flip through my mental datebook. “That Nashville trip? When I had food poisoning?”

  She nods, her forehead breaks out into a sweat. “Believe me, it killed me not to tell you, but it wasn’t my place.”

  I shake my head furiously, like Pablo when he’s wet, not letting her anywhere near off the hook. “It was so your place.” I point my finger between her eyes. “When have we ever lied to each other about anything? Seriously—when?”

  Samantha points back. “It wasn’t my lie and you know that. It would have broken up the group, torn apart two marriages when it meant nothing—a drunken night of sheer stupidity. Believe me I ripped Lauren to shreds over it.”

  I place my hand over my mouth, unable to comprehend the magnitude of this. “Broken up the group? See, you’re wrong. It means everything. I would have told you about Eric and Lauren in a heartbeat if that happened. I wouldn’t have thought twice, only about protecting you, making sure you were nobody’s fool. Broken up the group—are you kidding me?” I spit back at her. “Just get me to the goddamn airport.”

  “Soph.”

  A name I no longer recognize nor respond to. I’m deaf, broken, muted, emotionally stripped.

  We drive in a painful silence for the next twenty-five minutes to the airport. Samantha doesn’t even turn on the music. As we pull up to the drop-off lane, I turn to her. “Gabe broke me, Lauren destroyed me . . . but you, Sam—you just buried me.”

  Tears stream down her face, and she is not a crier. She’s a thrower. Guilty by association. Guilty by omission. I look away. Guilty is guilty.

  “What can I do?” she whispers, grabbing me by the arm as I try to open up the kid-locked door. I push her away.

  “Release the fucking lock,” I say coldly.

  I get out, slam the car door with Samantha still inside, still crying. Completely numb, I grab my bag from the backseat and don’t look back. I push through the glass double doors toward the check-in counter, barely breathing, just sensing my forward movement. Perspiration glides down the back of my shirt and in between my breasts. I didn’t just lose a husband, my marriage—I lost my entire support system in a blink of an eye.

  But as usual, Samantha was right. The reservation desk for Air France isn’t open yet. I sit on a random chair and wait, feeling the sheer terror mounting inside me. I have given the very best of me to those I love—and they took it all, leaving me nothing to hold on to. I’ve never felt more alone, betrayed, and lost. What now? How do I do life now?

  II.

  Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.

  —STELLA ADLER

  Chapter Seven

  IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT IN PARIS, AND FROM THE HOTEL ROOM BED I SEE Ava standing outside leaning over the balcony, a slim grainy silhouette against the charcoal sky. Deep in thought, she looks like she just stepped out of a film noir, only without the cigarette. I sit back against the headboard, rub my mascara-encruste
d eyes, and study my daughter through the open French doors.

  She never changed into pajamas, probably never fell asleep. She is still wearing the same baggy boyfriend jeans and faded white tank from the day before. Her hair is piled high in a messy bun. Except for her eyes, the cleft in her chin, and lankiness—all Gabe—she has my features, just an improved version. Like me, Ava is an artist, a painter who looks like a model with her willowy height, dark riotous hair, long-lashed hazel eyes, sharp cheekbones, and slightly squared jaw with that tiny cleft—the spot where the angels kissed her when she was born, I used to tell her when she was a little girl.

  Only Ava is no longer a child. She’s a budding young woman, betrayed and in pain, and I feel every inch of it. Standing like that, propped up against the night, she appears so vulnerable. I grab the blanket off the bed, wrap it around me, and walk toward her.

  “Honey, you need to sleep. Come to bed.” I glance over the balcony and see the shades of night accentuated by flickering lights in the distance. I hear the loud honking and orchestra of motors—scooters, ambulances, police cars. Europeans are big on honking. Even in the wee hours, everyone still seems to be in everybody’s way.

  She stares, nods absently. Her eyes are tired, her gaze is strained. “I think it hurts even more that Monica betrayed me. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” I reply, having gone over this with her at least a dozen times already since I’d arrived yesterday. The same scenario. Monica and Jake caught making out on someone else’s Snapchat story. Monica begging for forgiveness. Jake saying that they had been drinking. It was a mistake that happened only once, said Monica. Only Jake admitted that it happened twice.

  “Believe me, I get it.”

  Tears stream down Ava’s face. “You just don’t understand.”

  I don’t even try to convince her that I do. Instead I grab her hands and hold tightly. Lithe, slender fingers—my hands. Heartbreak devastates. It’s a selfish, all-mine-not-yours emotion.