the smallest details spoke volumes. Geneva stared at the check, Selena’s flowery signature, the careful way she wrote the date.
I’d better put my résumé together. Her sister was not going to be happy. But doubtless she’d have a plan.
At the bottom of the stairs, she called up. “Boys are all set! I’m heading out.”
“Thank you,” called Selena, her voice muffled from down the hall.
Usually Selena would linger with Geneva, chatting about the boys or about work or the neighbors. But a wall had come down.
The other woman was biding her time, wasn’t she? Figuring out her plan before she acted. She was a cool customer; she’d known people like that before. They didn’t react right away, kept it all inside. Action, when it was taken, was quick and decisive.
She didn’t look back at the boys, at the house. Time to go.
Geneva stepped out into the dim late afternoon, the sound of the television disappearing behind her as she closed the door. Sometimes when the air was frigid like this, she wondered if spring would ever come. Late January, all the fun of the holidays past, just the gray ceiling of the northern winter sky, a waiting for brighter days. A kind of hollow would open inside of her, an emptiness that felt as if it could never be filled. Her footfalls echoed down the walk.
Athens. Venice. Barcelona. Anywhere. She could go anywhere really. She didn’t have as much money saved as she wanted. But she had enough to get by for a while, until she found another situation. Nannies. A good one was always in demand.
She liked the Murphy family, and she was sorry for whatever role she might have played in what was happening now. But, to be honest, the fractures were already there. They always were, little cracks that would widen and deepen, threaten the whole structure when pressure was applied. If the structure was sound, nothing ever would have happened. She’d been in homes where the husband didn’t even look at her, let alone touch. Men who were in love with their wives, engaged with their kids, happy. Those men—and they did exist—left her be.
Just before Selena’s family, there was the Tuckers. As a couple, the Tuckers were already unhappy when Geneva came—two jobs, two kids, a huge mortgage, two leased cars—a Lexus for her and a shiny BMW for him—a country club membership. The kids were wild—largely ignored by parents obsessed with work, their devices, their social lives. It was chaos. Erik Tucker had been handsome and charming; and something else. There was a darkness there. It was obvious now.
Geneva was a serial homewrecker. She didn’t mean to be. She and her therapist talked about it at length without talking about all the layers, all the reasons. There were things she couldn’t share about her life. About the real reason why she found herself in these situations.
When the same thing happens again and again, we have to look at that. We have to unpack it and figure out why we cause ourselves and others pain.
At the curb, she paused. Should she go back?
Should she try to talk to Selena? Maybe she could be honest with someone for once. Maybe this was one of those moments when you did something different, and something different happened.
No, that was the first rule: always pretend that nothing was wrong.
People—especially women—were racked with self-doubt. They looked around at others for cues, ways to orient themselves to a situation, the way passengers on a turbulent aircraft might look at the faces of the flight attendants. Just keep smiling, keep moving. Walk, don’t run.
But maybe if she came clean with Selena, the other woman would help her. She was that kind of person, one who would seek to help even someone who had hurt her.
Geneva, though, just kept walking away from the house.
The neighborhood was quiet, the street shaded beneath towering oaks. She never saw anyone out in their front yards. Kids rarely played in the street, or rode bikes. There were no sidewalks. The large homes were set back far from the street, seemed remote from each other somehow though the lots weren’t huge. But that was the world now, everyone in their little silo, broadcasting versions of their lives from a screen, onto the screens of others. In the stillness, her footfalls echoed off the pavement. Her breath came out in clouds.
She was just about to get into her vehicle when she heard the sound of a car door opening and