Acts of Contrition (19 page)

In bed I wonder about Tom.
Where are you, honey?
Did he find a diner, plop into a corner booth, nurse a tenth cup of coffee, his eyes rubbed red and puffy? Or did he continue on with his initiation into the land of whiskey, where his father and brother roam? Where would he go for comfort? What would he do? It’s not like he has a support system like I do, my three sisters, my adoring parents, all skilled in the doting and hovering department, an arsenal of stuffed shells and stuffed pastries prepared and ready, whether for crisis or celebration.

Tom has his parents, who, while supportive, are avoiders. I can already hear Sean, who pretends everything is dandy, even if Patrick is in rehab or Colleen is in chemo for breast cancer or his blood pressure has topped two hundred. “Oh, son! God bless you, son,” he’d say. “This is just a glitch. You and Mare will work this out, you’ll see. How about spending the day with your old man?”

And Colleen is no better, the way she reasons and rationalizes but never sits down, addressing adversity through motion. I can see Tom sitting at his mother’s table in her immaculate kitchen while she sorts silverware and refolds perfectly square napkins. I can hear Tom flipping roles, telling his mother to sit down, that it is going to be okay. Colleen would bend down, kiss Tom’s head, and agree. “Of course, dear. It’s going to be okay,” she’d say, and then begin cleaning out the refrigerator.

And then there is Patrick, the guy whose premonition about me was spot-on. “It’s not too late to bail,” Patrick had said the morning of our wedding. “I’ve got a twelve-pack in the trunk.” I now wonder whether Tom remembers his brother’s prophetic quip, considers the possibility that Patrick’s soulful eyes could zero in on his future. Tom must wish he’d heeded his brother’s warning.

At four o’clock in the morning, I hear the garage door open and the sound of footsteps making their way downstairs to the basement. Then I hear the shower turn on, sending a high-pitched whine up the pipes. Half an hour later Tom enters our room for clean clothes. I slip out of bed and stand in front of him. “Tom,” I plead.

“Not now,” he says.

“When?”

He shakes his head at me in disgust, as if to say, “Never.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Cornerstone of Faith

TOM DRESSES QUICKLY AND THEN
leaves the house. I lie in bed, waiting for the boys. With clockwork predictability, they crawl in with me at six o’clock, finding perfect fits in impossibly small spaces. Dom’s head is resting on my neck, his silky hair tickling my nose. Danny’s on my side, softly singing a song he learned at Sunday school, “Peter, James, and John in a Sailboat.”

“That’s nice,” I tell him.

“They’re possums,” he says.

“That’s right,” I say. “Apostles.”

Domenic stirs, stretches wildly, smacks me in the face. “Where’s Daddy?”

“He had to go to work early,” I say, smoothing his hair across his head.

“I wanted to crack eggs on his back and give him chills,” Dom says.

“Do me,” I say, rolling onto my stomach so that my son can snap and smack his little fists on my spine.

“Did it give you chills?” he asks, and I nod yes because since last night I’ve had nothing but.

An hour later we’re down for breakfast, four kids lined up at the counter, slumped over their bowls of cereal, trying to fight the sleepiness that still has a hold on them like a Benadryl hangover. I stare out the kitchen window with a coffee cup held to my lips.

When I turn around and Sally finally looks up, wiping the sleep from her eyes, she gasps. “Mom! What’s wrong with your face?”

I reach for my cheek, which feels thin and slumpy. I know my eyes must be swollen and lined. I consider how to explain the worn and crumpled look on my face to my children.

“I didn’t sleep well,” I say. “So help me out, okay, girls?”

The girls eat their cereal and drink their hot cocoa and then head up the stairs to get ready for school. I coax the boys upstairs and today they actually comply. Maybe I look so scary they’re considering that since I’ve magically transformed into a monster, they had better listen to me or else. I get the boys dressed, hair and teeth brushed, a quick trip to the toilet. Sally and Emily are packing their backpacks on the kitchen counter.

“Why’d Dad leave so early this morning?” Sally asks. “Another trip to Chicago?”

“No, honey, he just had work to do.”

Sally squints her scrutinizing eyes at me. “You sure you’re okay, Mom?”

