Chapter 10
Maybe it had been Rachel.
Maybe it hadn’t.
That was the poison.
Once you discovered one deliberate lie, every memory became eligible for trial.
By sunrise, our marriage had turned into evidence.
Lucas came downstairs at seven.
He was still wearing yesterday’s shirt.
The blue suit jacket was draped over his arm.
He looked at me sitting at the kitchen table.
“You didn’t sleep.”
“Neither did you.”
He sat across from me.
Between us was the same table where twelve hours earlier he had eaten salmon while describing a workday that had never happened.
“I want to tell you everything.”
I looked at him.
“No editing?”
“No.”
“No protecting me?”
“No.”
“No deciding what I need to know?”
His face tightened.
“No.”
“Then start at the beginning.”
Lucas took a breath.
Rachel Meyer had worked in marketing at his company six years earlier.
They had been friendly but never close.
She moved to Chicago.
He barely thought about her afterward.
Three months earlier, she sent him a message after seeing a professional article his company had posted.
Congratulations.
That was all.
Lucas replied.
Thanks. Been a long time.
Then they talked about work.
Then Chicago.
Then people they both used to know.
Then their lives.
Then marriages.
Rachel was divorced.
Lucas told her he was still married.
At first, according to him, there was nothing inappropriate.
I interrupted.
“When did you know it had become inappropriate?”
He thought for a moment.
“Maybe six weeks ago.”
“What happened?”
“She said she missed talking to me when we didn’t message for a couple days.”
“And?”
“I said I missed it too.”
The simplicity of the sentence hurt more than something dramatic might have.
I missed it too.
That was how boundaries disappeared.
Not with violins.
Not with hotel rooms.
With a sentence.
“When did you know she was coming here?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“So you planned yesterday for two weeks.”
“Yes.”
“And every morning during those two weeks you looked at me and said nothing.”
“Yes.”
His answers were getting steadier.
I couldn’t decide whether I appreciated that or resented it.
“When did you decide to take the day off?”
“Last Friday.”
Six days earlier.
We had ordered pizza that night and watched a movie.
Lucas had fallen asleep with his feet in my lap.
I had covered him with a blanket.
While I was doing that, he had already decided that the following Thursday he would pretend to go to work so he could spend the day with another woman.