with her. I just left to get her some things from home, and I wanted to drop by and say thank you in person.”
“Oh. So … have you been here long?” I look at the iced tea, remember the discomfort of walking in to her and Jason laughing.
She flushes slightly again and grabs her straw purse from the floor. “Longer than I should have been. I’ve got to get back to the hospital. Cat, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, and again, I am so sorry.” And with that my half sister puts her arms around me and gives me a genuine hug. “It was good to meet you, Jason,” she says, as he stands up and shakes her hand across the coffee table. I watch his face very carefully as he looks at her, and I forget everything that just happened.
I know my husband.
Ex-husband.
He fancies her.
Fuck.
I know that look in his eye. For once, Cara the poison dwarf doesn’t seem like a bad alternative. I walk Julia to the car and come straight back in, standing in the doorway with my arms crossed accusingly.
“You fancy her.”
“Oh my God.” He starts to laugh. “Are you out of your mind?” And I start to feel a tiny bit better.
“You were totally flirting with her,” I say, but even I’m aware there is less conviction in my voice.
“I was not flirting with her, totally or otherwise. Actually I was curious about the sister I’d never met.”
“Half sister. You do realize it would practically be incest. And more to the point, what would Cara say if she knew you were entertaining attractive single women in your screen porch?”
Jason makes a face, looks away, then looks back at me, and I know what’s coming next, a shiver of happiness running through me in anticipation of the words I know I’m about to hear.
“We broke up.”
“What?” I sit down in the chair opposite, shocked in spite of myself, trying to hide the smile that so desperately wants to break out, having completely forgotten the unsettling conversation with Julia, having completely forgotten, in fact, that Julia was just here.
“What do you mean you broke up? When? Why? I thought this was the big one. I thought you were going to end up together.” It’s too late: The smile has made its way onto my face, and I know how massively inappropriate that is, but I can’t help it. I can’t stop smiling.
“We broke up about a month ago.”
“You didn’t say anything?”
He shakes his head.
“So. What happened?”
“It just wasn’t right.”
“Oh come on, Jason. It’s me. I know I’m not your wife anymore, but you have to tell me. Let me guess. You had enough of her telling you what to do.”
“It wasn’t just that.”
“So that was part of it?”
He groans and sinks his head into his hands. “Okay. It was all too much for me. Everything revolved around her, everything had to be done her way. I tried, I really tried to make her happy, but nothing was ever going to make her happy. I’m not sure anything ever will.”
“But you didn’t end it, surely?” I know Jason. He’s a good guy, a people-pleaser. That’s why I thought he was so stuck. Even if he was miserable, he’d have to stay to try to make it better, try to make her happy.
“She kind of ended it.” He starts to shift awkwardly in his seat. He’s not making eye contact, and I realize he must have done something, behaved in a way that made her give him an ultimatum.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I didn’t do anything!”
I peer at him. “Did you have an affair?”
“Can you have an affair when it’s just a girlfriend? Don’t you have to be married?”
“You’re totally evading the question, which means you did! You started seeing someone else!” I’m shocked, but convinced this is what he did. It’s so typically male. They’ll never directly end it, unless of course you’re a raging alcoholic and make your marriage a living hell; instead they’ll behave so badly that the woman is forced to end it, to say shape up or ship out, offer an ultimatum that enables them to make an easy exit.
“I didn’t actually do anything,” Jason admits reluctantly. “It was a flirtation, and not even one I started. Someone was flirting with me.”
“Who?”
“An actress I was working with. She was sending me some pretty outrageous texts, and Cara found them.”
My mouth has dropped open. “You really didn’t respond?”