“I’m fine, honey,” I say, and then blow my nose for effect. “Let’s get going, okay? Want me to drive you today instead of taking the bus?”

I drop the girls off first and then the boys. Back home I sit on the sofa, chewing on my cuticles, staring at the wall, wondering
how much deeper I’ll fall into the abyss, how much hotter things can get.

Angie calls, Mom and Dad, Teresa, and Martina. I can’t talk; I let them go to voice mail.

The turn of the door handle tells me that Tom’s home. I stand and face him and find that his anger hasn’t abated; his face isn’t any more forgiving today than yesterday. His fists are still tight balls, his jaw is still a wire pulled taut.

He stands before me and says, “I’m not leaving my house and my children. I thought about it, leaving you and the kids, but screw that, Mary. They’re my kids, too, and I’m not going to leave. If you want to, you leave.”

“Tom!” I plead, and again my heart slams into my chest like the recoil from a shotgun. “Stop talking that way. No one is going anywhere.”

“I want to make sure that I’m clear, Mary,” Tom says with pure, cold hatred. “You and me, we’re finished.”

I stumble back into the sofa and fold at the waist and cover my ears, because they’re ringing as though a bomb has gone off and I can’t tell if I’m still whole or blown to bits. I look up. “You can’t possibly mean that.”

“For the children’s sake I’ll be cordial to you, and if you want to stay we’ll find a way to live in this house together. If you want to leave, I’ll find a way to take care of the kids. Either way, I’m staying. And for now, the children will know
nothing
. Nothing! Do you understand?”

“This is crazy,” I say, and again start to cry. I slide off the sofa and fall at Tom’s feet and grab his ankles and cry teardrops onto his shoes.

He pulls his feet away. “There are things that I need to know,”
Tom fumes bitterly. “The day Sally was born…you delivered a lie as much as you did a child. How’d it
feel,
Mary?”

“How do you think it felt?” I croak, sitting back and covering my face. “Knowing the truth and wanting it to be something different. I can’t describe what it was like to see you with her. You were the proudest father in the world. You cradled her like she held the keys to the kingdom. She was your girl from the start.” I stand, look him in the eyes. “Love’s love, Tom. You can’t possibly think that you no longer love her.”

“Of course I still love
her
!” Tom yells.

“I get it,” I say. “
I’m
the one you no longer love.” I look at Tom, wait for him to argue, try to find something in his eyes that tells me he still loves me, but he’s stone-faced and cold and when it sinks in, my legs almost buckle. He really doesn’t love me.

“Tom, dear God, you have to know how sorry I am. I
fell
. After all those years of Landon not choosing me, he finally did, and I fell for it. That’s all I can say.”

“That’s not enough,” he says.

“Please, Tom, we have to work this out. We’re a family. For God’s sake, we’re a family.”

“Leave God out of this, Mare. If you recall, adultery is a sin.”

“Well, aren’t you the picture of perfection!” I yell.

“I’ve never claimed to be perfect,” Tom says. “But since I’ve known you—for eleven years—I’ve never once lied to you.”

“That’s only because you’ve never had anything worth lying about!” I holler, taking a stab at a rather iffy argument. “You’ve never had a gun put to your head like the one that was put to mine! How could you possibly know what you would have done in a similar spot?”

“That’s your argument?” he roars. “That everyone has a breaking point? That everyone has a price?”

“Don’t they?” I cover my face and begin to cry because I know my argument sounds lame, like trying to acquit a murderer because he was
really mad
. “How can you possibly know how far you would go if it had to do with the kids, with your brother, their health and survival? My lie has given you a family! If I had told you what happened, where would any of us be?”

“It wasn’t your choice to make alone!” he yells. “I should have known the situation. You should have told me the truth! Maybe we would have still ended up a family, maybe we wouldn’t have, but at least our lives would have been honest. So cut the moralistic bullshit about how your lie has given me a life. There is no silver lining to your lie, Mary! No matter how hard you try to convince yourself that there was virtue in what you did, there’s not!”

“What are you saying, Tom? That I’m unforgivable? Unredeemable? That there is no getting past this?”

