Someone Else's Husband(60)

I know. It’s pathetic. I know that.

But what am I going to do? It’s the truth. And I’ll be damned, after everything that’s happened, if I’m going to lie anymore about how I feel or what I want.

Life is way too short. We all know that now.

I’ve made some mistakes. There’s no doubt about that. But none of them will matter if I have her.





After


Gretchen

September 15

Gretchen could see the crowd clustered outside the courthouse from a block away. Maybe they were some kind of tour group, lined up waiting to get through security, she tried to tell herself.

“Oh my God,” Cassandra said, leaning forward from the back seat of the SUV. She and Becks were in the way-back row, Elizabeth in the bucket seat next to Gretchen’s. Sam was driving—the only normal part of all this. “Who are those people?”

“Who?” Gretchen echoed as if she wasn’t looking right at them. She had a bad feeling she knew exactly who they were.

“I think they’re reporters,” Becks said, squinting to get a better look.

“Vultures. Just ignore them,” Elizabeth said as if she were well versed in navigating the press. For all Gretchen knew, she could be. “Opportunistic motherfuckers.”

“Elizabeth, please. You know I hate that word.”

“Motherfucker,” Becks muttered, like a child trying it on for size.

“Sorry, but if the shoe fits…All reporters are ever trying to do is get attention and yet everyone looks to them to see what’s important. How is that a good idea?”

“Can we maybe not get a lecture on systemic injustice right now?” Cassandra snapped.

“Girls, please. Don’t bicker,” Gretchen said, though there was something comforting about the normalcy of it.

Gretchen already felt sick to her stomach just imagining the questions that might be hurled her way—Mrs. Falk, are you standing by your husband? Did you know he was having an affair with Frankie Callahan? What if they phrased it like that, like it was already an accepted fact?

She was still worried first and foremost about Richard. How he was holding up, whether he was lonely, panicked. Afraid. Plus she missed him. She understood Hilary’s point about packing Richard’s bags if he had cheated—but she had no evidence that he had. She didn’t know anything for sure yet.



* * *



*

Brooks was laughing at her. A great big belly laugh. And not just in her general direction—in Gretchen’s face. They were sitting on the porch of the East Hampton house in two oversize, cushioned armchairs that caught the breeze right off the ocean, the water glinting in the distance beyond the long, manicured lawn and a gorgeous row of mulberry trees. As usual, Richard was at the office.

Gretchen shot Brooks a look and kicked his foot. “Excuse me—why are you laughing?”

But she’d already started to laugh, too. There was nothing like the comfort of their shared history. Especially these days when she’d been feeling increasingly isolated. It was something about the women in her circle lately or perhaps the ages of the children now or Richard’s increasingly hectic schedule. Gretchen often felt like she could disappear. No, like she’d already been erased.

“I’m laughing because you just said you wouldn’t care what Richard did for a living.”

Brooks had his legs propped up on an ottoman, sunglasses on, his face covered with stubble. He looked so different. Not bookish at all. Actually, quite handsome, in a way Gretchen had never noticed before. She was glad to see he was finally coming into his own.

He’d been with Gretchen and the kids at their house in East Hampton for four days, without Melinda. He hadn’t explained why she hadn’t turned up, but they often traveled separately because of their jobs. They were often just separate, period. Gretchen had pointed this out to Brooks more than once. (Women cheated, too!) But he always said he trusted Melinda. And Brooks had some unexpected time to burn, with an extended hiatus between the end of his job as an environmental lawyer in D.C. at Sinclair, Williams—one of the top firms not just in Washington, but in the country, as he liked to remind everyone—and the start of a new senior vice president role at Grace Chemical.

Thank God Melinda wasn’t there. Gretchen could not stand that smug woman. Melinda couldn’t help but mention, at every possible turn, that she had gone to college in “Cambridge.” Every word out of her mouth dripped with condescension; she honestly seemed to think that having a job outside the home was the only measure of a person’s worth. Did Melinda not realize that Gretchen could tell exactly what she thought of her being “just a housewife”? Then again, she probably wanted Gretchen to know she looked down on her. Melinda could surely see the way that Brooks looked at Gretchen—everyone could.

“I mean it. I don’t see how it’s funny. I wish he were home more. That matters to me much more than his résumé.”

“I’m laughing because that’s bullshit, Grets,” Brooks went on. “You can try to pretend that it wouldn’t have made a difference to you if Richard had been a plumber. But that’s only because you were going to inherit from your parents anyway. And even then, I still think you’d have cared. You’re a snob, Grets. It’s not your fault. It’s genetic.”