She Makes It Look Easy

by Marybeth Whalen

  “But I believe any marriage can be repaired,” I said quietly. “Even yours. Even now.”

  She shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid it’s already gone too far. Tom’s left Betsy.”

  “I know,” I said. I watched as shock registered on her face. “But you’re still living with Mark. You could put the brakes on, work on your marriage—”

  “You’re living in a dream world, Ariel,” she said. “Look, don’t take me for a heartless woman. I didn’t get up one day and decide to ruin my family. Yes, I was sad and things weren’t good. And then one day out of the blue I look up and there’s this person standing in front of me. The one person I always wondered about. And it turns out he’s not happy either. You can’t deny there’s something to it.”

  “Whatever that something is, it’s nothing good. I can assure you of that,” I said. Tears filled my own eyes as I let myself feel the loss, not of what we had, but of what we now, certainly, would never have.

  “But there’s something between Tom and me that I’ve never felt before. Ever. With anyone. I can’t deny that. I never meant for any of this to happen. And I am sorry,” she said. “But I have to take this chance I’ve been given. A chance at real happiness.”

  “Real happiness is over there,” I said, pointing to her house through my kitchen window, the house I had gotten used to watching day in and day out. “Real happiness is Cameron and Caroline. Real happiness is the way Mark talked about how you two met. You still have a chance at real happiness. You can’t ignore that.”

  “Do you remember when Tom was talking at your party? About those letters we traded all those years?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Did you know I’ve still got every single one he ever sent me? I’ve kept them all these years. I would get them out and reminisce, wonder what would’ve happened if he had come to visit like we planned. I had just reread them two weeks before he showed up at the pool. It felt like a miracle, like I had conjured him up. I couldn’t even believe it was really happening. The next day I felt like I had dreamed it.” She paused, looking in the direction of her house, yet not really seeing it. “I am not willing to let that dream go. Not yet. For once I am doing something for me. Just me.”

  She moved toward the door and placed her hand on the knob. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I really don’t. You’re sacrificing too much. And you don’t have to.”

  “Like I said, it’s gone too far now.” She smiled the same sad smile. “All I can do is ride this out and hope the dust settles soon.”

  “I feel sorry for you,” I said. “You’re going to miss it. All of it. Everything you’ve worked to build, gone. And for what?” I waited for her to give an answer, picking at a hangnail, the pain of pulling on it distracting me from the answer she wasn’t giving me. She wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t keep quiet about what I know,” I finally said. “So either you tell them or I will.”

  She raised her eyes to glare at me. “You do what you have to,” she said, the chill in her voice unmistakable. “Good-bye, Ariel.” I stood for a long time, just staring at the door even though she was gone.

  That afternoon I took a glass of lemonade—made from powder, not fresh-squeezed, a small act of rebellion toward Justine—out to the deck and sat with a magazine on my lap while the boys played. I did a good job of looking busy and occupied even though I never read a single article. Every so often I would look up to applaud something the boys did, but otherwise my mind was focused solely on Justine and our conversation. I thought of her sitting with those letters, allowing herself to dwell on Tom even as she appeared to be happily married to Mark. Did the thoughts she was having cause the problems in her marriage? Which came first, the thoughts or the problems? Round and round the two went in my head as I tried to make sense out of what she had said, to rectify the two Justines in my head—the one I spoke to hours earlier, and the one I thought I knew.

  I glanced around the yard, making a note in my head to remind David to treat the yard for weeds as fall approached. I was hypersensitive about weeds after a perfectly innocuous purple flower had sprouted up in our old yard years ago. The next week there were even more purple flowers. The boys had brought me a few, clutched in their chubby fists, proud of their gift. I dutifully put them in water, exclaiming over their beauty. Very quickly the pretty purple flowers choked out the grass and took over our yard. David and I got a crash course in weeds that can take over a yard, and I became hypervigilant about treating for weeds before they became a problem. One harmless purple flower became a force to be reckoned with—out of control before we realized the harm that lurked just under the surface. I couldn’t remember the name of the weed, but what did it really matter? A weed was a weed, meant to be plucked up by the roots and destroyed before it was too late.

  I walked into the house and retrieved my notebook from its home on the built-in desk. I scribbled down a note to myself about treating for weeds. Idly I flipped beyond my to-do section, unaware of what I was looking for except a connection to the Justine I once knew, a clue as to how I could stop what was happening. I flipped past the recipes for homemade cleaning products and lists of menus, my eye falling on the notes I took that first day at the mothers’ group meeting. I read through what she had said as if deciphering a code. In the middle of my notes was the comment I had written in frustration: “She makes it look easy.” I stared at the words, thinking of how false they were, how wrong I was. I was swindled by her, taken in by the act she had put on for us all. Was everyone, or was I especially vulnerable because I wanted to believe that perfection was obtainable? That if I just did x, y, and z I would get the hoped-for outcome?