“There’s a lot that I could get past, but you know the most unbelievable part of all of this?” I stare at him, but my vision is betraying me, making the features on his face grow larger and then smaller. “The most unbelievable part is that Landon knew Sally was his and I didn’t. Why was that, Mary? I don’t agree with it, but I could at least understand why you didn’t tell me—you thought I would leave. I could understand even more why you wouldn’t tell Landon—he’d never know if you hadn’t told him. But here’s the kicker, Mare: You told Landon. You sought him out and told him. Why? What were you hoping for in telling him? Were you hoping he would sweep you off your feet, and you and Sally would run away with him?”

“No! God, no!” I scream. “I never once had that thought. That’s not why I told him.”

“Then why?”

“Because I was going to tell him and get his word that he would stay out of our lives. And then I was going to tell you! That was the plan. To come clean. To live the truth. But I told him, got his word, and then I never told you. Never could. I tried a million times, but I could never get the words out.”

Tom walks to the mantel, lifts a framed photo of the kids from a few years back. I brace myself for him to pitch it into the fireplace, but he doesn’t, just stares at it, traces his finger across their younger faces.

“You say you never chose Landon over me, but Mary, there’s no denying that you did. You trusted your secret would be safer with him than it was with me. That’s all there is to it.”

With that, Tom storms out the door, and the next thing I hear is the shriek of rubber on the driveway.

For the rest of the morning I sit on the edge of the fireplace with my face in my hands. The flue is open and an icy stream of air has chilled me to the bone. In my daze, I rock back and forth until a new thought collides with the one I had clung to all along. That I have been lying to Tom for ten years, I knew. What I didn’t know was that I was lying to myself, too.
Why
did I tell Landon? What was I hoping for? Was it what Tom said? Was I hoping for Landon to steal me away from Tom? Not once had that thought knocked on my door…until now.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

All My Heart

AFTER SALLY WAS BORN, AFTER
I saw her resemblance to Landon James, after I had fallen into a deep depression, I picked up the phone and called him. We made plans to meet at the Mayflower on Connecticut Avenue.

We sat awkwardly in the gigantic lobby chairs.

“I was very surprised to hear from you,” he said.

“I’m sure,” I answered, lulling Sally by rocking her carrier.

“Did you want to see me for any reason in particular?” Landon asked. “I mean, you don’t need a reason.”

“I have a reason,” I said.

“Oh, okay. Great.”

“I have something I need to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Is there somewhere more private where we could talk?”

Once inside the hotel room, Landon asked, “Would you like something to drink?” He waved to the mini-refrigerator.

“Sure,” I said. “A soda, something without caffeine. I’m nursing.”

Landon opened a Sprite for me and set it on the ledge by the window.

“So what’s this all about, MM?”

I turned to him, took an enormous breath, and looked down at Sally. “We named her Sally,” I said.

“She’s adorable,” Landon said, reaching out with a finger to touch her hair.

“I don’t know why we chose the name Sally,” I said. “It just seemed nice, not too pretentious, not too cute.”

“I like the name,” Landon said.

“It fits her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Landon?”

“Yeah, Mary?” he said, still fingering Sally’s silky hair.

“You’re Sally’s father…biologically.”

“W-what?” Landon stammered, pulling back his hand. “I
am
? How’s that
possible
?”

“The last time we saw each other, remember?”

“Of course I remember,” he said, sitting down and bending at the waist. “How do you know?” he said, his eyes on his shoes.

“Look at her,” I replied, and turned Sally outward in his direction, hanging her from my forearm like a floppy newborn cub.

“What?”

“Don’t you see it?” I asked. “Can’t you see the resemblance?”

“To me, she looks like
you
.”

“It’s easier for someone else to see,” I said. “But that’s why I need a DNA sample. Just so we’re sure.” I reached my hand into my purse, pulled out a little kit I had purchased on the Internet, a cluster of Q-tips and sterile envelopes.

“Whoa, hold on, Mary, you’re nearly giving me a heart attack. Give me a second to breathe.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve had time to think about this. I understand that it’s a shock.”

“What about the test?”

“You just swab your cheek, and then I send it off. I’ll make up a fake name. None of this will be ‘on the record.’ ”

“What about your husband? Tom, right? What did he say?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“Are you planning to?”

“Of course,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you first and have a discussion about how we’re going to handle this.”