Out With The Old, In With The New

Alex enters with my pearls. They were an anniversary gift from Corbin. She drops them into my hand, and I get the absurd vision that they’re an abacus tallying Corbin’s transgressions.

One precious pearl for each sin against our marriage. I’m sober enough to realize I’m just tipsy enough to let my imagination run rampant, but I’m okay to drive. I wouldn’t get behind the wheel otherwise.

Fingering the pearls, I grab my purse, say good-night and escape into the chilly cloak of moonless night, wishing it would swallow me whole so I wouldn’t have to go home and face my husband.

During my twenty-minute drive to Winter Park I realize I need to come up with a game plan. I’ve had since ten o’clock this morning when the mail arrived to think about it. Yet I still can’t force myself to go there. What in the world am I going to say to Corbin when I get home?

“Sweetheart, I received the strangest letter in the mail today. It said, ‘Ask your husband what he’s been doing all those nights he claimed to be at the hospital.’” Then I’ll laugh to prove I’m confident the note’s a prank.

Then he’ll laugh, and it will become our own private joke. He’ll pull me into bed and make love to me to show me how absurd the letter was.

We haven’t made love in months. Why would tonight be any different? Especially when I’m pretty sure he’s not going to be overly thrilled about getting his own dinner. When it came time to go out, I fed Caitlin and let her go play at the neighbor’s house. I was in such a fog I didn’t even think about fixing his dinner. I hope I locked the door.

I can’t think straight for all the bells and whistles sounding in my head warning that something’s rotten in the Hennessey household. If I ignore my gut feeling I’ll be just like all the other pathetic women who know damn well their husbands are screwing around, but pretend they don’t have a clue so they can keep the big house and the fancy cars and the summertime trips to Tuscany. How can they live knowing their whole life is a sham?

I look at the dashboard clock glowing azure. I now have approximately ten minutes to concoct a plan. Most likely he’ll be asleep. Do I wake him up and confront him? Throw the letter in his face and scream, “What the fuck have you been doing?”

I shudder. I hate that word. I hate feeling compelled to ask him to account for his time. But most of all, I want him to know I hate playing the fool.

I could wake him and ask, “So, Corbin, what have you been doing lately?”

Ha. I can see it now. He’ll blink because he’s sleepy, then he’ll look at me as if I’m an idiot and repeat the question back to me. “What have I been doing lately, Kate?”

He’ll tick off a list of noble and important deeds. You know, a typical surgeon’s fourteen-hour day. It won’t be what he says that hurts, but how he says it. Especially when he adds his favorite line: “That was my day, Kate. What did you do today?”

And I’ll say, “Well, Corbin, today I pondered why someone would send me a letter encouraging me to ask you what you do with yourself. But if it were any other day, I’d probably have to stop and think, God, what did I do today? It certainly slipped by fast. When itemized, my list would be just as long as yours, I’m sure. But since I’m just a mom and a typical day for me revolves around the PTA and organizing school bake sales and timing my life to have dinner ready in between running our daughter to two-hour dance classes and peewee cheerleading lessons, I didn’t have time to discover the cure for AIDS and the common cold, much less screw around on you. Certainly not as complex as a doctor’s day, but my life is full.”

I steer the car off the interstate and as I coast to a stop at the light at Fairbanks and Highway 17-92, I realize I’ve been talking to myself—out loud. There’s a couple in a black Corvette in the lane next to me, but they’re making out, oblivious to my self-banter and my watching them go at it.

If Corbin does have a girlfriend, where do they rendezvous? A cheap motel? Her place? In the car? I surprise myself at how I can ponder the possibilities so calmly. I suppose the logistics would depend on the bimbo.

God, who is she?

Do I know her?

Someone in his office? The hospital? The country club? Someone I’ve invited into my home? That would be the worst. The champagne bubbles up sourly in the back of my throat. I take a few deep breaths and remind myself this whole thing could be a hoax.

“A hoax.”

