away. I foresaw scintillating dinner conversation.
We ate, and glared, and didn’t talk. The kids noticed—okay, Leah noticed, and Ethan might have caught a loose vibe here or there through his prattle about The Simpsons—and ate quickly. They left us in the kitchen alone.
Abigail stood and started to clear the table. “I’ll do that,” I said, but she went on doing it. I stood up and got in her way on purpose.
“Okay. As boneheaded plays go, this was my best all-time. I was way off base, I never should have done it, I’m a complete idiot, and you should divorce me before the evening is over. Does that about cover it?” She walked around me and put the dishes in the sink. “Abby!”
“I’ve never been this mad at you before, Aaron, and you’re not going to be able to charm me out of it,” she said, not looking in my direction.
“I’m not trying to charm you out of it. I’m admitting that it was unconscionable. I was wrong, I’m apologizing, and promising that nothing even remotely like this will ever happen again.” I took her hands, and she let me, although she wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“If anything had happened to you. . .” she began, and put her head on my shoulder.
“To me? Nothing was going to happen to me. I was there trying to make sure nothing would happen to you.”
She held me tight and started to tremble just a little. “You’re such a jerk,” she said.
“I think we’ve established that.”
“You go through your life thinking you’re the one in this marriage who loves the other one more.”
It took me a minute to navigate that sentence. “Well, I am. I love you more than you love me. It’s only natural.”
“Why? Why is it natural?” She stood back enough to look me in the eye. Hers were a little damp.
“Because you’re the more attractive person in the relationship.”
“So it all has to do with looks?”
“No, I mean attractive in the literal sense of the word. You attract people more than I do. I tend to irritate them. You’re the one everybody likes. You’re the one all the men follow with their eyes. . .”
“You want men to follow you with their eyes?”
I ignored that. “You are, in the case of this marriage, the ‘catch.’ You even make a lot more money than I do. And I had, as you know, a bit of trouble finding women who wanted to know me before we met.”
“I’ve heard the history.” She rolled her eyes a bit.
“So it’s natural that I should love you more. You are top-of-the-line Porsche, and I’m a used Pontiac. You saved me from the junk heap, and I adore everything about you. Don’t you think I see all the dents and dings I’ve accumulated, physically and emotionally, over the years? But you’re still a cream puff.” It was, without question, the analogy I have most regretted using in my life.
“Aaron,” Abby said, shaking her head and sitting on a kitchen chair. “I fell in love with you. I married you. I have two kids with you. Do you really think I’d do all that with some guy because I felt sorry for him? I’m lucky to have you, and I thank the heavens every day that we met. You don’t love me more, and I don’t love you more. We love each other. That’s why our marriage works.”
“So you’re not going to kill me?”
“No. But I might maim you a bit. That was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and nothing like that must ever happen again, you understand?” I knelt beside her chair and nodded.
“It won’t ever happen again, Abby. I swear.”
She bit her lower lip, a sign that she’s going to do something she thinks she shouldn’t. “So, what’d you think of Preston Burke?” she asked quickly, before she could censor herself.
“At first, I thought you were insane,” I told her, “but after a while, I saw how he could come across as dangerous.”
“Do you think he threw the rock and made that phone call?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Just when I convince myself it couldn’t have been him, I recall the look in his eye when he realized I wasn’t who I said I was. . .”
“Aaron!”
“Don’t worry. He doesn’t know anything about us being married. The fact is, Abby, we’ll probably never hear from him again.”
And, of course, the phone rang.
I picked it up, and somehow, I already knew the