He didn’t hide it. I want to be clear about that. He always told me.
But I could see the way she looked at him over the fence when he was mowing the lawn. I could see the way she came out onto her porch whenever he came home from work, like she’d been waiting for the sound of his car.
And I could feel something cold starting to grow in my stomach. Something I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager.
Fear.
It happened on a Wednesday afternoon in July.
I’d taken the day off work. A dentist appointment of my own, which is ironic. I was home by two. Irvin was teaching summer school. Maddie was at her job at the ice cream shop.
Vanessa knocked on the back door.
She was holding a plate of cookies. Chocolate chip. Still warm.
“I made too many,” she said. “I thought you guys might want some.”
I let her in. I made coffee. We sat at my kitchen table. The same table where I’d sat a hundred times with Irvin and Maddie. Where we’d eaten spaghetti four nights a week the year money was tight. Where Irvin had helped Maddie with her chemistry homework, explaining everything twice.
Vanessa set the plate of cookies in the middle of the table. She took one. She broke it in half. She didn’t eat it.
She looked at me across the table.
She was smiling. But it wasn’t the friendly smile. It was a different one. Cool. Calm. Like a cat looking at a bird.
“Janet,” she said. “Can I be honest with you?”
“Of course.”
“I’m going to take your husband.”
I laughed. I honestly laughed. I thought it was a joke. Some kind of strange joke that divorced women make.
“Okay,” I said. “Good luck with that.”
She didn’t laugh.
She just kept looking at me. Smiling.
“I’m serious,” she said.
My laugh stopped.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. She said it calmly, the way you’d talk about the weather. “He’s sweet. He’s kind. He’s smart. He has a good job. He’s a little goofy, but I can work with that. He’s exactly the kind of man I should have married instead of Mark.”
