“Calm down,” he said, because women love hearing that. “Your anger is one of the reasons I think I needed more j—happiness in my life.”
“I’m allowed to be angry, Brad! How long has this been going on?”
“How long,” he sang, “has this been going on?”
I laughed unexpectedly. Brad had a great memory for song lyrics. We used to play Name That Tune on long car rides. He was killer at that game. My heart did crack then. We’d never do those things again. We had such an easy rhythm, so many traditions and funny little inside jokes. Maybe, as we sat there in the ensuing silence, he was thinking about those things, too.
“Anyway,” I said eventually, “answer the question. How long have you been having an affair? Who is she? I’m going to find out, so you might as well tell me.” We were down to three weeks and two days before Dylan left for school.
He sighed. “It’s not an affair. It’s love.” He paused. “Ironically, you introduced us.”
My head jerked back. “What?”
“Melissa,” he said. “Who bought Stella Maris.”
What the hell was Stella Maris? At my blank look, he said, “Melissa Finch. She bought the house on Griffins Island Road last winter.”
“The . . . the . . . widow with the kid?”
“Yes.” He smiled.
“Oh, my God.”
“She’s so smart and talented. Wait till you get to know her better.”
“I’m not going to get to know her better, Brad!”
“I’ve already told you I prefer Bradley,” he said. “I would appreciate it if you could respect my wishes.”
Who was this guy? Where was my husband?
As for Melissa Finch, I had liked her. I’d introduced her around! I’d suggested she join the council on the arts and had introduced her to two families who had kids her daughter’s age. I had just seen her last week in the general store, and she’d been so nice. While she was sleeping with my husband!
That was one stone-cold killer. My God. She hadn’t even blushed.
“When did this start?” I asked, my voice like gravel.
He sighed. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it was . . . late February, early March.”
She had moved here at the end of January. They sure hadn’t wasted any time. Wow. It had taken him mere weeks to set fire to his wedding vows and our life.
“Look,” he said, and his voice was tight and irritated. “It’s done, Lillie. You and I are getting a divorce whether you like it or not, and it can go smoothly, or we can go to court and you can spend a lot of money on a lawyer. I’ll let you have the house, I suppose.”
“Big of you.” We owed quite a bit on the house, after all the renovations. Quite a bit. Would I get our debt, too?
“Let’s be kind to each other,” he said. “We can get along as Dylan’s parents, because we’ll always have him to bind us. When the hurt fades, you’re really going to like Melissa. You already do, you said it yourself last winter.”
“That’s before I knew she was stealing my husband,” I said.
He sighed, sadly, patiently. “You can’t steal a person,” he said.
“What does her kid think?”
“We’re forging a solid relationship, and Ophelia is her niece, actually.”
So he’d met the child. I had, too, when I brought them flowers as a housewarming gift. She’d been a bit stone-faced, but she was twelve. It came with the territory.
“Can you please answer my very reasonable question about mediation?” Brad asked.
“Let me think about it.” I hadn’t done any real research yet, and I would have to, I supposed. “Have you told your parents?”
He looked away. “Not yet.”
“They’ll be so ashamed of you. Disgusted, really.”
His face grew red, but his expression was almost haughty. “They’ll want their son to find his joy and lead a life full of hope and self-care.”
“They’ll want their son to honor the vows he made before them and God, and they will be horrified that you’re an adulterer.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I can’t live my life based on some archaic view of society.”
I left the porch before I punched him in the face.
I only knew one attorney well . . . my mother. But free legal advice was free, and she was nothing if not blunt. So I drove up to Provincetown the next day and sat in her stunning, cold white kitchen, which she and Beatrice had redone last year. She made me coffee from what appeared to be a small jet engine, based on its complexity, and listened as I told her the news.