by C. C. Wood
He started to set her on the bed.
“No, I need to brush my teeth,” Charlotte said.
Greg set her on her feet by the bathroom door and she went inside, closing it behind her. Quickly, she brushed her teeth and swished with mouthwash. After she rinsed her mouth out, Charlotte went back out and found Brandy sitting on the edge of the bed with a steaming mug in her hand.
Charlotte went to the bed and climbed under the covers that Brandy had turned back for her.
Brandy held out the cup. “It’s chamomile tea. Drink it. It should help settle your stomach. If this stays down, I’ll bring you some soup and crackers in a little bit.”
Charlotte nodded and sipped the tea. “Where’s Greg?” she asked.
Brandy’s face tightened and she looked extremely angry for a split second. Then line of her jaw relaxed before she answered, “Talking to Derek.”
Ignoring her friend’s obvious dislike for her husband, just as she always did, Charlotte kept drinking her tea.
“What are they talking about?” she asked a few moments later. Not that she truly cared. It just seemed as though something was happening and she didn’t know about it.
“Derek says there’s a problem with an account and that he needs to leave tonight to handle it,” Brandy answered. “Greg told him he would handle it, but Derek is insisting.”
Charlotte stared into her tea. She wanted to tell Brandy that she didn’t care, that she would rather have the house to herself anyway, but she knew that her friend would get that half-angry, half-resigned look she often wore when Derek did something she didn’t like.
Brandy thought Charlotte’s husband was a jackass and she didn’t say it outright, but Charlotte had known her long enough to tell when her friend wanted to kick a man in the nuts.
Taking a deep breath, Charlotte looked up at her friend. “It’s okay. We’re not in a good place with this and he may need the time to get his head together. Or maybe I just need the time to deal with my grief before I have to face his.”
Brandy looked at her intently and started to say something, but Greg came back into the bedroom. His face was set in hard, angry lines and, while he was usually handsome, he looked like a beautiful, vengeful angel.
“He left,” Greg growled. “He just fucking left.” His grey eyes were hot with ire until he saw Charlotte and Brandy both watching him with wide eyes.
“It’s okay, Greg,” Charlotte started to say, but he interrupted.
“It damn well isn’t. You’re falling apart and he’s going to leave you here alone for two days? That isn’t right and he fucking knows it.”
Brandy gestured to Gregory to shut up. “Seriously, Greg. Charlie’s telling you the truth. It’s okay. I’ll stay here with her and make sure that she takes care of herself. She won’t be alone.”
Greg tore his hands through his hair. “I know that, Brandy. One of us will be here with her. You know who won’t? Her husband, and he should be.”
When he saw that Charlotte’s face had paled, he took a deep breath and went to a chair in the little sitting area in the corner of the bedroom.
“Jesus, Char, I’m sorry,” he said.
Charlotte set her tea on the night stand, wishing the damned horrible day was over already. “It’s okay, Greg. We all deal with our feelings in a different way. Derek can’t face this right now, so he doesn’t. He will.” She paused. “We will.”
“A man should be there when his wife needs him,” Greg said softly. “Not dealing with ridiculous demands from stupid, undeserving people.”
That confused Charlotte. Wasn’t Derek going out to take care of things for the business he shared with Greg? She wondered why Greg was so resentful of his clients. Maybe he was just dealing with loss in his own way. Though he didn’t come around as often after Adam was born, he did like to spend time with her and the baby from time to time. It was obvious that he had a soft spot for Adam.
Brandy was glaring at Greg. “Great way to talk about paying customers, Gregory,” she snapped.
There was something unspoken being shared between her two friends, but Charlotte was too tired to try to decipher the strange looks and irritated undercurrents.
“Guys, I’d like to lie down for a while,” she said.
Brandy stopped throwing daggers at Greg with her eyes long enough to face Charlotte.
“Okay, Charlie. Want me to stay in here with you?” she asked.
Charlotte shook her head. It was crazy enough inside her own head at the moment. She didn’t need someone else around trying to poke around in there.
Greg stood and came over to the bed. “I’m staying the night too, Char. I’ll sleep on the couch or something.”
Charlotte started to argue but he just held up a hand. “If Derek is out half the night, I would feel better knowing that both Brandy and I are here to take care of you.”
She sighed and nodded. Greg smiled slightly. “Good girl.”
Brandy leaned in and hugged Charlotte. “Actually try to sleep, okay, Charlie?”
They both left the room and Charlotte laid down, pulling the blankets over her shoulders. She snapped off the light and lay on her side looking at the wall. She stared with unfocused eyes for a long time, trying to force her brain to shut down, before she finally drifted off to sleep.
For the first time in days her sleep was both deep and dreamless.
Chapter Two
Charlotte woke alone in the dark bedroom. Her breasts ached and felt hard. She realized that she hadn’t pumped breast milk since early afternoon. A glance at the clock told her it was one in the morning.
Derek wasn’t in the bed with her. She got up and did a quick walk thru of the house. He wasn’t home. Brandy and Greg were ensconced in separate guest rooms. Charlotte found her cell phone in the kitchen when she went to get her pumping supplies. Her husband had texted her at 10 p.m.
