Heart of the Matter

by Emily Giffin

  She opens her mouth to tell him what she always tells him—that families are all different and that he has so many people who love him. But she knows that it will not be good enough. Not now, maybe not ever. So she just says his name, again and again, holding on to him under their perfectly lit tree.

  39

  Tessa

  I told him to go. I wanted him to go. But I still hate him for listening to me, for not staying and making me fight. I hate him for walking so calmly toward the door, and for the look on his face as he turned back toward me, his lips parted, as if he had one last thing to say. I waited for something profound, some indelible sentiment that I could replay in the hours, days, years to come. Something to help me make sense of what had just happened to me and our family. Yet he didn’t speak—perhaps because he changed his mind and thought better of it. More likely because he had nothing to say in the first place. Then he disappeared around the corner. Seconds later, I heard the door open and then shut again with a definite, final thud—the sound of someone leaving. A sound that has always made me fleetingly sad even when I know they’ll be coming right back, even when it’s a houseguest I am ready to see go. So it shouldn’t have surprised me that that moment and the eerie calm that followed were worse than the actual moment of Nick’s confession.

  And there I stood, alone, dizzy and breathless, before turning to sit on the couch, waiting for the rage to overcome me, for the uncontrollable urge to go destroy something. Slash his favorite shirts or smash his framed Red Sox memorabilia or burn our wedding photos. React the way women are supposed to react in this situation. React the way my mother did when she smashed my father’s new car with a baseball bat. I could still hear the sound of glass exploding, see the carnage that remained in the driveway long after my father came to sweep and hose down the crime scene, how those stray shards glistened on sunny days as a reminder of our fractured family.

  But I was way too exhausted for revenge, and more important, I wanted to believe that I was too good for it. Besides, I had children to feed, practical matters to attend to, and it took all my energy to head for the kitchen, set the table with the kids’ favorite Dr. Seuss place mats, prepare two plates of chicken nuggets and peas and mandarin oranges, then pour two glasses of milk, adding a dash of chocolate milk. When everything was ready, I turned toward the stairs, noticing the chicken breasts I had begun to thaw just before Nick came home. I put them both back in the freezer, then called the names of my children, listening to the sound of rapid footsteps. It was a rare, immediate response, especially for Ruby, and I wondered whether they detected the urgency and need in my voice. As their faces appeared in the stairwell, I realized how much I did need them—and the intensity of that need scared me and filled me with guilt. I remembered how much my mother needed Dex and me in the aftermath of her divorce, the burdensome weight of that responsibility, and said a quick prayer that I would be stronger. I reassured myself that my children were too young to understand the unfolding tragedy in their lives—which felt like a small consolation, until I realized that this was a tragedy in itself.

  “Hi, Mommy,” Frankie said, blanket in tow, smiling at me in mid-flight down the stairs.

  “Hi, Frankie,” I replied, my heart aching for him.

  I watched Ruby bound down the stairs, past her brother, peering into the kitchen and asking me in an ironically accusatory tone, “Where’s Daddy?”

  I swallowed hard and told her that Daddy had to go back to work, wondering, for the first time, where Nick had actually gone. Was he at work? Was he driving aimlessly around? Or had he gone back to her? Maybe this was the result he wanted all along. Maybe he wanted me to make the choice, to play my hand like this. Maybe he assumed I would be just like my mother.

  “Was it an emergency?” Ruby pressed, furrowing her dark brow, exactly as her father does.

  “Yes. It was,” I told her, nodding, then shifting my gaze back to Frankie, who looks nothing like his father—a fact that I suddenly found comforting. “Okay, then! Let’s wash hands,” I called out merrily, forging ahead with our evening, on some sort of bizarre autopilot, pretending that it was any other ordinary day. Pretending that my life—and theirs—hadn’t just been shattered and smashed like my father’s Mercedes, so long ago.

