Chapter 11
It used to send me scrambling to prove I could be easier.
Calmer.
Kinder.
More understanding.
Now it sounded tired.
Predictable.
Almost rehearsed.
"Then let's stop."
"What?"
"We'll talk Monday about practical things."
"Natalie."
"I mean it."
I ended the call.
My hands were trembling, but I did not call back.
On Monday, we met at a coffee shop three blocks from my office.
I arrived first.
Adrian came ten minutes late.
He looked terrible.
Normally, that would have awakened my instinct to take care of him.
I would have asked whether he'd eaten.
Whether he'd slept.
Whether he had remembered the presentation he was supposed to finish.
Instead, I watched him sit down.
No wedding ring.
I looked at his hand.
He noticed.
"It's at the condo."
"Why?"
"I took it off Friday."
I nodded.
The answer hurt less than I thought it would.
Maybe because the ring had stopped meaning what I wanted it to mean long before he removed it.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
"Can we start over?"
"The conversation?"
"Everything."
"No."
He looked at me.
"I haven't even explained."
"All right."
I sat back.
"Explain."
For several seconds, he couldn't.
Then came the words I could almost have spoken for him.
Things had been difficult between us.
He had felt disconnected.
Work had been overwhelming.
Lauren understood pressure at the office.
They talked.
It became emotional.
Then physical.
He hadn't intended it.
He had felt guilty.
He didn't know how to tell me.
He was afraid I would overreact.
He didn't want to lose what we had.
The language was soft.
The facts were not.
"How long?" I asked.
He looked toward the window.
"Physically?"
"Yes."
"About four months."
"And emotionally?"
"I don't know."
"Try."
"Maybe eight."
Eight months.
I thought of Christmas.
My birthday.
The weekend we visited his parents.
The night we celebrated my promotion.
The afternoon he held me while I cried over the anniversary of my mother's death.
Lauren already existed inside our marriage during all of it.
Not visibly.
But there.
"Did she know we were still together?"
"Of course she knew I was married."
"Did she know you were telling me nothing was happening?"
He frowned.
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is whether you lied only to me or to both of us."
"Why does that matter?"
"It doesn't, really. I was curious."
His face tightened.
"Natalie, I know you're hurt."