The Liar Next Door by Nicola Marsh
Forty
Frankie
THEN
I feel so guilty for sleeping with Walter I have to forgive Andre. Waking next to Walter, the sheet draped across his torso, hiding the scratch marks I made in desperation to lose myself for a few hours, rams home my guilt. I’m not this person. I shouldn’t have used Walter no matter how furious I am with Andre. And now that I’ve cheated, I’m no better than him.
Shame makes me ease out of bed, careful not to wake him. I dress in record time and take a walk on the beach to clear my head, my regret overwhelming. I can’t believe I had sex with another man while married. I hate it. Self-loathing fills me and I break into a jog, trying to outrun my mistakes and failing.
I never should’ve sought comfort with Walt. It’s wrong on so many levels. I’m mortified that I’m my parents’ daughter after all, that I use morality for my own whims.
Walter and I part ways a few hours later. He isn’t angry or resentful. Instead, he wishes me well in true Walter fashion and says to stay in touch.
With him gone, I stay on at the cottage for another two days before heading home to Manhattan. Andre welcomes me with open arms and I contemplate telling him about my indiscretion for all of two seconds before deciding to keep it a secret. Because I know my husband. He’s inherently selfish and will make our problems all about me rather than him. He’ll pass the buck, expecting me to shoulder the blame…
Not that I’m justifying my shoddy behavior. I never should’ve slept with Walter but it’s one of those things, two old friends seeking solace that is a one-off and never to be repeated.
After I return home, I sleep with Andre on my second night back. I need to forget my mistake with Walt and reclaim my marriage. I expect it to be fraught, tense, but we’re as compatible as ever and as the weeks proceed, we learn to be a better couple. I embrace hope and forgiveness, determined to move forward. We do couples therapy where we’re both as honest as can be. He admits to growing complacent in our relationship and taking me for granted, but rather than blame me he understands he could make an effort to spend more quality time together. He doesn’t take on as many freelance jobs that require travel and I spend more time with him, like we did in the first heady days when we met. In front of the therapist, I’m honest about my hurt, how I can’t understand he can “grow complacent” and feel trapped after only eight months of marriage. My resentment spills out and the mature way he handles it, taking full responsibility, goes a long way to healing the rift in my heart.
We’re in a better place after therapy, a more honest place, and we’re determined to make a fresh start. We take long walks through Central Park, we eat at new restaurants, we spend every evening curled up on the sofa watching old movies before having the best sex of our lives. I’m happy. I think. I’m making the most of our situation because I’m right about one thing: I’m not getting divorced twice by the time I’m in my mid-twenties.
I’m curled on our couch, my legs tucked under me, trying to read. But I’ve skimmed the same paragraph five times, not absorbing a word, as I listen to Andre potter around the kitchen, so grateful we’re in a good place again.
I hear him slide the leftover takeout sushi we had for lunch into the fridge, before he joins me in the living room.
“What are you thinking about?” Andre sits beside me, rests his arm across my shoulder, and smooths a finger between my brows. “You get this cute little crinkle when you’re thinking.”
“Are you saying I’ve got a frown line?”
“No, but if you do too much thinking I’d be looking for a cosmetic surgeon soon.”
He chuckles and I whack him on his chest, which he clutches with mock outrage. “Hey, watch it, Fran, you pack a powerful punch.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
It’s a throwaway line, a funny comment, but with his infidelity lingering in the background it sounds like a threat and his laughter dies.
“We’re okay, you and me?”
He asks me this periodically, usually when I least expect it, showing me he cares by checking in. I think it’s sweet, but it also serves to underline we’ll always have this shadow hovering over us and I’ll never be able to fully trust him again.
Hypocritical, considering what I did, but for me it wasn’t about sex, it was about comfort, and I know by how crap I feel whenever I think about it I’ll never do it again.
“We’re okay,” I say, surprised when my stomach churns with a sudden wave of nausea.
The sushi from our favorite café didn’t agree with me last week either and as I make a dash for the toilet, I vow to forego it for a while.
“The sushi again, huh?”
“Yeah,” I manage to say, before I sink to my knees in front of the toilet and lose my dinner.
However, not eating sushi for a while is the least of my problems as my nausea escalates over the next week. I’m woozy in the mornings, the café lattes I guzzle lose their appeal, and I can’t stomach the prime sirloin Andre cooks to perfection.
When I throw up one night, my sneaking suspicion coalesces into a startling truth. I’m at the pharmacy first thing the next morning and home twenty minutes later, peeing on a stick.
As I sit on the toilet seat, waiting for the result, I’m not sure what I feel. Is having a baby so soon after Andre and I worked through his infidelity a smart choice or will it put an unexpected strain on our relationship?
Will he be happy having a child or will he see it as another sign of being trapped?
For me, I’m equal parts terrified and hopeful as I wait the requisite two minutes. When I glance at the tiny box and see two blue lines, I exhale the breath I’ve been inadvertently holding.
I’m pregnant.