She Has Your Eyes (23 page)

He shook his head again and hopped off the bed. “I don’t fucking believe this.” He paced around the room.

“Why is it so hard for you to accept that some people change? They grow up over time, learn from their mistakes, become remorseful.”

“
Some
people,” he said.

“You sure as hell weren’t the same person in Rome that I first met in New York. You were a better version of yourself. How can you be so sure Andrew’s not a better version of himself? Doesn’t he deserve the same consideration?”

“For chrissakes, he
cheated
on you! Are you forgetting that?”

“And you were doing every woman in Manhattan while stringing me along—are you forgetting
that
?” I yelled.

He practically flinched, as if the verbal arrow I’d just slung had struck him right in the chest.

He fumed. “How fucking dare you,” he said, his voice an octave lower, menacing, frightening, even. “How dare you use my fucking past—
our
fucking past—against me like that and put me on the same level as him. I was not sleeping with those women and engaged to someone else at the same time. Hell, I wasn’t sleeping with any of them, and you and I weren’t even
dating
.”

“Right. Because it was against the rules,” I mocked. “David, if you can’t trust me, then you’d better tell me now; otherwise marriage is out of the question.”

He stood there, dumfounded by the line in the sand I’d just drawn. I was desperate to read his mind, to know what he was thinking, afraid he would say,
You’re right, Andi.

David opened the door and stormed out of the bedroom without saying a word.

My heart raced as I sat for a few minutes, trying to catch my breath. I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. The scent of his aftershave lingered. After taking a few deep breaths, I calmed down and left the bedroom to look for him, and found him in the den with the television on, obliviously channel surfing.

He was seated at the end of the couch. I sat closer to the middle, one leg tucked under, and gradually inched toward him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the e-mails,” I said. “It was wrong of me to keep that from you. You have every right to be angry about that.”

He didn’t answer. Just kept channel surfing, refusing to look at me.

“Say the word, and I’ll never see or speak to him again. I’ll even show you the e-mails, if you want.”

He flicked off the TV and turned to me.

“I don’t want to. You know why?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Because then you’ll resent the hell out of me. And you’ll want to see him even more. And you’ll go behind my back again. I’m not going to be some control freak who hacks into your e-mail and checks your cell phone when you’re in the other room, Andi. I’m not going to be that asshole.”

“You are so wrong, David.” I added a beat between the words to emphasize them the second time. “So. Wrong. If there were a scale for wrong, you would’ve broken it. I would
never
resent you. And I would never go behind your back to see him.”

David put his hand to his forehand and pinched the space at the top of his nose, between his brows. I’d seen him do it before, as a way to keep himself from crying.

“You already have,” he said, his voice breaking.

My God. He was right.

“Andi, I don’t want you to see him,” he said, softer this time. Wounded. “But not because
I
don’t want you to. I don’t want
you
to want to see him.”

The words punched me in the gut. I didn’t want to want to see him, either. But the feeling wasn’t going away. Why? Why did I have to feel anything?

Filled with guilt and shame and remorse, I started to cry. “I’m sorry, David,” I said as I jumped up from the couch and ran upstairs, back to the bedroom. As I lay in darkness, drowning in the confusion—what did I
really
want with this meeting?—the touch of David’s hand on my back was like an anchor pulling me back to shore. He tenderly rubbed the spot before lying down and spooning me, neither of us speaking, waiting for my tears to subside.

“It’s too much, Andi,” he finally said. “It’s Wylie, and your mother, and now this? How are we supposed to manage it all?”

“By getting through it together.”

The moment I said the words, it was as if a switch had turned off. I didn’t want to see Andrew, didn’t need to. Closure had happened a long time ago, the moment Sam came into my life. And that wouldn’t have happened were it not for Devin the Escort cutting the chains that bound me for so long with just one breath of acceptance for who I was, for
seeing
me in the first place. No, it was
David
who had that x-ray vision. But Devin was the one who was able to sell me on it, to get me to see me too.

I was ready to tell him that I was going to inform Andrew that I would not be seeing him, chatting with him, e-mailing him, sending smoke signals, nothing; and I knew David would believe me. The resolute tone of my voice would be enough. But just as I opened my mouth, David spoke first.

“In that case, I should tell you that I’ve been keeping something from you too.”

chapter twenty-nine

As I lay beside David, every part of me, right down to my breath, turned to stone, a deer intuiting the barrel of a gun in range.

“Whaaat?” I drew out, sounding like a high school girl.

David continued. “I met with Janine. Twice.”

And that cracked me out of my frozen pose. I flinched and pulled away from him. “
What?
”

“Remember when you went to meet your mother for lunch? Well, Janine and I met for lunch too. Just the two of us. The second time, I drove to and from Hartford on one of your teaching days.”

I’ve never had a sumo wrestler sit on me, but I imagined it felt something like the weight of his confession on my chest and stomach.

“Why—why did you see her without me? More to the point, why did you see her and
not tell me
about it?”

“Because I had to establish a trust with Janine. She already felt you and I were ganging up on her. I wanted to show her that when it comes to Wylie, I’m all in.”

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me.”

“There’s something else. She called me the day after your tutoring session.”

