My husband betrayed the wrong woman

Chapter3

"You have got to be kidding me."

I came through my front door with my eyes still red and my throat still raw, and Joan was sitting at my kitchen island in my pink robe, eating cereal out of my favorite bowl.

She looked up and smiled. Like a cat sunning itself on a windowsill.

"Oh, you're home," she said. "Trevor said you ran out. He was really worried." She said it in sarcastic tone

"Get out of my house."

"It's Trevor's house too, sweetie."

"Get out of my house, Joan."

She put the spoon down very slowly. She had always done that, the slow-motion thing, when she wanted you to know she wasn't impressed. She'd done it when we were kids and she wanted my Barbie. She'd done it at twenty-two when she wanted my college roommate's boyfriend. Now she was thirty-one and she'd done it for the husband.

"Stevie. Don't be dramatic. I heard what happened with Aunt Bea, I know she practically raised you ,and I'm so sorry."

The way she said I'm so sorry didn't have any sorry in it.

"How do you know what happened with Aunt Bea." My voice was flat.

"Trevor called me. He was worried about you. He thought you might do something stupid. He called the hospital after you ran out,” Joan said. “They told him about aunt bea.”

Typical Trevor, always wanting to know my business.

"He called you. About my aunt dying."

"Well, we're basically married now, aren't we?" She picked the spoon back up. "Or we will be, once you sign. I don’t know why you are being stubborn about it" she rolled her eyes

I stood in my own kitchen and I watched my cousin eat cereal out of my favorite bowl, with a baby in her belly that belonged to my husband. I thought about the way she had held my hand at her own father's grave and I had cried for her because she was my family.

The front door opened and closed.

Trevor walked in. He saw me. He saw Joan. He didn't react to either of us.

He set his briefcase down on the entry table the way he always did. He took his shoes off. He hung his jacket on the hook I had picked out at a flea market the second year we were married because I'd thought a married couple should have nice hooks.

Then he looked at me.

“I told Joan what happened,” he said. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”

The words sounded rehearsed. Flat. Like something a customer service worker says before putting you on hold.

I stared at him.

“That’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say, Stevie?” He loosened his tie. “The woman was sick for months. We both knew this was coming.”

My throat tightened. A little bit of anger burning up my chest

“Don’t you dare talk about aunt bea like that. She raised me Trevor.”

“I know that.”

No warmth. No softness. Just impatience creeping in around the edges like it always did when my feelings became inconvenient for him.

He walked past me toward the kitchen.

"When's the funeral?"

That was it. When's the funeral?

Something inside me, the very small part of me that had still been hoping I was wrong about him, the part that had still been whispering maybe he loved you a little, once, that part finally went quiet.

"I don't know yet, she just died" I said.

"Well, get it scheduled fast. I don't want this dragging out."

"Excuse me?"

"Stevie." He sighed. He had a hundred different sighs and they all meant you are exhausting me. "Be honest. The woman was sick for months. This was coming. And frankly, your family has been bad luck for this marriage from the beginning. Your parents dying when you were a kid, your aunt sick the whole time we've been married, you crying every time we sat down for dinner. I'm not going to pretend this is some great tragedy. We need to move on. All of us."

Joan made a small sound. I thought, for a half second, it might be sympathy.

Then I realized she was laughing.

She was laughing into my cereal bowl.

I walked over to her. I picked up the bowl. I poured what was left of the milk straight down the front of my pink robe.

Joan jumped up shrieking.

"Stevie!"

"Get out of my house," I said again. "Both of you. Now."

"This is my house," Trevor snapped. "I bought it. My name is on the deed."

"Then I'm leaving. Tonight. I'll come back for my things tomorrow. And if either of you touches anything of mine before then, I swear to God, Trevor, you will regret it."

I went upstairs.

I packed a bag with shaking hands. I took the things that mattered. My mother's old photograph. Aunt Bea's letters. The white envelope from the gallery. A few clothes. Not even half of what was mine. I would come back for the rest, or I wouldn't. I didn't know yet what I wanted to keep from a life that had turned out to be made of paper.

When I came back down the stairs with my bag, they were both in the kitchen.

Joan had changed out of the robe. She was wearing one of my dresses now. The green one with the buttons down the back, the one Trevor had bought me for our first anniversary, when he had still kissed me in public.

She caught me looking.

She smiled.

"It fits better on me anyway," she said.

I walked out of the house I had loved and I didn't look back.

I drove until I found a small motel two towns over and I checked in under my maiden name. I sat on the edge of the cheap bed and I called the funeral home Aunt Bea had pre-arranged years ago, back when she had still believed she was going to be the one to bury her old friends and not the other way around.

I picked a day. I picked a time.

I lay down on the motel bed with all my clothes still on.

I cried until I couldn't anymore. Then I lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere in the parking lot outside, a car door shut.

I didn't get up to look.