Matthew clears his throat. “There is one more thing. Polly called me yesterday, right after she closed up Coco. She said she wanted to talk.”
Marissa stiffens, but I speak before she can. “About what?”
I see Matthew caressing Marissa’s shoulder, as if he’s trying to soothe her. Their roles have shifted during our time together since the first session, I realize. At first, Matthew was enraged and Marissa seemed equal parts frightened and placating. Since then, he’s displayed admirable qualities, such as forgiveness and protectiveness, while Marissa seems a little more fraught, not to mention deceptive, considering she’s still lying to her husband about whom she cheated with.
Matthew continues, “Polly told me she was worried about you, Marissa. She said she was driving downtown and asked if I could meet her.”
Aha, I think. Polly’s puzzling visit to Giovanni’s.
“And you didn’t tell me any of this?” Marissa’s tone is dangerously quiet.
Matthew shakes his head quickly. “I’m sorry.”
The question that came to my mind during my first session with the Bishops surfaces again, but this time the order of the players shuffles: Is Matthew fearful of upsetting his wife—or is he fearful of her?
“I never saw Polly. I got an important work call and couldn’t leave the office, so I texted her to say I’d call her on my drive home. I was going to tell you about it, but obviously I never made it out of the parking garage.… Anyway, she phoned me and left a message while I was in the hospital.”
Matthew reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He touches the screen a couple of times, then Polly’s reedy voice fills the room: “Um, hi, Matthew.… So, I’ve been waiting for you to call, but it’s getting late. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you I’m really worried about Marissa. She doesn’t seem like herself—I’ll explain more when we talk. Okay. Bye.”
Matthew puts his phone away again. “I haven’t called her back.”
Marissa’s lips are tightly clenched. “This is outrageous. I’m firing her tomorrow.”
“Marissa, I get it, she’s weird and she clearly idolizes you,” Matthew replies. “But, look, with everything that’s happened lately, I don’t want you alone in that shop. Fire Polly, but can you at least wait until you hire someone new?”
Marissa exhales. “Fine. I actually just got a few résumés from promising candidates who go to GW. Hopefully one of them will work out.”
Even though I’m growing ever more intrigued by the mysterious happenings churning around the Bishops, and I have my own suspicions about Polly, I can’t lose focus on the reason why I was hired. We need to use our sessions together to do the internal work of repairing their marriage. If someone on the outside is trying to wrench the Bishops apart, that’s for me to explore on my own time.
“Let’s shift gears,” I tell them. “Marissa, when you first got the call from the hospital, how did you feel?”
Marissa slumps and closes her eyes briefly.
“It was awful. I was really worried that he—”
“Talk to Matthew directly, Marissa. ‘I was really worried that you…’”
Marissa turns to face her husband. They’re so close that the tips of their noses are just inches apart. “Matthew, I was really worried that you wouldn’t make it.” She swallows hard and her voice trembles. “That we wouldn’t get a second chance. I’ve hurt you so badly, and I was terrified I lost you just when it seemed like we were finally finding each other.”
Even though Marissa’s words sound a bit Hallmarky, I believe they are sincere. She truly wants a deeper relationship with Matthew; something more than a curated Instagram marriage. If Marissa had had that connection with her husband in the first place, she would never have sought it with another man.
Maybe it’s the naked yearning on Marissa’s face or perhaps it’s my earlier remembrance of Paul’s final moments, but I feel my throat tighten, as it always does when I’m about to cry. I look down at my notepad and pretend to jot something down.
“Marissa,” Matthew begins.
Then Marissa’s phone buzzes with an incoming call. She looks at her purse, then back at Matthew. Her face twists as she says, “I’m so sorry. Bennett is over at his friend Charlie’s house and I need to grab this. Just in case.”
She lifts the phone to her ear and listens for a few seconds as her expression morphs. A minute ago, she was gentle and vulnerable. Now, a kind of darkness has come into her eyes. Her moods seem to shift like a body of water on a windy day.