I sat up and snapped on the light, squeezing my eyes shut in reaction to the brightness. “What did she say?”

“She said she doesn’t want you to tutor Wylie anymore.”

“And that’s all she said?”

He hesitated. “She also said she doesn’t want you spending time with Wylie alone, without me. Nor does she want you to have any contact via e-mail and stuff.”

This was Peter’s getting through to her? This was working something out? Granted, it was better than the previous ultimatum, but still… “Did she tell you why?”

“She said you and Wylie were talking about her behind her back, bad-mouthing her and comparing me to Peter, showing him up. Said you pushed Wylie too hard during the tutoring session. I said that didn’t sound like you, but she was pretty obstinate.”

I smoldered. “And what did
you
say?”

“I said I’d honor her request. Look, Andi, it’s just temporary, while Wylie and I are getting to know each other. Janine will come around. But for now it’s best to give her what she wants.”

Sonofabitch. Janine was right. Blood is thicker.

“And you thought the best way to do that was to go behind your fiancée’s back, not give her—
me
—the benefit of the doubt? Geez, Dev, you didn’t even ask me for my side of the story. Wylie and I were not talking about Janine behind her back, or whatever she accused me of doing—at least not in some vicious way. Wylie was just confiding in me about stuff that teenagers confide to women other than their mothers. And, I don’t know, Janine lost it. I don’t believe this,” I said after a beat. “You sat there persecuting me the whole time knowing that you were just as guilty. You hypocrite.”

“Andi, it’s not the same.”

I laughed angrily. “Oh, I have to hear this one. Go on. Explain to me how it’s not the same.”

“Because Janine and I have a child together. We needed to talk about what’s best for our child, and we needed to work out our own differences in order to do that.”

“You needed
closure
,” I offered.

“No, we needed a mutual understanding and a new relationship, for Wylie’s sake. I’m not saying we’re all kosher now, but we found common ground. And we needed to find it without any spousal interference.”

“So, because Andrew and I don’t have a child together, I’m not allowed that.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Because Andrew cheated on me. Janine only concealed your daughter from you for fifteen years. Of course he should be crucified and she gets to find
common ground
with you.”

“Stop it,” he said.

“You could’ve told me! You could’ve said, ‘Andi, I’m going to meet with Janine to talk over some things. This is something I need to do without you.’ I would’ve understood and supported you.”

“You’re right. I should’ve told you. But Janine asked me not to.”

“So of course you listened to the woman who kept the mother of all secrets—forgive the pun.”

“Watch it,” he said through clenched teeth. “She’s the mother of my child.”

I dropped my jaw. “She
lied to you
for fifteen years!”

“You reminded me of that several times, thank you.”

“It doesn’t seem to be sinking in.”

“You think I’m not angry about that? I’m furious with her, Andi, and I told her so! But what good is it to hold a grudge
against her now, when I’ve got my daughter to think about? I want a relationship with her, and if that means forgiving her mother and making a fresh start, so be it.”

“And you think Andrew doesn’t deserve the same courtesy from me just because he didn’t knock me up?”

“Your being flip isn’t doing anything other than pissing me off something fierce,” he said, “so knock it off.”

I grabbed my pillow and headed out the door.

“Where are you going?” he called after me.

I charged to the guest bedroom and then ground to a halt the moment I slapped on the light and entered, feeling choked by invisible hands. This was no longer the guest bedroom; it was
her
room now. It was the smell of it that choked me, I realized. The smell of the room had changed.

I did an about-face and stormed down the hallway toward the study when David blocked me.

“Andi, let’s talk about this.”

Refusing to look at him, I pushed past him like a passenger on a New York subway. “Out of my way.”

“Come on.” He followed me into the study. I chucked the pillow onto the end of the leather sofa and grabbed the fleece throw that rested on the arm, whirling and wrapping it around me like a cape.

“You’re sleeping in
here
tonight?” he asked.

“No, assclown. I’m meditating.”

From my peripheral vision I saw him clench his fists and clamp his mouth shut. He looked ready to tell me to fuck off, and I knew I deserved it for that last jab.

“Fine,” he fumed, and he left the door open as he exited. “Good night, Andi,” thundered from the hallway.

Cocooned in the throw, I curled up in a fetal position, closed my eyes, and cried softly. Not only had the switch
flipped back on, but I wanted to see Andrew even more than before, and it made me nauseous.

Hours later, still unable to sleep, I went downstairs, took my iPad out of its case, and typed an e-mail:

Andrew,

I thought about it. If you still want to meet, I’m OK with it.

Andi

chapter thirty

While we sat in a waiting room of the Cancer Center in Stony Brook, my mother fanned through a
Good Housekeeping
magazine as I read and commented on a student paper, the stack beneath it sitting comfortably in my lap. At one point I could feel her watching me, and I diverted my attention. She wore an expression of fascination mixed with something like remorse or regret.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen what you do. Your job, I mean.”

As the revelation sank in for both of us, I saw her eyes misting over; but before either of us could continue, a nurse stepped out and called my mother’s name. Mom cleared her throat and dabbed her eyes and stood up and pressed out her pantsuit with her hands. I gathered my things and followed them both. This was Mom’s third treatment, and she already knew the way.