“Something’s different.” Sam spoke from the doorway of the kitchen, and I looked up from the phone to see him leaning against the frame, his arms crossed over a tight yellow golf shirt. “What is it?”
I smiled, surprised to see him. “Hey. I thought you were in San Francisco this week.”
“The client flaked. Decided to move south instead of north. We’re going to look at homes in San Diego tomorrow.”
Placing my phone on the counter, I picked the grate back up and resumed my scrub. Dammit. I should have soaked it first.
“What are you doing?” Sam came to stand beside me. “Is that part of the oven?”
“Yeah, I’m deep cleaning.” I shook my hands above the soapy water, then dried them off, dropping the dishcloth in front of David’s card before Sam could notice it.
“Why?”
“Good question.” I blew out a breath and turned to the small round table between the kitchen and the living room. Pulling out one of the chairs, I sank into it and watched as he circled the table, eyeing the spots before carefully pulling out the one that Mike normally took. Sam hitched up the thighs of his dress pants before sitting down, and the care that he took with every movement was infuriating. For once, I’d like to see him trip over a cord or snort up soda or have a piece of spinachin his teeth. He would never be in my situation. He would have seen Mike’s affair—or was itaffairs?—from a mile off, plotted and planned a contingency plan, and found a way to seduce and marry the prospective mistress before she ever found her way to his husband.
Meanwhile I was ... I didn’t know what I was doing. I was sitting here, scrubbing Mike’s kitchen, while I trusted his promise that he would break things off with this woman. I should have pressed for her name and insisted that he call her right then, while I was still in the car, and heard their conversation for myself.
But I hadn’t wanted that. I hadn’t wanted the proof that she was real. I liked the blank slate that came to mind when I tried to picture her. If I figured out that she was our new neighbor, or his HR director, or the dental hygienist that always flirted with him ... I would obsess. Research her. Follow her. Practice my accusations and confrontations until the moment when opportunity and weakness intersected and I did something that I could never take back.
“Lill?” Sam leaned forward, and his expensive watch clinked against the freshly polished wood surface of the table. “You’re freaking me out. Are you okay?”
“It’s Mike.” My words were slow and measured, carefully controlled and void of emotion. “He’s cheating on me.”
Sam looked down at the table and ran his fingers along a grain of the wood. “With who?”
“I don’t know.” I let out a strangled laugh. “I don’t care. He says it’s over.”
“Do you believe that?” He lifted his gaze, and I could see the struggle to hold back his true feelings. Sam had been in my life for almost six years. He’d lived through more than a few ups and downs in our marriage, and acted as my counselor on each occasion.
“Yeah, I do. He was ...” I started over. “He knows what’s at stake. Between Jacob and me, he has too much to lose. And he told me it was just sex. If that’s true ...” I rubbed my eyes, relieved to see that theywere still dry. “He’d be stupid to risk our marriage for that. Even if we are a little ...” I tried to find the right word. “Disconnected right now.”
“This isn’t a recent thing, Lill. You were complaining about Mike two years ago. Did he say how long he’s been cheating on you?”
I shook my head, not wanting to think about the possibility that this was a long-term relationship. Sam’s input wasn’t helping, and a wave of annoyance flared at his unannounced drop-in. I needed to do a better job of defining our friendship boundaries. Maybe it was time for me to ask for my house key back. Was it possible to draw a line here and block any further opinions on my marriage?
“I’ve got to get back to cleaning.” I stood up. “I’d take off, unless you want to grab a toothbrush and work on the grout lines.”
“You’re avoiding this.” Sam stayed in his seat. “You need to leave him, Lill. Otherwise he’s not going to learn. He’ll behave for a little while, but then he’ll do it again.”
He might have been right, but I had already considered and discarded that path. Maybe in a month or two, I’d be open to it, but I couldn’t wrap my head around that momentous a decision now. I needed to defrost the freezer, reline the cabinet drawers, and then wash the blinds above the sink. Those were things I could do—things I could handle—now.
I turned the faucet on high and picked the oven grate back up. Fishing the scrub pad out of the cloudy water, I attacked the grime with fresh vigor. Silence stretched after Sam’s comment, and I ignored it, focusing on a spot of burned crust that was starting to break down from my efforts.
Sam’s chair dragged back against the tile, and he came up behind me and squeezed my shoulders gently. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone.” He kissed the top of my head. “Call me when you want to talk.”
“Thanks. Love you.” I turned to give him an apologetic smile, but he was already heading for the door. It closed behind him with a gentle click, but his last opinion hung in the air long after he got in his Range Rover and drove away.
Was he right? Was it just a matter of time before Mike cheated again?
SIX WEEKS BEFORE THE DEATH
CHAPTER 15
LILLIAN
A week passed and my hurt turned to anger. I ignored Mike, who was suddenly home for dinner each evening, his leftover work performed in his office, attention poured on me at night. I rejected his advances, and began to notice the bags under his eyes, the slight recession of his hairline, the annoying way he held his food in his mouth for a moment before swallowing it.
Was he who I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with?