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“Don’t you believe it. He’s having a full-blown midlife crisis. His little girl is leaving home, and suddenly he feels old. He’s faced his own mortality—literally, in the last few days—it’s classic.”
Grace stared out of the window, remembering David’s face that night at dinner. “He hasn’t bought a sports car or dyed his hair. He hasn’t given up his job. The only thing he seems to have changed is the woman in his life.”
Images played through her head, as if she’d accidentally clicked on a porn site on the internet. She wanted to cover her eyes. Reboot her brain. Cold, she tugged her coat around her.
Monica turned the heat up. “You have no idea who it is?”
“No.” Grace looked at her friend. “How could I not have known this was going on?”
“Because David is the last man on the planet you’d suspect of having an affair, so you weren’t looking. You need to ask him right out who it is.”
“The hospital staff say he mustn’t have any stress.” And she knew, deep down, she was postponing the moment when she’d have to hear the details. A name would make it real.
Monica snorted. “He mustn’t have stress? How about you? He’s a man who chose to tell his wife he wanted a divorce during a dinner to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Any other woman probably wouldn’t have resuscitated him when he collapsed.”
“It crossed my mind not to.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have admitted that. “What does that say about me?”
Monica reached out and took her hand. “It says you’re human, and thank goodness for that.”
“I stood there and couldn’t move—I don’t know how long it was—” Her heart had been beating frantically while his had been failing. “I thought I couldn’t do it.”
“But you did,” Monica said gently.
“What if I walk into his room and she’s there?”
Monica swallowed. “Surely David wouldn’t be that tactless?”
“He’s in love with another woman. I think tact has gone out of the window.” She twisted the edge of her coat with her fingers. “At dinner he kept rubbing his jaw. I thought he needed to see a dentist, but it turns out that can be a sign of a heart attack. I missed it.”
“Please tell me you’re not blaming yourself for that!”
“David was so stressed about hurting me, it brought on a heart attack. Even breaking up with me, he was inherently decent.”
“Grace, please. He was a heartless rat bast—” Monica broke off and lifted her hands in apology. “Sorry, but I can’t bear to hear you make excuses for him. How is Sophie taking it?”
Acid gnawed at her gut. Maybe she should see a doctor. “I haven’t told her yet.”
“What? Grace, she—”
“She needs to know. I’m aware. But telling her that her father had a heart attack and was in the hospital seemed like enough at the time. She’s upset and worried sick. I couldn’t bring myself to make it worse. She idolizes him. They’ve always been close.”
“You have to tell her, Grace.”
“I was hoping it might all get fixed and I wouldn’t have to.”
“He’s had an affair with another woman. Would you fix it if you could?”
“I don’t know.” It was a question she’d never thought she’d have to ask herself.
“You can’t, Grace. You’d never be able to trust him again. You need to boot him out. That’s what I’d do if Todd ever had an affair.”
Grace’s head spun. This was an aspect she hadn’t considered—that everyone around her would have an opinion. Whatever she did, she’d be the focus of gossip and judgment and she knew from experience that people tended to think that their way was the only way.
“I need to go.”
“Tell him how much he has hurt you. Tell him how you’re feeling.”
She didn’t want to be told what to do.
The fact that she felt the need to get away from Monica made her feel lonelier than she ever had in her life before. “If I cause him stress and then he dies, it’s my fault.”
Guilt. Blame. Responsibility.
An ugly sludge of emotions churned inside her, the same ones she’d felt when her parents had died. She knew you didn’t have to be directly involved to feel responsible. She’d had to live with those feelings, and David was the only one who knew.
David, who was no longer there for her.
David, who would now share secrets with someone else.
Losing that particular intimacy was the most painful thing of all.
A steady stream of people flowed through the revolving door at the entrance to the hospital, and Grace watched, wondering what their stories were. Were they visitors? Patients?
After he collapsed in the restaurant, David had been taken to the nearest hospital and rushed straight to surgery to have a procedure on his coronary artery. Or was it arteries? She couldn’t remember. Grace had sat on a cold, hard chair in a drafty corridor, feeling as if someone had lifted her out of her comfortable life and dropped her in a prison cell.
At some point during the night the doctor had found her, but his words had flowed past Grace like a river rushing over rocks. She’d heard blockage and a few other technical words that had meant nothing to her. She’d tried to pay attention, but her mind had refused to focus for more than a few minutes before wandering back to the fact that David wanted a divorce.
“David should tell Sophie,” Monica said. “He’s the one having the affair.”
Grace forced herself to move. “I’ll deal with that part later. He could be discharged tomorrow.”
“So soon? Please tell me you’re not thinking of taking him home.”
Grace paused with her hand on the door. “I don’t know. I’m taking this minute by minute.”
“Do you think he’ll want to stay—”
“—with her? I don’t know that, either. But if he wants to come home, I don’t see that I have much choice.”
“Of course you have a choice!” Monica exploded with rage and then subsided. “What can I do? I feel helpless.”
