Page 49 of The Spotted Cottage By the Sea
“It’s brutal, isn’t it?” she asked.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Yeah. Brutal.”
Twenty
There was something dreamlike about sitting there with him, the rain pattering on the ship’s windows, the candlelight flickering between them. The food was heavenly, every course that arrived more delicious than the last, and the tension she carried in her shoulders softened and disappeared.
Sheila sat back with a glass of red wine in her hand. Maybe it wasn’t a dream, but a scene from someone else’s life. Someone who hadn’t gotten fired, someone who wasn’t facing foreclosure on their home. Someone who wasn’t full of mistakes.
Surely it had to be Russell’s life and she was merely an extra, even less significant than the people staring at him and sneaking pictures from behind.
Her nerves fizzled out, softened by the rain and swept away by his laugh. Russell had a great laugh, deep and rolling, like the sound of an engine purring to life.
She liked getting him to laugh. It egged her on and kept her talking, even when she should, perhaps, keep quiet.
“What about your ex-husband?” he asked. “Was he jealous of your success?”
This wine really was better than the cheap stuff she normally bought. She took a sip and savored the hint of black currant. “What success?”
“Your songs. You met in a band, right? I assumed he was musical too.”
Sheila put her wine glass on the table and set her expression flat. “Brian wasneverjealous. It was just that me doing a recording session was inconvenient for his work schedule. And I practiced too loudly for him to concentrate, so I had to do it outside, or, better yet, not at all. When I was invited to play the opening act for a band for three nights, he rightly pointed out that I was abandoning the family.”
A smile flickered onto Russell’s face. “They’d surely starve to death before your return.”
He’d picked up on her sarcasm, which was good, because she was laying it on thick. “I found out a few months ago that he told one of our old friends I’m the reason we got divorced.”
Creases formed on Russell’s forehead. “Yeah? What reason was that?”
Sheila knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop herself. “He said I put my delusions of wanting to be a rock star over my responsibilities as a mother and wife.”
He raised an eyebrow and, before he could say anything, she heard herself speaking again. “It’s pathetic, what actually happened.”
“Maybe him,” he said softly. “Not you.”
Two slices of white wine cheesecake drizzled with blueberry syrup arrived. Sheila was stuffed, but she wasn’t going to stop now. She picked up her fork and took a bite.
“You know how in movies,” she said, her mouth full, “when a wife finds out her husband’s cheating, she yells at him and throws all his stuff out the window? Or beats up his truck with a bat?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t do any of that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but after I accidentally found the email, the one fromher,I didn’t say anything.Not about the affair.
“I said we should go to couple’s counseling, and then when we were there, I said I would turn down whatever invitations I’d gotten for my music, that I wouldn’t play any openers or ever go on tour. I said I wouldn’t write songs anymore, and I meant it.” She took another bite of cheesecake, this time chewing before she spoke again. “I gave into his complaints. I promised to make myself smaller and smaller, as out of the way as he needed me to be just so he wouldn’t leave.”
Russell hadn’t touched his cheesecake. He didn’t drink his wine or his water. He sat with an elbow on the table and his head resting on his hand, staring at her.
“It was never enough,” she said, digging her fork furiously into the cheesecake and shoving a huge bite into her mouth. “After one of our counseling sessions, he told me he wanted a divorce. Before our divorce was final, he’d moved to New York City.”
“To be with her?”
Sheila nodded, scraping the last bits of syrup from her plate. “He moved in with her and her two kids. Told our girls to not forget to write. Eliza and Mackenzie were in college then. Shelby was seventeen. Emma was thirteen.”
Russell rubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, Sheila.”
She didn’t need his pity. She didn’t know what she needed, but it wasn’t that. “No, I’m sorry,” she rushed to add. “I don’t want to sound bitter. I’mnotbitter. I’m just…processing. I thought time healed all wounds, but in this case, it hasn’t.”
Not only had she eaten a slice of cheesecake in front of him like an animal, she’d also unloaded this onto him as though she didn’t have friends who heard it a dozen times, as though it had just happened.
