Stella surprised Pearl by sitting back down, scooting her chair back toward the table. She gave Pearl a look—half amused, half annoyed. Pearl pushed the chicken around her plate.
“Sorry,” she said.
“I emptied the mousetrap in the store room today,” said Stella. “It was every bit as disgusting as I imagined it would be. How’s that for shocking?”
Charlie put a hand on Stella’s. “You don’t have to do things like that, Stella,” he said. “I’m here now—to help.”
“Thank you, Charlie,” she said. Her voice was soft and sincere.
This one was definitely different.
Pearl helped Charlie clean the dishes while Stella went into the study to balance the books. As Pearl moved around the kitchen, she felt Charlie’s eyes on her.
“You’re a funny kid, Pearl,” he said, when she lifted her gaze to his. He tapped his temple. “Clever.”
Pearl had grown used to being invisible. She didn’t even know until that moment how nice it was to be seen.
SIX
Selena
Her house didn’t look like her house as she pulled into the drive and sat, car running. It was a shimmering facsimile, a pretty place that didn’t belong to her. It was exactly the kind of home she’d dreamed of as a girl—a big two-story, with expansive rooms, high ceilings, with shutters and shingles, big leafy shade trees, careful landscaping. She changed the perennials out every season, weeded meticulously in the summer, decorated elaborately for Halloween and Christmas. Her mother always said: Your home is the heart of your life. Her heart was broken. And her home, her life, would likely follow.
The boys’ lights were out; she could just make out the orange glow of their night-light through the drawn shades. She was sorry that she had missed kissing them good-night, but she was glad she didn’t have to put on a happy face.
Since her encounter on the train, she’d been buzzing—something about the stranger, her voice, her words. She wasn’t going to be able to sit with this. She couldn’t pretend, not for another day.
She killed the engine, leaving the car in the drive with enough room for Graham to get his car out. If she opened the garage door, she risked waking the boys and she didn’t want that.
Entering the warmth and light of the foyer, she dropped her bags by the door and walked down the hall to the kitchen and waited.
When Graham pushed in through the door, she could see that he’d showered. Of course. Washing away the scent of what he’d done. But he looked good, smelled good.
“Hey,” she said. “We need to talk.”
They met on a rainy evening in the East Village. She was on her way to a book party for a famous mixologist at a tiny venue near Avenue A. Selena, running late, jogged down the street under a helter-skelter umbrella that had twisted in the wind and was essentially useless, broke a heel and went tumbling to the sidewalk. The contents of her bag rolled onto the concrete, phone flying into the street with an unpleasant crack.
“Oh my god! Are you okay?”
She was more stunned than anything, though she’d scraped her knee pretty badly. A hunky guy with dark hair, a stylish bomber jacket over slim pants, chased after her phone, her lipstick, her wallet. He helped her to her feet. The umbrella was a tangled mess on the ground. The rain kept falling. They were both getting soaked.
“It’s okay,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “I’m a klutz. I’m used to falling.”
She was clumsy, and always wearing some kind of impractical shoe. The city sidewalks conspired to take you down; she seemed always to be running late, was rarely mindful.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Ugh,” she said, looking down. “Gross.”
Blood ran down her calf, a single rivulet from her knee to her ankle. She dug a tissue out of her bag while they stood there in the drizzle. She could barely look at him, she was so embarrassed. He took it from her before she could stop him, bent down and wiped at her leg.
When he looked up at her and smiled—rakish and knowing—she was in love.
“I’m Graham,” he said.
“Selena.”
“Are we going to tell our kids about this night?” Graham asked when he rose, tossing the tissue in a nearby bin.
She almost started to cry; it had been an awful day—overslept, missed her train, fouled up royally at the office, earning a talking-to from the boss who already seemed perpetually underwhelmed by her performance. But it turned out to be the best day of her life. That day.
Poor Will. They were living together at the time. She broke up with Will before she started dating Graham; she wouldn’t even kiss him until she’d moved out into her own place. It was a politely painful split, where they tried to hold on to their friendship. Are you sure about this guy? Will had asked a few months later over coffee. More sure than I’ve been about anything. Which, looking back, was an insensitive thing to say to your ex.
A glorious courtship—dinner at Eleven Madison Park, zip-lining in Costa Rica, a surprise trip to Paris. A glittering diamond presented at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Big （stupidly big） wedding at her father’s country club, honeymoon in Hawaii, a new house. Picture perfect.
Are you sure about this guy?
The first time she caught Graham cheating—well, not really cheating as he saw it—he was sexting with an ex-girlfriend. Selena happened to see his phone, discovering the X-rated chain complete with dirty pictures. There was a screaming blowout. She went to stay with Beth in the city for a few weeks—this was before the kids. He begged her forgiveness. There was counseling.
Graham had issues with self-worth, and admitted an addiction to porn （this sext affair was really just an extension of that, wasn’t it）， fear of intimacy—all this from the male therapist. They worked on it, moved on. Then there was Oliver. A babymoon period followed where they were in love with their child, their new life as parents.
Then, the boys’ weekend in Vegas. Strippers. A prostitute; the details even now were vague. She thought it was best to keep it that way. She didn’t need a visual; she already had sexting pictures seared into her imagination. Graham and their friend Brad got arrested in Vegas that weekend. She had to leave Oliver with her mother, fly there to bail them out. More counseling. The stress of new fatherhood, this time, according to the therapist, who was frankly starting to sound like an apologist. Poor Graham was struggling with the responsibility, the crushing effort of working and parenting and being a husband. God, it was just all so hard. More counseling.
“Think of him as an addict,” said her new therapist in one of Selena’s individual sessions. This doctor had fewer excuses for Graham. “His behavior is something outside of you that you don’t control and can’t fix. Don’t hang your worthiness on his failings. But now you have to decide where your boundaries are, what you will and will not tolerate. Every marriage is a negotiation. Both parties have to obey the terms.”
After Stephen, Graham changed, or really seemed to. Stephen was his soul mate. Something about that child’s arrival caused Graham to calm down completely. Graham plugged in to their family, focused on work with a new zeal, weekends he was home. There were no more boys’ nights—it helped that his two most corrupting friends had both settled down.