Still having issues with the account. May not make it home until late.
She set the phone on the counter with a clatter. For the moment, she was thinking clearly. Without the incessant grief to form a barrier between her and reality, Charlotte knew deep in her bones that there was something wrong. Even before Adam’s death, Derek had been distant. With each passing week, he seemed to withdraw more and more from their life together. Now that Adam was gone, she realized that he was no longer trying to hide it.
Derek didn’t love her. As she remembered and analyzed his behavior over the last few months, she knew it was likely that he was having an affair. Surprisingly, the last blow inflicted no pain. The damage to her heart was too great. There was nothing left to break, only dust and ashes.
“Charlotte? What are you doing up?”
She turned around and saw Greg standing in the kitchen behind her, wearing only his suit pants. Typically she would have been embarrassed by his state of undress and unable to look at him while he was shirtless. However, she didn’t feel the shyness that typically plagued her when she was faced with Greg’s attractiveness.
“Did you know?” she asked. Charlotte knew that she wasn’t making sense, but she wasn’t sure she could form a coherent sentence beyond the question she just asked Greg.
A confused expression on his face, Greg took a step forward. “Know what? What’s wrong?”
“Did you know that Derek was having an affair?”
His face said it all. He had known, maybe even from the beginning. Charlotte stared at him blankly for a moment, letting the knowledge that she had been betrayed by a man she considered a friend sink in. Then she turned and reached into an upper cabinet for the flanges and attached bottles that she used with her breast pump. At the moment the only ache she felt was in her breasts.
Somehow she knew that the latest discoveries would be agony in the morning, like the aftermath of a bicycle crash. The scrapes and bruises stung initially, but it was getting out of bed the next day that would be hell.
“Char?” Greg sounded uncertain. That was a first. She always thought he was c
onfident in everything.
Tired to the bone, she faced him. “I can’t talk to you right now. I can’t look at you. I know that you and Derek are the best of friends, but I thought I meant something to you too. Enough that you wouldn’t keep something like that from me.”
Brandy materialized out of the dark in the kitchen door, wearing the pajamas Charlotte lent her. “I told him not to tell you,” she said.
Charlotte sucked in a breath. “What?” she whispered. “Why?”
“Because you wouldn’t have believed him. And, if I told you, you would have thought it was because Derek’s not my favorite person. In fact, I hate the rat bastard dickface, especially since he abandoned you on the day of your son’s funeral because of her.”
Greg shot Brandy a look. “She didn’t need to know that, B.”
Brandy looked chastened and said nothing else.
Charlotte shook her head. “You’re wrong. I did need to know that. Not now, not tonight, but, at some point, I deserved to know that my husband abandoned me when I needed him most.” She almost choked on the words but she got them out. “Now, I have something I have to do. I would appreciate it if both of you would leave. I’d rather not see you first thing in the morning.”
“No way,” Brandy said.
At the same time, Greg muttered, “Not gonna happen.”
For the first time that day, Charlotte felt something other than all-consuming sorrow. Her voice cracked throughout the kitchen like a bullwhip. “I have to go upstairs and pump milk that should be for my son while my husband is out fucking his mistress. That is enough horror for any person in one night. I don’t need to do that with the knowledge that the two people I feel closest to betrayed me and that they are sleeping under my roof as though they have the goddamn right. I want both of you to leave now.”
Her hands shook as she shoved past the two people she considered her only friends in the world and charged up the stairs to her bedroom. Charlotte slammed her bedroom door behind her, breathing heavily from both anger and exertion. She could barely get the breast pump hooked up and in position. Her entire body quaked from adrenaline. All the numbness that cloaked her just moments ago was gone, obliterated by the succession of blows delivered by people she thought she could trust.
As the milk flowed from her breasts, tears fell from her eyes. Just a few more in the ocean that she had cried in the last few days. With each drop that came from her body, despair replaced it. It seemed she truly was left with nothing, not trust nor love, to bring her peace.
After a restless night, Charlotte awoke to an empty bed again. It was no longer dark. In fact it was bright enough for her to realize she had slept most of the morning away. A glance at her phone showed that Derek hadn’t texted again since 10 p.m. and it was closing in on twelve in the afternoon.
Unsure of what she intended to do about Derek’s absence, Charlotte climbed out of bed, feeling three times older than her thirty-one years. She went into the bathroom and took care of necessities. After washing her hands and face and brushing her hair, she wandered downstairs to find her husband sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him, reading the paper. He looked collected and neat, as usual.
For a moment, Charlotte had to fight the insanely strong urge to walk over to him and dump the hot coffee over his head. It wasn’t right that he could be so uncaring in the face of their loss. If he didn’t love her any longer, that she could understand, but to remain so aloof after the death of his child, his son. It was wrong. It was inhuman.
She walked to the single-cup coffeemaker and took a mug out of the cabinet. As her coffee brewed, Charlotte faced Derek and leaned back against the counter.
“Did you get your business taken care of?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Her husband looked up at her as though he were surprised she was speaking to him. In the bright late morning light, he was handsome. With his blond hair and brown eyes and fit physique, he looked about twenty-five, a good decade younger than his actual age.