  Later that night, I am curled up in a fetal position on the couch, wondering how I have managed to keep it together for so many hours, not shedding a single tear, even mustering a lighthearted bedtime story for the kids. I want to believe that it speaks volumes of my character, the core of who I am as a person and mother. I want to believe that it shows I am capable of being brave in a crisis, dignified in the face of disaster. That I am still in control of myself, even though I am no longer in control of my life. And maybe, in part, that is all true.

  But more likely, I am simply in shock—a feeling that doesn’t begin to recede until now, as I pick up the phone to call Cate.

  “Hey, girl,” she says, the sounds of Manhattan in the background—cars honking, buses grinding to a halt, a man shouting something in Spanish. “What’s going on?”

  I hesitate, then listen to myself say the words aloud.

  Nick cheated on me.

  And it is in this instant that my new reality comes into sharp focus. The reality that Nick is, and forever will be, one of those men. And by virtue of his choice, I have become one of those women. Cheater and victim. That’s who we are now.

  “Tessa. Oh, my God . . . Are you sure?” she asks.

  I try to answer but can’t speak, the dam of tears finally breaking.

  “Are you sure?” she says again.

  “Yeah,” I sob, hugging a box of Kleenex to my chest. “He told me he did it . . . Yes.”

  “Oh, Tessa . . . Shit,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”

  She listens to me cry for the longest time, murmuring her support, cursing Nick’s name, and finally asking me if I want to share any of the details. “It’s fine if you don’t . . . If you’re not ready . . .”

  “There’s not much to tell,” I say, struggling to get my words out. “He came home this evening. Said he had just gone for a walk in the Common with her.”

  “Her?” Cate presses gently.

  “The one we suspected. The one Romy saw him with.” I am unable to say her name, vowing never to say her name again—suddenly understanding exactly how my mother has felt for all of these years.

  “And he just told you . . . that he was having an affair?”

  “He didn’t call it that. I don’t know what you would call it . . . He said it only happened once. He had sex with her once,” I say, the words a knife in my heart, my tears still coming in streams. “He said he ended things today. And that’s his story. As if his word means anything.”

  “Okay. Okay!” She interrupts me with optimism I find confusing.

  “Okay what?” I ask.

  “So he’s not . . . leaving?”

  “Oh, he left,” I scoff, anger resurfacing, temporarily halting my tears. “He’s gone. I told him to get out.”

  “But I mean—he’s not leaving you. He doesn’t want to . . . be with her?”

  “Well, clearly he wanted to be with her,” I say. “Pretty damn badly.”

  “Once,” she says. “And now he’s sorry. He regrets it. Right?”

  “Cate,” I say. “Are you trying to tell me that this is no big deal?”

  “No. Not at all . . . I’m just feeling somewhat hopeful that he confessed. As opposed to getting caught . . .”

  “What difference does that make? He did it. He did it! He screwed another woman,” I say, becoming hysterical.

  Cate must hear it, too, because she says, “I know. I know, Tess . . . I am not minimizing it—at all . . . But at least he told you. And at least he ended things with her.”

  “Or so he says. He could be doing it again right now. This very second,” I say, the sickening images beginning to materialize in my head. I picture a blonde, then a brunette, then a redhead.
I picture large, full breasts, then small, high ones, then perfect in-between ones. I don’t want to know what she looks like—and at the same time, I desperately want to know everything about her. I want her to be like me; I want her to be nothing like me. I no longer know what I want, apparently any more than I know the man I married.

  “He’s not with her,” Cate says. “No way.”

  “How do you know?” I ask, wanting her to reassure me despite how hard I am resisting her positive spin.

  “Because he’s sorry. Because he loves you, Tessa.”

  “Bullshit,” I say, blowing my nose. “He loves himself. He loves that damn hospital. He loves his patients and apparently their mothers.”

  Cate sighs, her background noise suddenly disappearing as if she just stepped off the street or got in a cab. Then she says, “What are you going to do?”