  The words swam in front of me as my eyes lost focus. I blinked and looked again. “She makes it look easy” spelled SMILE. I looked away from the page, in the direction of her house, as I recalled that first day we met, how her smile had captivated me, drawn me in. She had made me believe that her smile was real, that I could trust her to be as brilliant and warm as her smile told me she was. She covered everything with that smile, yet nothing about her was real. I had emulated a mirage, cobbled together a friendship out of bits of kindness and scraps of goodwill. It was time to let the mirage go. I closed the notebook and rose from my seat, my mouth set in a determined line. I had a phone call to make. It was long past time.

  Chapter 36

  Ariel

  Betsy answered the phone on the first ring. “Yes?” she asked, her voice breathy and low. She sounded uncertain, as if taking my call was a bad idea.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s Ariel.”

  “I know who it is,” she said. “Caller ID.”

  “Right,” I said. “I just—I—”

  “Ariel, do you have something to tell me?” she asked, impatience edging her voice.

  “Yes, did Erica talk to you?”

  “She just said you might have some new information.”

  “Yeah … I do.” I looked outside at the boys to make sure they were staying off the playset. I didn’t need a run-in with any of the Millers right now. I sighed. I had to tell her, yet I didn’t want to. Would any woman want to hear what I was about to say? “I followed Justine last night,” I blurted out, going for the quick and painless method, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  “I see,” she said, though I knew she did not. How could she see? I knew and I still couldn’t.

  “She went to Tom’s new apartment. I—” I hedged on how much information to supply her with but plowed forward with the truth. “I saw them kiss in the hall before they went inside.”

  She was very quiet, but I could still hear her breathing.

  “There’s more,” I said. “Do you want to hear it?”

  “Yes,” she said. Though she didn’t sound like she wanted to hear it.

  I swallowed and took a dee
p breath. “Do you remember when you called me about the beach weekend, and I told you that I didn’t think anything went on?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said.

  “Well, I’ve sort of rethought that since then. There was a night when she went out without me.” I watched as the boys went through the gate and joined Cameron and Caroline on the playset just like any other day. “I have no idea where she went, and she didn’t come home till dawn.” I sat silently, wondering if she was even still on the line. “Are you there?” I asked with caution.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just trying to understand all of this.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “Ariel, forgive me for saying this,” she said, “but you’re trying to understand a friendship not working out. I’m trying to understand a marriage not working out. It’s two different things.”

  I stood there, stung by her words. And yet, she was right. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to tell you any of this, but I tried to put myself in your place and I figured I would want to know, I mean, as hard as it is.”

  “I really hope you’re never in my place.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

  I said good-bye and sat down heavily, switching on my computer with a resolute sigh. I watched as the photos I had downloaded came up in little thumbnails across my screen. The photos started out so innocently: Justine and me on our beach trip mugging for the camera, floating on rafts, trying on dresses. I wanted the photos to end there, for that to be the end of the story. I remembered at the time I thought it was just the beginning of ours. Mechanically I transferred the incriminating photos to a file. I looked at the photos of Justine and me together one last time before I dragged them all to the recycle bin. There was no point in saving them now.

  Chapter 37

  Justine

  I walked through the house, saying my quiet good-byes, doing my best to block the memories that lurked in every nook and cranny. Here was the place I used to sit Caroline in her high chair to have her snack. Here was the perfect spot for our Christmas tree, which we always decorated together. Here was where I stepped on the piece of glass I had to have removed from my foot. Mark called me Hopalong as I limped around afterward. He offered to carry me up the stairs if I needed him to. Here was the piece of string I stretched across the wall to serve as an art gallery for all the girls’ school creations, a place that always looked sunny and happy in our house with all their cheerful drawings lined up. Would Mark remember to hang their pictures without me here to do it? What would happen to their crayoned drawings of this house with the four of us out front smiling? Would those stop altogether? Would they draw only three people now?

  I sat down at my place at the kitchen table for the last time, my arms hanging uselessly by my side. Tom was waiting for me at his apartment. He wanted to take me out to dinner to celebrate finally being together. But how did you celebrate something like this? From the beginning there had been no happy answer, no workable solution. No matter how I approached it, someone’s heart was going to be broken: mine, Mark’s, Tom’s, Betsy’s, all of our children’s. Something had pulled us along until we were caught up in it and too far gone to get back to where we had started. As of today my children were without a mother in the home. As of today Mark was losing a wife. As of today Betsy would know for sure that Tom wasn’t just renting that apartment to sort things out like he had told her. With me living there, there would be no question as to our intentions. As soon as we could, we would be married.

  And I would finally have what I wanted. Only wanting it and having it turned out to be two very different things.

  I rose from the table and picked up the last bag. My parents had taken the girls so they didn’t have to see me pack and leave. I could tell by my mother’s steadfast refusal to look directly at me that she was angry with me. And yet she hadn’t said so yet. Later, when the dust had settled, I would hear from her. In the meantime, I could pretend I had her support.

