“What was I supposed to do, Brad? I pulled a baby out of her vagina! Should I have told her to shut up because my husband is acting like an idiot?” My Portuguese was rising, as my father used to say proudly whenever I got mad.
“You always put me down. You crush my dreams.”
“What dreams have I crushed? Name one!” I snapped. “Brad. On Valentine’s Day, you told me you were the luckiest man in the world because you had me. Remember? You handwrote three paragraphs about how wonderful I am. That was a beautiful card, and you meant every word.” I swallowed. Eyed the cake.
“I was still hoping our marriage could be salvaged,” he said. “But I’m afraid it can’t be. I deserve to be happy.”
I sat back, my head falling against the back of the booth with a clunk. “Brad—”
“I actually prefer Bradley,” he said.
And there it was. Bradley.
He was seeing another woman, oh, yes he was. If Bradley wasn’t a sign, I didn’t know what was.
Memories sliced into my brain like jagged glass. This past winter or spring, Brad had suddenly started working out with a vengeance—he ran occasionally and swam in Herring Pond during the summer, but that was it. Somewhere in March, however, he joined a gym and started asking Dylan about the football team’s workouts and muscle groups and ketoacidosis. I didn’t complain. Brad had always been slim, but seeing a little bulk on his arms, a little hint of a washboard . . . it was nice. I naively thought maybe he was doing it, at least in part, for me.
Then there were the clothes. Brad had always been preppy—with the last name of Fairchild, part of the Boston Brahmin, growing up on Beacon Hill, would you expect anything less? Always tidy, always neat, always a little boring, style-wise.
But one day he’d come home with bags and bags from some of the shops here in Provincetown, which was the male fashion capital of New England. Suddenly, he was wearing European-cut floral-printed shirts and slim-fit pants, low leather boots and vintage jeans that cost triple what regular jeans did. I’d just about choked when I saw the credit card bill. He’d even bought a little straw hat. But hey. Our son was going away to school. He wanted to feel young. I understood.
Sex, which had always been fairly frequent and heartily enjoyable, had tapered off. When I’d asked him if everything was okay—when was that? April? It had been a rainy night, I remembered that—he told me he was just sad about Dylan leaving. And I’d believed him.
The mixology. Bradley. The malbec.
Brad was arrogant at times. He never said it outright, but he’d thought he’d make more money as a therapist, be a little more . . . special. His parents were so flush and successful, dominating the high-end real estate industry in Boston and here on the Cape. Despite what you see on TV, therapists—at least, nonpsychiatrists—didn’t make a huge income, unless you were Dr. Phil or Esther Perel . . . or wrote a bestselling book. Brad always insisted he was in the profession to help people, but the money bothered him.
A thought occurred to me. “How can you be in love with someone else when we had sex four nights ago?”
He sighed. “I was feeling a little sad that our life together was coming to an end. It was a sentimental mistake.”
“A mistake? A mistake, Brad?” Oh, the Portuguese had risen now, yes indeed.
“I’m sorry if this hurts you, but I’m sure.”
Suddenly, my plate was in my hands, and I was squishing the coconut cake on his head. “How dare you, Brad Fairchild! How dare you!”
“Jesus, Lillie!” he shouted, but I was already leaving. My breath was tearing in and out as if there wasn’t enough air in here. I pushed past the startled servers, out onto Commercial Street. Furious tears blurred my eyes.
He had cheated on me. He was having an affair. I was going to need an STD panel. I didn’t get to finish my cake.
My God. My God.
Brad caught up to me. I smelled his cologne （new, goddamn it!） before I saw him. He grabbed my elbow to stop me.
“Of course you had to make a scene,” he said, brushing a glob of cake out of his hair. “I thought we could talk like adults, but apparently not.”
“Don’t you lecture me!” I shouted, bringing the pedestrian flow to a halt. “You’re having an affair! Twenty years of marriage, twenty years of me having your back and loving you and raising our son and being fantastic to your parents, and you’re cheating on me! And you dump this on me the night before our son’s graduation? How dare you!”