One Summer In Paris

“You make me feel…” He rubbed his jaw. “Incapable. Sometimes I wonder if you even need me.”

Her insides swooped. She felt as if she’d stepped off a cliff. “How can you say that? You know it’s not true.”

“Do I? You plan every detail of our lives. You are the most independent woman I know. What exactly do I contribute to this marriage?”

At any other time she would have said great sex, and they both would have collapsed with laughter, but tonight David wasn’t laughing, and she didn’t feel like laughing, either.

The people at the table closest to them were staring.

Grace didn’t care.

“You contribute plenty! David—”

“We have to talk, Grace.” He pushed his plate to one side, his meal only half-eaten. “I wasn’t going to say this tonight, but—”

“But what? What do you want to talk about?” Unease mushroomed inside her. He didn’t sound like himself. David was always sure, confident and dependable. She almost al ways knew what he was thinking. “Why do you keep rubbing your jaw?”

“Because it aches.”

“You should see the dentist. Maybe you have an abscess or something. I’ll make you an appointment in the morning—” She stopped in midsentence. “Or you can make it yourself if you prefer.”

“I want a divorce, Grace.”

There was a strange ringing in her ears. The background music and the clatter from the kitchen had distorted his words. He couldn’t possibly have just said what she’d thought he’d said.

“Excuse me?”

“A divorce.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it was strangling him. “Saying those words makes me feel sick. I never wanted to hurt you, Gracie.”

She hadn’t misheard him.

“Is this because I bought Stephen a gift?”

“No.” He muttered something and tugged at his collar again. “I shouldn’t be doing this now. I didn’t plan to. I should have—”

“Is it because of Sophie leaving? I know it’s unsettling…”

Panic gripped her heart. Squeezed. Squeezed some more. Her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to pass out in her duck confit. She imagined the story appearing in the following day’s edition of the Woodbrook Post.

A local woman was asphyxiated when she fell face-first into her meal.

“It’s not because of Sophie. It’s us. Things haven’t been right for a while.”

There was something in David’s eyes she’d never seen before.

Pity. Yes, there was sadness, and also guilt, but it was the pity that tore her to shreds.

This was David. Her David—who had cried on their wedding day because he loved her so much, who had held her while their daughter fought her way into the world and been there for Grace through thick and thin. David, her best friend and the only person who truly knew her.

He would never want to see her hurt, let alone hurt her himself. Knowing that, she felt her panic turn to fear. He didn’t want to hurt her but he was doing it anyway—which meant this was serious. He’d decided he’d rather hurt her than stay with her.

“I don’t understand.” Surely if something hadn’t been right, she’d have known? She and David had been a team for as long as she could remember. Without him she would have fallen apart all those years ago. “What hasn’t been right, David?”

“Our lives have become… I don’t know. Boring.” His forehead glistened with sweat. “Predictable. I go to work in the same place, see the same people and I come home every day to—”

“To me.” It was all too easy to finish his sentence. “So what you’re really saying is that I’m predictable. I’m boring.” Her hands were shaking and she clasped them in her lap.

“It’s not you, Grace. It’s me.”

The fact that he was shouldering the blame didn’t help. “How can it be all you? I’m the one you’re married to and you’re unhappy—which means I’m doing something wrong.” And the problem was that she loved the fact that their life was predictable. “I grew up with unpredictability, David. Believe me, it’s overrated.”

“I know what you grew up with.”

Of course he did.

Was she boring? God, was it true?

It was true that she was a little obsessed about them being good parents to Sophie, but that was important to David, too.

He undid another button on his shirt and gestured to the waiter to bring more water. “Why is it so hot in here? I don’t feel too good… I can’t remember what I was saying…”

She didn’t feel too good, either. “You were telling me you want a divorce.”

She hadn’t believed that word would ever come up in a conversation between her and David, and she wished it hadn’t come up now, in a public place. At least two of the people in the bistro had children in her class—which was unfortunate, given the nature of this conversation.

Mommy says you’re getting divorced, Mrs. Porter, is that right?

“Grace—”

David took a sip of water, and she noticed there was a tremor in his hand. He was looking pale and ill.

She was pretty sure that if she looked in the mirror she’d think the same about herself.

What about Sophie? She’d be devastated. What if she was too upset to go away for the summer? It was terrible, awful timing.

Monica would probably blame red meat. Too much testosterone.

“We can talk to someone, if you think that would help. Whatever it is that needs working on, we’ll work on it.”

“Fixing our marriage isn’t something you can add to your ‘To Do’ list, Grace.”

She felt color flood into her cheeks, because mentally she’d been doing exactly that. “We’ve been married for twenty-five years. There is nothing—nothing—we can’t fix.”

“I’m having an affair.”

The words were like a solid punch to her gut.

“No!” Her voice cracked. And that was how she felt. Cracked. Broken. As if she were a piece of fine china he’d flung against the cabinet. “Tell me that isn’t true.”