Unfaithful - Natalie Barelli Page 0,89
So what’s wrong with me, why am I not enough?
I’m staring down into my wine when I ask the question that’s been burning my throat all this time. “Were you going to leave us?”
He stops talking then and stares at me, his face aflame.
“Oh my god! You were?” Suddenly I’m standing.
“No! Okay, yes, fine. I was tempted, yes—I had a moment there where for a second I thought I could have another kind of life. One when I wasn’t at your beck and call all the time.”
I blink, raise a hand, palm out. I’ve managed to keep it together so far, but even I have my limits.
“My beck and call?” I say, still blinking.
“Anna! Come on!”
“This is my fault?”
“I didn’t say—”
“I’m sorry, but I’m missing something here. Are you saying I drove you to have an affair? Because of what, exactly? I ask that you walk the dog occasionally? Is that it?”
“Don’t—”
“Is that it?” I shout. I’m trembling with fury. Behind me are two mugs drying in the rack. I spin around and grab one and throw it at him. Roxy barks at my feet, spinning around, tail wagging.
Carla thumps downstairs. “What’s going on?”
I straighten myself, run a hand over my hair. “Nothing, sweetie. Dad and I are just talking.”
“We’re good, Carla. Go back upstairs. Mom’s over-reacting. Go back upstairs, Carla!”
After she’s gone I turn back to him. “Mom’s over-reacting? You think that was over-reacting?” I open a cupboard and grab a pile of plates, four, five of them.
“Anna, don’t,” he whines.
“You want over-reacting?” I ask, dropping them on the floor. “I haven’t even started yet.”
Carla reappears, this time with Matti by her side. “What’s going on? Dad?”
“Carla, can you please not ask your father anything? He doesn’t want to be at your beck and call. Also, if you could look up to him that would be great. And make him feel good about his art, otherwise—”
But Luis has taken hold of my wrist and twists it. “Shut up,” he hisses. “Don’t do this here. Let’s go outside.”
He releases my wrist and I shake my shoulders. He goes to the children and puts his arms around them. “I’m sorry, my darlings. We were having a fight. We’re fine now.”
But I’m breathing through my nose so hard it’s making my nostrils flare. I don’t think anyone would believe I’m fine. The children glare at me over his shoulder. He speaks to them in a low voice and after a while Matti picks up Roxy in his arms and the three of them go back up the stairs.
I sit back down, exhausted and deflated. I’m still there when Luis returns.
“I was trying to end it,” he says, “and that’s the truth.”
“You were?”
He reaches for the other tumbler, fills it with wine and knocks it back in one swill.
“That’s why I didn’t want her to come to dinner that night.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
I raise my chin, stare at him. Liar. I saw you. You kissed her. That wasn’t the kiss of someone trying to end things. And what about the baby?
Then, suddenly, I understand why he’s telling me this now. “Do the police know?”
He nods. I notice how gaunt his face is then, how crumpled his clothes are. How sad and thin he looks. Like the life has been drained out of him.
“Yes.”
My eyes begin to swim. “What did they say?”
He looks at me, his eyebrows knotted together, and he tilts his head slightly but sweetly, like a puppy. “They wanted to know about you.”
Thirty-Five
I didn’t sleep at all last night. My brain did its zapping thing, Zap! Zap! Like there was a lion tamer venting his rage with a bullwhip. Next to me Luis looks as peaceful as a lamb. But then that’s Luis. Always. Can sleep through an earthquake, he’d say proudly. Unless I wake him up.
In between zaps I kept going over what Luis had said.
“They wanted to know about you.”
“What about me?”
“Where you were the other night?”
“But why me?”
“Because they know about me and Isabelle,” he said finally. And it’s just as I thought. There were texts and emails that would have left little to the imagination.
“What else did they ask about me?”
“Where you were, what time you came home.”
“What did you say?”
“Babe, what could I say? I told them the truth! But it’s okay, it’s okay because you were with June so there’s no problem, they won’t even suspect you.”
“Suspect me of what?”
“I don’t know, they didn’t tell me anything, they