“You are helping.” In fact, she wasn’t helping, but that wasn’t Monica’s fault. There was nothing anyone could do. “Thanks for the ride.”
Grace slid out of the car and walked slowly into the hospital. It was the loneliest walk of her life.
Monica was right. They needed to tell Sophie. They couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Hi, Mrs. Porter.” The nurse in charge of the cardiac care ward greeted her from the desk. Grace had virtually lived at the hospital for the past few days. It was hardly surprising that they all knew her.
“Hi, Sally. How is he today?”
“Doing better. Dr. Morton saw him this morning, and she promised to drop by and talk to you both once you arrived. I’ll let her know you’re here.” She reached for the phone, and Grace walked into David’s room.
His eyes were closed, his skin pale but even a heart attack didn’t stop him being handsome.
She remembered what he’d said about feeling as if the best days of his life were behind him. The memory was like a sharp stab. What he’d really been saying was that there was nothing left to look forward to. The life with her wasn’t enough for him.
Forcing herself forward, she walked to the chair next to his bed.
David opened his eyes. “Grace.”
She put her bag on the floor. “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible. I guess you’re thinking it’s just punishment. They put in a stent, did they tell you?”
Had they? Maybe. She hoped he didn’t ask her any other questions, but fortunately at that moment Dr. Morton walked in. Elizabeth Morton had a daughter in Grace’s class, so they knew each other from school events.
“Hi, Grace. How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks.” As well as can be expected for a woman who has just been dumped by her husband of twenty-five years. Did Dr. Morton know? How far had word spread? Grace tried to remember who had been in the restaurant that night.
“I’m the patient.” David made a feeble attempt at a joke. “You’re supposed to be asking me how I am.”
Was it her imagination, or did Dr. Morton’s smile cool slightly as she looked at him?
Oh God, Grace thought. She knows.
The thought of female solidarity should have cheered her, but it didn’t. She hated the thought of people gossiping about her. It was so personal. Humiliating.
Everyone would be wondering why David Porter had chosen to leave his wife. They’d be looking at her and speculating. Did she nag? Was she bad in bed?
Maybe they all thought she was boring, too.
She could feel droplets of confidence evaporating like water in sunlight.
“You can go home tomorrow.” Dr. Morton flipped through the notes. She was clinical. Efficient. “We’ll send you a date for a follow-up.” She gave some general advice and then added, “This is a question I find some patients are embarrassed to ask, so I always give the answer anyway. Sex.” Her face was expressionless, but Grace knew she’d never be able to meet her at the school gates without remembering this conversation.
She didn’t want Dr. Morton to talk about sex, but it seemed her wishes no longer counted for anything.
Grace gripped the edge of the chair until the plastic dug into her hands.
“You should take it easy for the next month.” Dr. Morton went on to elaborate, and Grace tried to shut it out.
She emerged from her trance to hear Dr. Morton saying, “After that, you’re good to go.”
Grace felt her anger rise. He was good to go, but what about her?
David squirmed. “Thank you.”
“Don’t look so gloomy. People recover well from this and go on to live good lives.” The doctor outlined plans for his discharge, and then left the room with a final nod toward Grace.
“No sex for a month,” Grace said. “I guess that’s going to be tough on whoever it is you’re sleeping with.”
She saw the shock in David’s eyes and then the spreading color in his cheeks.
“You’re angry. I understand.”
“You understand? You can’t do this and still get to be the nice guy, David. This wasn’t an accident, or some random thing that happened to us that you regret. You chose this path. You knew what this would do to us. To me. But you did it anyway.”
Because he’d wanted it.
It wasn’t the first time someone hadn’t loved her enough to fight temptation.
Feelings she’d worked hard to subdue swirled to life inside her.
“I didn’t plan it, Grace. I was unhappy, and she was there and—Well, it just happened.”
It was the worst thing he could have said to her.
“What happened to self-control, David?”
He shifted in the bed. “You don’t have to tell me how important self-control is to you. I already know.”
“But I didn’t know how unimportant it was to you.”
“Grace—”
“You didn’t tell me you were unhappy. You didn’t give us a chance.” The more she thought about it, the more she realized she wasn’t just angry, she was furious. It was almost a relief. Anger was fuel, and easier to handle than grief and confusion.
“Everything you say is true, and I feel terrible.”
“I feel terrible, too. The difference is that you deserve to feel terrible, and I don’t.” She stopped. He looked so pale she was afraid he might be having another heart attack.
How could she care so much about his welfare, when he’d given no thought to hers?
It seemed that love defied logic.
“Grace—”
“Do you know what it’s like to be in love with someone, and to assume they feel the same way, and then to discover that it was all fake? It makes you question everything.” She heard the catch in her own voice. “All those memories we made together, I’m wondering how many of them were real.”
“They were real. They are real.”
“What’s real is that at some point you started feeling differently and you didn’t share that with me. I made a chicken salad with low calorie dressing.” She unloaded the bag and slapped the containers on the table next to the bed.
“You’ve had a few messages. Rick from the golf club called. He sent you his best wishes.”
“Right.”
