Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [122]
April looks out the window into the backyard and shrugs despondently.
“How did you get through it?” I ask, hoping to at least glean an alternative route to the one my mother took.
“We haven’t,” she says.
“But you’re together.”
“Cheaply,” she says. “We haven’t had sex in nearly a year . . . We sleep in separate beds . . . We haven’t even been out to dinner alone . . . And I . . . basically despise him.”
“April,” I say, reaching out for her hand. “That’s no way to live . . . Did you . . . Is he sorry? Do you ever consider forgiving him?” I ask, as if it’s a simple matter of choice.
She shakes her head. “He’s sorry. Yes. But I can’t forgive him. I just. . . can’t.”
“Well, then,” I say, hesitating, thinking of my father, then Rob, then Nick. “Do you ever consider leaving him? Ending things?”
She bites her lip and says, “No. I’m not going to do that. My marriage is a joke, but I don’t want to lose my whole life because of what he did. And I don’t want to do that to my children, either.”
“You could start over,” I say, knowing that it’s not nearly as easy as I’m making it sound. That dissolving a marriage is one of the hardest things a person can go through. I know this because I saw it firsthand with my parents—and because I’ve been imagining it every day, nearly every hour, since Nick dropped his little bomb on me.
“Is that what you’re going to do?” she asks.
I shrug, feeling as forlorn and bitter as she looks, “I don’t know,” I say. “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well, I can’t start over,” she says, shaking her head sadly. “I just can’t... I guess I’m not that strong.”
I look at my friend, overwhelmed with confusion. Unsure of what April should do. What I should do. What a strong woman would do. In fact, the only thing that I am certain of is that there are no easy answers, and that anyone who says there are has never been in our shoes.
***
And now it is Christmas Eve and I am driving through the dark, mostly empty streets, watching snow flurries dance in my headlights. I have another hour before I can go home and have already exhausted my errands: buying a few final stocking stuffers for the kids, returning the sweaters I bought for Nick, stopping by the bakery to pick up the pies I ordered only minutes before Nick returned from his walk in the Common—including the coconut cream he dared to request the day before, knowing what he knew.
I try not to think about this, try not to think about anything as I weave my way through the public gardens, turning onto Beacon, then over the Mass Avenue Bridge. As I reach Memorial, my phone rings in the passenger seat. I jump, wondering whether or maybe even hoping that it’s Nick—if only so that I can ignore him once again. But it is not Nick; it is my brother, who does not yet know what has happened. I tell myself not to answer because I don’t have it in me to lie, and I don’t want to burden him on Christmas. But I can’t resist the thought of his voice—the thought of anyone’s voice. So I slip on my headset and say hello.
“Merry Christmas!” he booms into the phone over his Usual background din.
I glance at the Hancock Tower, its spire aglow with red and green lights and wish him a Merry Christmas back. “Got your card today,” I say. “What a gorgeous photo of the girls.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Rachel gets the credit on that one.”
“Obviously,” I say, smiling.
“So what are you guys up to?” he says, sounding the way you’re supposed to sound on Christmas Eve—buoyant, blithe, blessed. I can hear Julia singing the kitschy version of “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” her voice high and off-key, and my mother’s bell-like laughter, as I envision the sort of scene I used to take for granted.
“Um . . . not too much,” I say as I drive across the Salt-and-Pepper Bridge, back into Beacon Hill. “Just. . . you know . . . Christmas Eve.” My voice trails off as I realize I’m making no sense at all, not even putting a proper sentence together.
“You okay?” Dex asks.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, knowing how revealing this statement is, and