Page 59 of Indulgence
My chest heaved a bit when I finished. I didn’t mean to say all that, but it just came spilling out, and I couldn’t stop.
Our waitress arrived a minute later just as Penelope was about to say something. We ordered our meals and then Pen picked right back up. There were no pleasantries today. We dived headfirst right in.
“Have you spoken with Matteo since this morning?” she asked and leaned forward for a piece of bread from the basket on the table.
My teeth gritted together at her tone. “He texted to tell me he landed in Florida.”
She shook her head. “A lot happened this morning, and you guys leaving it like that, letting things fester seems like a really bad idea. You can’t ignore it and expect it to heal.”
“I’m not ignoring it. I wish I could. It’s all that I can think about.”
Pen took a bite of bread, so Norah jumped in. “You can take this however you want, but I’ve been biting my tongue for a few days and just can’t do it anymore.”
I drained my glass, knowing whatever she was going to say was going to piss me off. God, I didn’t think I was going to make it through dinner without another glass.
Norah slid her wine over to me. “We came together, I’ll drive your car home.”
Finally, something going my way. I grip the stem of her glass, bracing for her words. “Thank you.”
She nodded. “I don’t think the punishment fits the crime. I don’t even think there was a crime. Things got out of control, and I can’t really imagine how you felt that morning. I also can’t figure out why you keep shutting out Matteo as if he’d done something wrong.”
“He—”
She held her hand up. “No. I’m not done yet. I get being upset about the situation, but it wasn’t as if you walked in on him with his mistress. There was nothing nefarious going on. He didn’t get drunk and bring some random woman home alone. From what you’ve told me, it wasn’t even his idea. So, why have you iced him out?”
My fingers tightened around the glass and I had to loosen them before I broke it . “I’m a woman who had to imagine her husband having a baby with another woman.”
“But there’s no baby,” Penelope interrupted. “So that isn’t something to be worried about anymore.”
“It’s still a damn hard pill to swallow, Pen. What else was I supposed to feel but pain and betrayal?”
Her eyes were soft, and her voice withheld judgment. “Feeling that way isn’t wrong. But he didn’t betray you. Unless there’s something I’m not aware of.”
I took a deep breath and hung my head. “No, there isn’t anything else going on. But things are different. They feel different. I don’t know why, but I’m scared. Our life could have been irrevocably changed.”
Our dinners arrived, and after our waiter left, Norah turned to me. “Your lifecouldhave been irrevocably changed, but it wasn’t—at least not by a pregnancy. You were rattled, which is natural, but she isn’t pregnant.”
“The crisis was averted,” Penelope chimed in. “What you need to do is look past the fear of something that is no longer relevant so you can see the damage that fear and anger and hurt did.”
“What on Earth are you talking about?” I glared at her across the table ignoring the pork chops sitting in front of me. “What damage?”
“Natalie, I love you, but you are the one who is making everything worse right now.”
I opened my mouth to argue against that statement, but she held firm.
“Nope. You need to hear this. All I keep hearing is ‘I’ and ‘me.’ What about Matteo? I imagine he feels as if you abandoned him in the worst way at the worst time. Put yourself in his shoes for a second. You wake up to a strange woman in your kitchen and your wife fuming mad. Your wife tells you that you could have knocked the chick up and, oh yeah, by the way, you could have caught a disease that would make your junk fall off as well. Then, while you’re still grappling with those bombs, you get the random woman to leave and make sure you and your wife have a plan. There is finally a second to breathe, a moment to sit with your wife and try to work through what happened, only your wife refuses to talk to you and then leaves.”
I lived the picture she was painting. It hurt but looking at it through this lens seemed worse. I wanted to throw up.
“Are you done?” My voice was ripcord tight as I railed against the situation she just summed up in a handful of sentences.
“Not hardly,” she whispered. “Did you listen to him this morning, Natalie? I mean really listen? To what he wasn’t saying? He is falling apart. That man has always been there for you, no matter the cost to himself, and in what was probably the first time he really needed you, his wife and partner, where were you? He needs you. He’s been telling you that he needs you even with how angry he is with you. And, yes, he has the right the be angry with you so stop getting all affronted when he shows you he is mad. But he’s communicating his needs to you and you. Are. Ignoring. Them. He got a freaking promotion, one that I’m assuming is a big deal, and you weren’t there when that happened. You’re missing the good things because you can’t stop focusing on the one bad thing. The one bad thing that can no longer hurt you.”
She needed to stop. I wanted her to stop. I didn’t want to hear this.
The first tear slipped down my cheek. “Pen. Please,” I whispered.
Her voice softened, but she continued. “It isn’t too late to fix it, though. Matteo wants to fix this. You need to work together.”