“For the most part. I’ll have to go out later this evening and meet with the client again. If things continue this way, I may have to leave town in a few days. I’ll probably be gone a week, two at the most.” With that, Derek went back to his paper as though he were dismissing her.
It wasn’t the first time her husband had treated her this way, but it was the first time that Charlotte felt something other than hurt by his behavior. Instead of hurt feelings, she felt anger grow in her belly. It felt good to have an emotion other than sorrow.
When her coffee cup filled up, she added sugar and flavored creamer. Taking the cup, she went to the table and sat down next to her husband. After the first sip, Charlotte calmly set down her mug and reached across the table to snatch the paper out of Derek’s hands.
While many people would have responded with anger at her seemingly unprovoked behavior, her husband merely leveled a cold stare in her direction.
“Is something bothering you, Charlotte?” He sounded so condescending that she wanted to whack him in the face with his paper.
She laughed humorlessly. “Is something the matter? You could say that.” She drank from her cup again. “I know you weren’t with a client last night.”
For several long minutes, Derek said nothing. They sat, facing off from each corner of the table. When he realized that Charlotte had no intention of caving as she usually did, Derek sighed heavily as though annoyed.
“Do we have we have this conversation today?” he asked irritably.
Charlotte gaped at him. She had always known that her husband wasn’t an overly emotional man, but she thought that stemmed from his upbringing rather than a lack of concern. She was wrong. He looked as cold and distant as the moon.
“Yes, Derek. We must have this conversation. For once, tell me the truth. Where were you last night?”
“I believe you already know,” he evaded.
Charlotte’s fist landed on the table, making both of their coffee cups jump and slosh liquid onto the tabletop. “Do not try to bullshit me, Derek. Don’t be a fucking coward. Tell me!” Her voice rose higher and higher. “Have the courage to tell me to my face what you were doing!”
Her husband’s eyes were wide at her behavior. Like him, Charlotte rarely gave into temper or expressed strong emotions. However, she didn’t do those things because she loved him and hated to upset him. Right now, she could care less if she made him angry.
In fact, she wanted him to be angry. Throughout their marriage, his quiet disapproval had been enough to have her back down when she wanted to disagree. His very lack of heated response made her feel as though she were overreacting to a situation.
“I was with a woman, a woman I love very much,” Derek replied, his inflection never changing. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
Charlotte sighed, all her righteous anger deserting her. “I only want the truth, Derek. I deserve it.” She stood and grabbed paper towels from the roll on the counter and came back to the table to clean up the mess her outburst had created. “What do we do now?”
Derek shifted uncomfortably. “I intended to wait until you were in a better place emotionally before I discussed this with you.” He cleared his throat and managed to meet her eyes. Charlotte knew what he was about to say. “I want a divorce.”
She sat in her chair, the coffee-stained towels clenched in her hand. “I think it’s for the best,” she murmured. “Last night, while you were gone, I thought about the past few months. I realized that you haven’t truly been here anyway.”
Charlotte paused, steeling herself for the next question she intended to ask. “Who is she?”
For the first time in their marriage, Derek blushed. “Danielle.”
“Your secretary?” she asked, astonished that he could be such a cliché. Though she supposed there was a reason some stereotypes became so well-known. “When did it start?” she asked.
“Right before Adam was born.”
De
rek had the grace to look ashamed, as he damn well should have been. The last two months of Charlotte’s pregnancy had been frightening. She had been on strict bed rest and unable to do anything other than get up for a few minutes each day to shower and use the bathroom. Needless to say, sex had been forbidden by her obstetrician.
Apparently those few months of celibacy were too much for her husband, she thought darkly. Though she had what seemed like thousands of questions swirling in her mind, Charlotte refused to ask any more. It was painfully obvious that her husband was done with their marriage and that he no longer cared enough about her to even make the effort to hide his behavior.
“I won’t fight the divorce on one condition,” she stated firmly.
“What’s that?”
“I keep the house. It’s paid for, all of Adam’s things are here, as are all of my memories of him. I want to keep it.”
“And if I disagree?” Derek asked.
“I fight you tooth and nail. I ask for everything I can get, all of our assets, and half your retirement account. I also expose every dirty deed you have done in the last few months, not only to the judge, but to anyone who will listen to filthy gossip and spread it all over town.”
Her face must have convinced him that she was earnest because her husband just nodded. “Fine. You may keep the house. I’ll even pay the taxes for next year.”
Charlotte had been counting on his distaste for rumors and ugly talk to get her what she wanted.
“How generous,” she replied, her expression giving nothing away.
Derek rose from the table. “I’ll go pack a few of my things. I’ll want to arrange to get the rest sometime next week.”
Charlotte merely nodded, too exhausted to care any longer. It was obvious that Derek wanted a clean getaway and she was going to give it to him. Her husband had taken the last thing he would get from her, and that was her agreement to grant him a fairly painless divorce. With dry, burning eyes, she watched the man she’d loved for the last ten years and the father of her deceased child walk out of the kitchen. And felt nothing but emptiness.
