saw them was the lunch when he was saying the friendship finally had to end because it had become too dangerous.
“I don’t believe you,” Daff said, feeling sick to her stomach, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“I swear to you.” Richard took her in his arms. “I know she’s attracted to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to her, and even if I was I wouldn’t do anything about it. I love you. Really, I do.”
Daff didn’t completely believe him, but she had no proof. She allowed herself to be hugged, accepted his apology, his insistence that he loved her, would never do anything to hurt her or Jessica, and then, a few days later, she set about finding proof.
It wasn’t hard to collect the evidence, and Daff gave herself two months to be sure. At the end of two months, two months during which time Richard had been attentive, loving, home on time and wanting to make love almost nightly, Daff confronted him.
She did it quietly. Not wanting to make a scene, she booked a table at a quiet Italian restaurant in town, a place known for romantic dinners, for proposals and celebrations, not for nights such as this.
“What’s this?” Richard looked intrigued and happily apprehensive as she slid a small white cardboard box over to him. Daff hadn’t said anything, and Richard’s heart started to beat a little bit faster.
The evidence came tumbling out. His cell phone records, receipts from hotels on days when he was supposed to be at work, itemized credit card bills showing flowers bought, gifts paid for, none of them received by Daff.
And finally two notes that Daff found shoved to the back of his underwear drawer, almost snorting with derision as she unfolded them—his underwear drawer? Couldn’t he have been more fucking imaginative, she had said when she phoned a friend to let her know.
One was sexy, the other soulful. This was no mere friendship, and as Richard unfolded the notes and realized what they were, there was nothing he could say.
When he found his words, later that night, Daff was stunned at what she heard.
“I didn’t know it was possible,” he wept as he sat on the edge of their bed, “to be in love with two women at the same time.” He looked pleadingly up at Daff, like a child seeking reassurance from his mother.
“I love you,” he cried. “I don’t know how this happened. I didn’t plan this, Daff. I didn’t want this, and I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You lied to me,” Daff said, unable to believe the pain she was in, unable to believe that she wanted to both hit and comfort him at the same time.
“I never meant to.” Richard put his head in his hands and groaned. “It was a huge mistake. I’m so sorry.”
“You must be unhappy with me.” Daff started to cry herself. “What did I do? What was it about me? About us?”
“Nothing. Oh God, nothing. You’re amazing, there’s nothing wrong with you. That’s what I can’t understand. How can I fall for her when I’m so happy with you, when I love you so much?”
“So which one of us do you want?” Daff asked, her voice suspiciously calm and reasonable, in part not to wake Jess, whose room was only down the hall.
“I don’t know,” he wept, and something inside shifted for Daff, a little hardening of the piece of her heart that she had always thought would be reserved for Richard.
Richard moved out. Jessica wasn’t aware of what was happening at first, only that Daddy needed to be closer to work, but then she was with him on weekends, and she would lie in bed at night, her heart pounding, knowing that her parents had separated, and believing herself to be somehow the cause.
If I am extra nice, she thought, then Daddy will come home and we will all live together again. If I do everything I’m told, I will not be punished like this.
She would pray to God as she cried quietly into her pillow, attempting to strike a deal with him, attempting anything in a bid to bring her family back together again.
Richard moved out, and Nancy didn’t. What had seemed so tempting, so appealing when Richard was safely ensconced in his marriage, suddenly became terrifying when he made himself so available.
“You can come and live with me,” he would say to Nancy over lunch, attempting a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “Or get an apartment nearby. Either