  I gave the house one last glance, thinking of how—just one year ago—I believed I was as happy as I could be. For just a moment I let myself picture the way things were. Laura was sitting beside me at the table sipping coffee that was light on coffee and heavy on flavored creamer, just the way she liked it. She had Mopsy on her lap. The girls were in the den playing, the happy music from their toys providing the soundtrack to our days. When I looked over and smiled, they smiled back. Dinner was in the oven, and soon Mark would be home. Then, I had lived completely in the moment, rarely letting myself think about what I didn’t have, focusing instead on what I did. It was, in hindsight, a good way to live, a way I could never get back to. The gap between then and now had become too wide to cross. So I stood at a distance and watched.

  Chapter 38

  Ariel

  I walked across the neighborhood park, my purse swinging from my shoulder. Normally I came with the boys so they could swing. From my perch on the bench I would watch them point their toes to the sky as they swung higher and higher, then jumped, my heart hurtling down toward the ground with them, suspended until the moment I knew they were okay. The entire journey of parenthood captured in a single moment.

  I saw a figure on the bench and waved. She lifted her hand in response. “Glad you could meet me,” Betsy said.

  I sat down beside her and handed her the photos, already printed off per her request, and a Zip drive with the files on it. “Erica said you wanted these.” I felt like we were playing parts in a spy movie, or at least an episode of Desperate Housewives. She took the pictures and, without looking at them, shoved them in a tote bag at her feet. The bag, I noticed, read “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.” My heart clenched.

  “How are you not falling apart?” I asked. “I mean, you’re dressed, you’re here.” I stole a glance at her. “You’re wearing makeup.” We both kept our eyes trained on the empty swings. “I’d be in a fetal position on the floor somewhere,” I added.

  She didn’t speak for a bit. I waited to hear what she would say. “He’s done this before. I guess you didn’t know that.”

  “What?” I tried to find a place in my reality to put this latest revelation but couldn’t. It seemed nothing about Tom or Justine was as simple as they wanted it to seem.

  “Where we lived before. It was one of the reasons we left. We stayed for about a year after, but … well, the gossip, the damage. It was done.”

  “Was it someone he knew before? Like this?”

  She shook her head, and I stole another glance at her. She looked worn, tired. But she didn’t look sad. Resolution hung on her shoulders like a cloak. “It was someone we knew at church. Tom was a deacon.” She laughed bitterly. “She was on some committee with him. He said she ‘touched him in a place that no one ever had.’ Her marriage broke up, but I—”

  A few seconds of silence passed. I watched the slight breeze move the swings, as though phantom children were on them. “I moved here with him, let him talk me into starting over, as if we could outrun the problems.” She looked at me for the first time, and I noticed how pretty her eyes were, and how kind. “You can convince yourself of pretty much anything when you’re trying to save your family.”

  I nodded. “I would’ve done the same,” I said. “I imagine you want to believe the best about the man you love.”

  “You do. You also want to believe the best about yourself. You want to believe that you couldn’t have been that bad a judge of character. That you could’ve missed the things in his soul that would lead him to do this. It’s scary.” A dog ran through the park, and I thought of Lucky, who never escaped anymore, and how Justine had found him the day we met. “It’s actually a comfort, knowing that he’s done this before. That he’ll just keep doing it again and again. That she’s nothing special.”

  I thought about the look I saw Justine and Tom give each other in the hallw
ay of his apartment, the look that—when Betsy chose to look at the pictures—she would see for herself. I found it hard to believe that Justine was nothing special to Tom. But I said nothing.

  “When all that happened with Tom before, I got to a really good place with God. I had to lean on Him to get through it. Because it happened at church, I had to really evaluate what I believed and where my belief was based—in people or in Him. I had equated church to social connections, to expectation, to this part of my life that I gave very little thought to. It was just what you did. God was something you were expected to pay lip service to if you were a good person.

  “And then one day I found out that everything I’d ever held dear, that all of it was hanging by this very thin thread that could break at any minute. If I lost Tom, I could lose my home, the family I loved. Where would that leave me? Who would I be? I had to stop paying lip service to God and really go to Him daily, ask Him for the strength to get through it.” She smiled without showing any teeth. “And you know what?”

  I shook my head. She was tapping into every fear I’d ever had.

  “It turned out He was enough. If I lose everything—which I’m getting ready to, it would seem—I will still have Him, and He will be enough. He will take care of me. He will see me through. And even more than that, He will make good come out of it. I can’t see it right now, but He’s been faithful in the past, and He will be again.” She paused. “I just needed to tell you that because I know how sad you feel about all of this and how involved you’ve been. I don’t want you to feel responsible or to think that you should’ve done something different. I want you to know that I am going to be okay. My Daddy’s going to take care of me.”

  A tear ran down my cheek, and I reached up to wipe it away. “That must be a really good feeling,” I whispered.