  For a few seconds, her question empowers me, in the same way that telling Nick to leave empowered me. But the feeling quickly vanishes, crystallizing in fear. “You mean am I leaving him?” I say.

  It is the million-dollar, until-now-theoretical “what would you do if” question.

  “Yeah,” Cate says softly.

  “I don’t know,” I say, recognizing that I probably might have a choice. I could take him back, and live a sham of a life. Or I could do the thing I always said I would do—I could leave him. I could sit the kids down and give them the news that would change the face of their childhood, and color every major, important event of their adulthood. Graduations, weddings, the births of their children. I imagine Nick and me standing apart, either by ourselves or with someone new; either way, the distance between us creating unspoken tension during a time that should only be about joy.

  “I don’t know,” I say, realizing with anger and grief and panic and fear that I have no good option left. That there is no possibility of happily ever after.

  Every hour over the next few days, and virtually every minute of every hour, is torture, marked by a range of emotions too varied to chart but all shades of bleak and bleaker. I am ashamed for what has happened to me, humiliated by Nick’s infidelity even as I look in the mirror, alone. I am furious when he calls (six times), e-mails (three), and drops off letters in the mailbox (twice). But I am frantic and filled with deep despair when a stretch of time goes by that he doesn’t. I scrutinize his silence, imagining them together, jealousy and insecurity pulsing inside me. I scrutinize his words even more, his apologies, his proclamations of love for me and our family, his pleas for a second chance.

  But with Cate’s help, I remain vigilant and strong and do not contact him—not once. Not even in my weakest late-night moments when his messages are soft and sad, and my heart aches with loneliness. I am punishing him, of course—twisting the knife with every unreturned message. But I am also doing my best to prove to myself that I can survive without him. I am gearing up to tell him that I meant what I said. That we are done, and that he no longer has a place in my home or heart. Moving forward, he will be the father of my children, nothing more.

  To this point, my first communication with him is two days before Christmas, an e-mail of precise instructions regarding the children and the visit I am granting him on Christmas Eve. I hate that I have to give him that much, that I have to contact him at all, for any reason, but I know he has a right to see the kids—and more important, they have a right to see him. I tell him that he may come to the house at three o’clock, that Carolyn will be here to let him in. I am paying her for four hours, but he is free to let her go, so long as she is back by seven when I return. I do not want to see him. I tell him to have the kids fed, bathed, and dressed in their Christmas pajamas, and that I will put them to bed. He should retrieve any belongings he needs for the next few weeks, and that we will schedule a weekend in January for him to get the rest. I am all business. Ice-cold. I reread, fix a typo, hit send. Within seconds, his response appears:

  Thank you, Tessa. Would you please tell me what you’ve told the kids, as I want to be consistent?

  The e-mail stabs at my heart, not for what is there, but for what isn’t. He didn’t ask to see me. He didn’t ask for the four of us to be together. He didn’t ask to come over on Christmas morning and watch the kids open their presents. I am enraged that he seems to be throwing in the towel, but then tell myself that I would have refused him anyway, and that I didn’t leave him even a slight opening to ask for more. And that is because there is no opening. There is nothing he can say or do to change my mind. My hands shaking, I type:

  I told them that you’ve been working very hard at the hospital because a little boy was badly hurt and that he needs you to make him better. They seem satisfied with this explanation for now. We will have to handle after the holidays, but I do not want their Christmas ruined by this.

  There is no mistaking the little boy I am referring to, no mistaking the subtext: You put another child above your own. And because of that choice, our family is broken forever.

  Later that afternoon, the doorbell rings. Expecting it to be the UPS man with a final delivery of catalogue-purchased Christmas gifts for the kids, I answer the door. But instead, I find April with a bag of presents and a tentative smile.

  “Merry Christmas,” she says, her smile growing broader but no less uneasy.

  “Merry Christmas,” I say, feeling conflicted as I force a smile of my own. On the one hand, I am still angry at her for handling things the way she did, and have the irrational feeling that she and Romy somehow made this happen to me. On the other hand, she has arrived at a very lonely moment, and I can’t help feeling relieved and a little bit happy to see my friend.

