“Exactly,” I said, my mouth wobbling.
“I mean, really. There’s divorce, and then there’s this,” she said.
“To the best of my knowledge, we were fine, Vanessa. We were better than fine. We were happy and content and . . . happy.”
“He said you’ve been drifting apart for at least four years, since Dylan started high school.”
“I— That’s not true. I mean, yes, life was busier with Dylan and football and all that, but if you’d have asked me a month ago if I had a good marriage, I would have said I had a great marriage. I really thought that.”
“Maybe he has a brain tumor,” she said, echoing my own thoughts. She leaned forward to lay her hand on mine, and the smell of her perfume, the caring in her voice . . . it meant the world to me. “We will not support this in the least. He says she’s an aspiring yoga teacher! For heaven’s sake!”
Ah, the Boston Brahmin. I thanked God Melissa wasn’t a heart surgeon out of Harvard. “I appreciate you more than I can say,” I murmured.
For an hour, we talked about Brad, me, Dylan and that woman. We decided this was a midlife crisis in every cliché way imaginable, from Brad’s new glasses and clothes to working out.
“She’s only thirty.” Sixteen years younger than Brad. “She would’ve been twelve when Dylan was born. Twelve! She could have been his babysitter.”
“Dear God. Well, we see it all the time, darling. Curtis Endicott just married a forty-year-old! He’s seventy-two! She’s younger than his daughters. At least Patrice died and didn’t have to see her husband making a fool of himself.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed. “I want our family to stay intact, but I don’t know that I can ever forgive him, even if he wanted to work things out.”
“Of course you would forgive him, darling,” she said soothingly. “Many spouses have dealt with infidelity and even become stronger for it.”
I wondered if she was speaking from experience. “Is Charles on the Cape, too?” I asked.
“No, he had meetings all day,” she said. “Well. I’m going to drive to Brad’s office and give him a piece of my mind. I was too in shock last night to speak, but he’s about to endure the wrath of his mother, and you know how he’s always been with that.”
She stood up and hugged me again, and for a minute, it felt like all would be put right by this woman, my champion and friend. “Let’s have dinner tonight, just you, Dylan and me, shall we? Make a reservation somewhere fabulous. The Red Inn, perhaps? I’ll call you very soon. Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll get this straightened out.”
Oh, I loved her. She understood and was on my side, in a way I would never get from my own mother. Off she went in her Audi, and I sat back down, feeling better than I had since May 12. I called the Red Inn, and they told me they were now booking in October, so I called Victor’s instead. Their food was just as good, and they had a table for three at six thirty.
* * *
I went to work and did my thing, but I was itching to hear from Vanessa. Maybe Brad had fallen apart in the face of maternal disapproval. Maybe he’d come back home this evening, sternly led by his mother, apologize and tell me how wonderful I was, that yes, it was a midlife crisis and he was an idiot.
I did a routine checkup on Tiana, who was expecting her fourth child in six years and was a goddess in the delivery room. “Can you tell me the gender?” she asked.
“You don’t want to wait for an appointment when Trey’s here?” I asked.
“He’s watching the girls,” she said, “and I can’t stand the suspense.”
“You got it,” I said, smearing goo over her tummy.
I turned on the machine, pressed the controller against her gorgeous belly. A second later, I had her answer. “It’s a boy!” I said, and she burst into tears of joy.
“I’d be just as happy with a girl, but oh, Lillie! A little boy! You know how that feels! Let me call Trey. He’ll be thrilled.”
Get ready to have your heart broken in eighteen years, I thought darkly. Be grateful you have daughters. Raise your son so he doesn’t cheat on his wife.
As Tiana talked to her husband, I checked my phone. Nothing from Vanessa.
When five o’clock came, I still hadn’t heard from her, and a tingle of anxiety weakened my knees. I’d ridden my bike to work, and I took my time on the trip home, breathing in the scent of the fallen pine needles and rambling roses that twisted and climbed the trees in the MacGregors’ yard. The sky was perfectly clear and dazzlingly blue. Deep breaths, no tears. I had my health. I had my son.