but by the time I became pregnant, Eric had already taken that spot. So I sculpted myself in the matriarch’s image out of fear. I’d gone to the right schools. Worn the right clothes. Married the right man. Or, as it happened, the very wrong one. And for what?
Family. Pride.
Faith, though. That wasn’t as clear to me, but Matthew seemed to have it in spades despite his own history of loss.
I never probed. Things like that were personal—nothing I would ever ask about, having been trained assiduously to leave politics and religion firmly out of polite conversation. But I knew his faith was deep and nuanced. I knew he attended Mass frequently with his grandmother and sisters in the Bronx. I knew he confessed what he considered his “sins” to a priest and had been going to confession more often since we met. I knew that he carried his faults around like the cross was on his back, not around his neck, and often believed he was beyond redemption.
I also knew he was mistaken.
The squeeze in my stomach tightened. Not because I felt particularly bad about being here with him.
I simply didn’t. Not anymore. Calvin Gardner was my husband in name only. He was a bad man. And the only reason I had to stay with him now was to protect myself and my daughter during the trial. Matthew said it was for my dignity. He still didn’t know about the other secrets I carried.
It was fear, not guilt, that kept me up most nights.
Better to live in the moment. Not to yearn for a future that could never be.
Even so, there was no use pretending completely. Not with Matthew.
“No,” I said. “It’s not guilt. It’s…today is my anniversary. Number ten, as it happens.”
Matthew’s face darkened. “That’s right.”
I turned on my side toward him, drifting a hand over his bare chest, then down across the solid ridges of his stomach. “You knew?”
Of course he did. Matthew had researched me and my family long ago as part of an ongoing investigation related to Eric, and now for the case he was building against Calvin.
My husband.
Live in the moment.
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. “Ten years.” I sighed. “It’s a little hard to believe.”
Matthew bared his teeth, again resembling a cat that desperately wanted to hunt. “It’s a fuckin’ tragedy, is what it is.”
I shied, as I often did when his bitterness about my marriage took over. I wasn’t afraid. I just couldn’t do anything about it, and it hurt. So, so badly.
Matthew’s face softened. “Shit, doll.” He slumped, then stood and returned to his ironing. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” My voice was sharper than intended. Almost defensive, though I wasn’t. Not of Calvin anyway.
But I knew that tone well, and it never went anywhere good. Matthew and I had had more than one argument on the street about the state of my marriage. Why? He’d always demand, before the complication of Calvin’s criminal behavior presented itself. Why do you stay?
Eventually the truth came out.
That I had been pregnant with another man’s baby when I’d married Calvin.
That none of my family had known about the affair, and at only twenty, I was too afraid of their reaction to say anything.
That my daughter, Olivia, also had no idea.
Family. Pride.
How could things so important also feel like dead weights?
I shouldn’t have resented them the way I did.
But I did. I really did.
“So what does old Calvin have planned tonight, huh?” Matthew couldn’t quite keep the vitriol out of his voice. “A room at the Plaza? Maybe a trip to Tiffany’s?”
I sat up against the headboard, then drew the sheet and my knees to my chest, shrinking more with each suggestion. They were jokes, clichés, productions of jealousy. But Matthew couldn’t know how much they hurt. If that was the sort of husband I had, I probably would have never ended up at this hotel in the first place.
No. That possibility burned as well.
“Nothing,” I said. “We generally don’t celebrate our anniversary.”
Matthew looked up. “You’re kidding.”
I shook my head. “Why should we, with such an arrangement? It’s not as if we love each other. Or ever did.”
“Because you love me now, right, baby?”
“Well…yes.”
At my frank admission, Matthew put the iron down again, and we stared at each other across the room. The air crackled.
Then he crossed over to the bed in five long strides, pulled me into his arms, and delivered a long, deep kiss. It was anything but decorous.