What he’d done was catastrophic and brutal. Tallie ended the call before he could hear her cry.
She hadn’t talked to Joel since their last Facebook communication over the summer. They weren’t friends on there anymore. She couldn’t imagine seeing Joel or Odette or their baby pop up on her timeline as she casually scrolled through the photos and anniversaries and recipes and political discussions. She had to be mentally prepared and ready for emotional battle when she looked through Joel’s posts. She’d tried to frame it as a cleansing ritual she eventually wouldn’t need anymore, but she needed it now.
She logged in to Joel’s account on her phone. He’d updated the night before about seeing the latest superhero movie. She and Aisha had gone to see it, too, and Tallie had even gone back to see it again alone. It was perfect candy-coated escapism. But of course Joel picked it apart like he always picked everything apart, even using the word doryphore. No surprise, since Joel was the kind of person who thought the Grand Canyon was overrated. （“I just thought it would be bigger, that’s all.”） Tallie read the whole post, rolling her eyes, wondering if she could pass out from annoyance. She read it again before going to Odette’s page.
Almost everything Tallie knew about Odette she learned from social media. She knew surprisingly little about the details of Joel’s affair, feeling like it was better for her mental health to not have all the answers. Besides, she’d already been haunted by imagining them together—the gruff, chesty sound Joel made when he came, the seashell suck of his ear pressed against Odette’s when he was on top of her. And she’d gotten all she could bear to know from Joel regarding when and where he and Odette had been together: never in their home, always at Odette’s. One compact September-to-October month of clandestine sex, from how Joel told it.
Tallie had been frustrated with herself, half wishing she were the kind of person who wanted him and Odette to die and disappear forever. Or at least the kind of person who could hope for the possible future schadenfreude of Joel eventually cheating on Odette, or their marriage falling apart. But none of that would change what had happened, and she knew the toxicity levels of hating Odette would poison her and her only.
Odette had grown up summering in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue with her grandparents. Odette liked romantic comedies and cheesy Christmas movies. Horses and coffee. Skinny casserole recipes, makeup tutorials. She had favorite Pilates instructors and Zumba classes. Sometimes she posted things Tallie fervently believed in and agreed with, too, like climate-action petitions and Taylor Swift videos. It was a dizzying swirl of intense emotions, knowing she and Odette had anything in common besides Joel.
There were photos of him and their baby up and down Odette’s page.
Tallie clicked the picture she looked at more often than the others: Odette in the hospital bed, holding their baby girl, Pearl. Pearl had her father’s nose in miniature, his ebony curls. Joel, in a navy-blue V-neck sweater Tallie’d bought for him, had taken the picture, leaning over to make sure he made it all the way in. She’d loved that navy-blue V-neck sweater and nibbled Joel’s arms when he wore it; she’d wanted to eat that sweater.
Back when she’d seen that they’d named their baby Pearl, Tallie couldn’t get the word pearl out of her mind. It manifested itself and rolled around in her brain like a real solid pearl glinting catchlight. Tallie had imagined she and Joel would have a baby with those same curls—a baby whose tender head she could feel heavy in one hand. Joel has a daughter forever, Tallie had found herself thinking. Joel had done something hugely permanent with his life, changing everything. Sometimes it felt like the thought was too big for her head to hold, but she couldn’t let it out until it gave her a headache. Joel could have more children with Odette. Joel could have children with other women. The thoughts would motor around and around in a circle until Tallie exhausted herself.
She was upset by the photo again. Restless and lonely. She logged in to her work email, although she’d promised herself she wouldn’t, and she’d already let her clients know she would be unavailable until Monday. Bored, she wanted to make sure she wasn’t missing anything important. She had several clients who leaned on her for extra assurance when making big decisions and others who would connect when they needed to be talked out of panic, or when a family member or friend or problem or fear they thought they’d previously conquered appeared again, haunting them like a ghost with a grudge. Occasionally a client would email, simply wanting encouragement or permission not to overanalyze things so much.