Until I Find You - Rea Frey Page 0,61

on the floor. The images come. The more she pushes them away, the more they close in. She blinks. There’s Paul, at the end of the aisle, waiting for her. She remembers the giddy swell in her chest of being a carefree, young bride. Then the day Savi was born and Paul’s tears of happiness. Their first house outside of Chicago with the wraparound porch and duck pond … a house she thought they’d grow old in. But as Savi grew up, they grew apart. She was the idiot wife who truly had missed all the signs: how he’d carry his phone with him wherever he went. The made-up work events. The stories that every clichéd husband told, and yet she really hadn’t known. She’d been too consumed with Savi, preschool, violin lessons, then cello, and reconstructing her interior design career from a years-long gap.

She rolls to her back and blinks at the ceiling. The first day of Savi’s kindergarten, Paul had called from a work trip. She’d been prepared to ask him if he’d lost his job or had some secret gambling addiction she hadn’t known about. Instead, he shocked her with his confession. He said that name—Evelyn—and everything unraveled quickly after that. What he’d been hiding. What she didn’t want to hear.

“No.” Her answer was clear. “We have a daughter. We have a life. No. You can’t do this.”

“It’s not a request, Crys.”

She bristled that he could use her nickname at a time like that. She sorted through their recent issues: finances, business, the logistics of parenthood, work stress, their shitty sex life. She knew divorce wasn’t a novelty, but was it foolish to think they really would stay together for the long haul? Not because they were madly in love anymore—she was no longer a young, naïve bride—but because they needed each other to keep Savi’s little ship running smoothly. They weren’t just husband and wife. They were parents. And parents needed to stick together, because she couldn’t do it alone. And neither could he. But now he wanted to insert someone into their lives, someone who didn’t belong.

No.

Again his statement slammed into her with enough force to knock the phone from her hand. She stared at her cell on the carpet, thankful that the screen hadn’t shattered. She picked it up. “I said no.” Her tone was firm, even though her mind spun wickedly. Over the years, she’d wondered which women could possibly insert a crack into their family dynamic: his secretary. Women from work. Strangers from the gym. Her friends. But he’d chosen someone else.

Evelyn.

“She needs me,” he said.

She inhaled so sharply, she choked. “We need you.” It was Evelyn or them. He had to choose.

“Crys, I’m sorry, I…”

Her blood ran cold. Her head hurt. Fuck that. It wasn’t her head; it was her heart. She didn’t give him a chance to continue. Though he came home that night at seven on the dot, like usual, in a single moment, she went from loving her husband to not trusting him. She’d always balked when women told her similar stories—how they could kiss their husbands one day and then look at them like strangers the next.

At her age, she’d witnessed most of her friends go through divorces, custody battles, and nasty alimony arrangements. Now, despite her best efforts, she feared she would become one of them.

Crystal closes her eyes, remembering. Guilt. If only she’d put her foot down. Said no and meant it. He’d still be alive. He’d still be with them.

The door opens behind her and she moves out of the way.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know where you were. Are you okay?” Pam drops to her knees, her face flushed.

Crystal prepares the usual statement—“Yes, I’m okay”—but for some reason, the words get stuck. She’s tired of lying. She’s tired of hiding the truth. She sits up and then sags against this young woman who does what she’s told but can’t possibly grasp the enormity of what’s on Crystal’s plate. All she has to prove. All she has to get through. All she has to hide.

“I know it has to be hard, but it’s getting better. It’s all getting better,” Pam affirms.

Crystal doesn’t know exactly what she’s talking about, but she chooses to believe her. It’s all getting better because it has to.

They’ve already been through worse and survived. That’s something. She wipes her eyes and pulls away, embarrassed. Pam’s curly red hair smells like strawberries. This close, she can see ill-placed makeup caked under a