Page 17 of Faithless

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Whitney

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I plop down on the toilet, emptying my bladder for the third time in the last fifteen minutes. It’s not much. Just a few small splashes. I always have to pee when I’m really nervous. I walk into the kitchen and glance at the digital numbers on the stove. He should be back in ten minutes. Maddy is napping, and the kitchen is clean.

Mark wanted to hire a weekly house cleaner, but I insisted I could do it myself. It made me feel too useless. The stay-at-home-mom gig doesn’t feel like much of a career substitute if I don’t have actual work to do.

The children aren’t work, anyway. Cole is the sweetest boy, always wanting to help me get my chores done by entertaining his brother. Mason is imaginative and in his own world most of the time, and Maddy, while fussy, is the most cuddly baby on the planet.

My life is perfect. I have a perfect husband. The perfect children. A perfect mansion of a house I never would have dreamed of living in as a child. I remember thinking the Hansen’s three-story country home with the separate pool house was fancy. I never would have dreamed of walk-in closets with built-in cabinets or views of the ocean from my kitchen window or balcony hot tubs. My beautiful children will have every opportunity they could ever imagine available to them.

Then there’s my handsome husband who loves me. I know he does. Maybe it took me epically fucking up to figure it out, but I’m certain he does.

He doesn’t find me boring. I haven’t disappointed him.

Just the other day, I caught him smiling affectionately at me when I told Mason I was excited to go to the San Francisco Exploratorium museum with him on Tuesday.

I am excited. My beautiful little boy has a mind for science, and I did a lot of research to find the perfect day trip for him and me while Cole is at Little League camp and Maddy is being watched by Nanny Mia. I am a good mother, even if I’m not perfect.

I used to worry Mark found me lacking. I’m not always organized the way my mom used to be—keeping our school projects in cubbies and arranging meetings with our teachers—and sometimes, I lose my temper. But I see his love for both me and his children in his eyes. It makes me want to weep.

I don’t deserve his love.

My heart jumps into my throat when I hear the front door open and close. My ears follow the sound of his brisk footsteps through the hallway to his office and then out again.

Before I know it, he’s in front of me. “It smells nice,” he says, and my heart clenches. This might be the last time I hear him say something like that. He won’t care what the kitchen looks like after today.

Maybe he won’t even come home to it anymore.

“I have to tell you something,” I clip out, and my tone must convey my nervousness, because Mark turns off the faucet and turns to me, a frown marring his brow.

“What’s wrong?”

I turn around and start organizing the mail I piled on the counter. “I’ve done something really bad.”

Standing where I am, I can’t see his face, but I don’t need to. I know he’s smiling faintly, and it makes me want to scream. He probably thinks I forgot to pay our Virgin Atlantic credit card bill that we only use to acquire miles, because that’s the type of woman he thinks I am. He couldn’t even imagine what I’ve done.

His soft footsteps sound behind me just before I feel the warm press of his hands on my shoulders. When he starts to gently squeeze and knead, I want to lean against him. I wish it didn’t feel so wonderful. “Sweetheart, you’re talking fast,” he says softly. “And moving fast.”

He remembered. My therapist told me to keep him informed of my anxiety signs so he can maybe catch me before I spiral.

If only this were just a regular panic attack.

He presses his warm lips against my cheek. God, he has such soft lips. Soft and full. I married such a handsome man.

Why didn’t I appreciate it? Why did I long for a man who never really satisfied me when I had him? Because that man rejected me?

I can’t bear the agony any longer. “Mark, I had an affair.”

His hands grow still. “What?” He doesn’t really believe me yet. I can hear it in his voice. He thinks, at the very least, I’m exaggerating.

“With Jason,” I say because I know it will shatter all delusions.

I’m right. He removes his hands from my shoulders as if they burned his palms. “What?” he says again, and this time it has all the bite the first “what” should have had. He’s been jealous of Jason since we first got together.

In the first few years of our marriage, Mark would ask me over and over again if I had gotten over Jason, if I still thought about him, and if I ever had any urge to contact him for closure. I was baffled that a man like Mark needed so much reassurance. Most people thought I was the lucky one landing Mark, not the other way around. But then again, Mark really loved me during a time when my heart was frozen, and the person who cares the least always holds the power.

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