I say the words aloud hoping they will ring true. But my gut instinct doesn’t buy it.

Somehow I know.

I just know.

The light turns green, and I stomp on the gas pedal. The wheels scream as I lurch into the intersection. There’s something satisfying about the obnoxious sound. Like steam screaming through the release valve on a pressure cooker. I hope the noise startled the kissing couple in the Corvette enough to make them knock noses.

A few minutes later, I steer my Lexus SUV into the driveway and hit the garage door opener. I wait for the door to lift and notice the glow of the living-room lights seeping through the slats of the plantation shutters, as though a happy family lives here. Maybe Corbin’s still awake. A wave of panic seizes me, and I can’t breathe for a few seconds.

But I force air into my lungs. I still have no idea what I’m going to say to him, but I decide right then and there I’m not going to make it easy for him. Girls’ getaway be damned. Going out of town with Alex and Rainey would be like handing him a free pass to be with her.

Whoever she is.

I pull into the garage, kill the engine and sit there until the door wheezes and squeaks shut behind me. Once closed, the garage is perfectly silent, except for the occasional tick and sigh of the car’s hot engine.

If I really want to know who she is I can find out.

The thought makes my heart beat so fast it hurts. I take a deep breath to calm myself, run my hand over the tan glove leather of the passenger seat. I need to touch something tangible, something tactile, to ground me in reality.

I love this car. It was Corbin’s present to me three months ago for our twentieth anniversary. He picked it out himself. Had it delivered with a big red bow on the hood. Like something you’d see in a television commercial.

If material gifts were a standard of measure for his love, there would be no doubt. Always generous. A good provider. And a good father.

Because of that, doesn’t he deserve the benefit of the doubt? Or at least a chance to explain?

The beginning of a headache buzzes in my temples. I close my eyes and press my fingers against the lids, but it doesn’t help. When I open my eyes again, the dim overhead light casts an eerie yellow glow. Everything looks fuzzy and out of proportion, especially the shadows.

If I shine a bright light directly into the darkness, will I prove this dread is merely a figment of my imagination?

As my eyes focus, I see Caitlin’s in-line skates hanging on the Peg-Board next to the kitchen door. Corbin’s golf clubs sit below. My treadmill, slightly dusty, is next to it. Our three bikes are suspended by chains from the ceiling.

Am I willing to give it all up so easily because of an anonymous letter containing one vague sentence?

A chill winds its way through my body. Despite the cool January-in-Florida weather, the night air feels clammy and clings to me like a bad omen.

Okay, I’ll ask him.

I’ll ask him because I need Corbin to explain this away. Not so I can turn the other cheek while he fools around. I want him to convince me it’s not true for the sake of our family.

For the twenty years I’ve given him.

God, that’s half my life.

I let myself out of the car. As I put my key in the kitchen door, I hear Jack, our yellow Lab, barking before I let myself inside. He jumps up to greet me as I step into the kitchen.

“Shh, Jack. Be quiet. You’re going to wake the whole house.” I stroke his silky head half hoping, half fearing Corbin will call out to me that he’s in the living room. But he doesn’t.

The dirty dinner dishes are still on the table along with the remnants of Chinese takeout. I flip off the kitchen light.

My heels click on the hardwood floor as I walk into the living room. Is every light in the house on?

“Corbin?”

The house is so still my words seem to echo back at me. I turn off the downstairs lights and make my way upstairs, which is completely dark by contrast. I push open Caitlin’s bedroom door. Her night-light glows in the corner.

She’s sleeping on her stomach like an angel child in her pink canopy bed. Long, curly blond hair flows around her. She looks like a princess floating on a spun-gold cloud.

As far as her daddy’s concerned, she is a princess. Although he wasn’t exactly thrilled when I found out I was pregnant. Caitlin was a surprise. Our son, Daniel, was thirteen when she was born, and Corbin was ready to “have his life back,” as he put it. We were going to travel, and he wanted more time for golf.