  “Would you like to come in?” I ask, somewhere between formal and friendly.

  She hesitates, as drop-in visits, even among close friends, are firmly on her list of faux pas, but then says, “I’d love to.”

  I step aside and lead her through the foyer into my very messy kitchen, where she hands me a bag of beautifully wrapped presents.

  “Thank you . . . You shouldn’t have,” I say, thinking that I didn’t this year, for the very first time deciding that gifts to friends and neighbors simply weren’t going to happen. And for once, I let it go, let myself off the hook with no feelings of guilt.

  “It’s just my usual pound cake. Nothing fancy,” she says—although her pound cakes are a thing of beauty. “And a little something for the kids.” She glances around and asks where they are.

  “Watching television,” I say, pointing toward the stairs. “In my room.”

  “Ah,” she says.

  “There’s been a lot of television watching these days,” I admit.

  “Television is crucial this time of year,” she agrees, a rare admission. “My kids are bouncing off the walls. And the threat of Santa Claus not showing up has really lost its teeth.”

  I laugh and say, “Yeah. That one doesn’t work so well with Ruby, either. Nothing works with Ruby.”

  Then, after one awkward beat, I ask if she’d like a cup of coffee.

  “I’d love a cup,” she says. “Thank you.”

  She takes a seat at the kitchen island as I turn and flip on the coffeemaker and reach into the cabinet for two matching mugs. Upon realizing that most are still dirty in the dishwasher, others piled in the sink, I mentally shrug, grab two random cups, and forgo saucers and place mats altogether.

  The next few minutes are awkward, and I am grateful for the task of brewing coffee, while fielding questions from April about holiday shopping and where I am on my various lists. But by the time I hand her a cup of black coffee, I have worked up the nerve to address the real reason I know she stopped by.

  “Well. You were right about Nick,” I say, catching her off guard. “And you were right about that woman . . . I kicked him out last week.”

  She lowers her mug, her face crumbling with genuine sympathy. “Oh, God,” she says. “I don’t know what to say . . . I’m really sorry.”

  I nod and numbly thank her as her expre
ssion becomes anguished. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. Not a soul. Ever.”

  I give her an incredulous stare and say, “April. We’re separated. He’s not living here. People are going to find out sooner or later. And anyway . . . what people are saying about me is really the least of my concerns right now . . .”

  April nods, gazing into her still untouched coffee. Then she takes a deep breath and says, “Tessa. I have something to tell you . . . Something I want to tell you . . .”

  “April,” I say drolly. “No more bad news, please.”

  She shakes her head and says, “This isn’t about you and Nick . . . It’s about . . . me. And Rob.” We make fleeting eye contact as she blurts the rest out. “Tessa, I just want you to know . . . that I’ve been where you are right now. I know what you’re going through.”

  I stare at her, processing her words, the very last thing I expected to hear from her. “Rob cheated on you?” I ask, shocked.

  She nods the smallest of nods, looking the way I feel—ashamed. As if Rob’s actions are her failure, her humiliation.

  “When?” I say, recalling our recent doubles match and her bold insistence that she would leave if it ever happened to her. She had been so convincing.

  “Last year,” she says.

  “With who?” I ask, then quickly add, “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. And it doesn’t matter.”

  She bites her lips and says, “It’s okay . . . It was with his ex-girlfriend.”

  “Mandy?” I ask, recalling April’s Facebook obsession with Rob’s high school girlfriend and how ridiculous I thought she was being at the time.

  “Yes. Mandy,” she says, her voice dropping an octave.

  “But . . . doesn’t she live in one of the Dakotas?” I say.

  She nods. “They reconnected at their twenty-year reunion,” she says, making quotes around reconnected. “The Fargo-sounding whorebag.”

  “How do you know? Are you sure?” I ask, envisioning a scene like the one following Nick’s walk in the Common.