Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [99]
“Are you okay?” she asks him, thinking that he has more on the line, much more to lose, and frankly, much more reason to feel guilty.
“Yeah. I’m okay,” he says softly.
She smiles in response, but feels it fade quickly, her buzz displaced by a dose of heavy remorse as she hears the sound of piping voices in the background. His children. A far different matter from his wife. After all, she—Tessa, Tess—could be to blame in all of this, or at least a joint culprit in her own collapsing marriage. But there is no way she can reconcile what she is doing to his two innocent children, and certainly not with the convoluted rationalization that creating a family cancels out the breaking up of another—or that it exculpates her from the unabashed violation of the Golden Rule, in her mind, the only rule that really matters.
“Daddy. More butter, please!” she hears his daughter say, trying to picture her, grateful that she can’t. She thinks of the framed black-and-white photos in Nick’s office, the ones she has thus far managed to avoid.
“Sure, honey,” Nick replies to the little girl.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she chirps, her voice becoming singsongy. “Very! Very much!”
Her sweet voice and good manners stab at Valerie’s heart, adding to her burden of guilt.
“What are you all having for breakfast?” Valerie asks. It is a nervous question, one designed to acknowledge his children without directly asking about them.
“Waffles. I’m the waffle king. Right, Rubes?”
She hears the little girl giggle and say, “Yes, Daddy. And I’m the waffle princess.”
“Yes, you are,” he says. “You’re the waffle princess, for sure.”
She then hears the little boy, talking exactly as Nick joked—like a cross between the Terminator and a European gay man, a staccato trill. “Da-ddeeeee. I. Want. More. But-tah. Tooo.”
“No! That one’s mine!” she hears the little girl say, remembering Nick’s joke that Ruby is so overbearing that his son’s first words were help me.
Valerie closes her eyes again, as if to shut out the sounds of his children, and all that she knows about them. Yet she still can’t help herself from whispering, “Do you feel. . . guilty?”
He hesitates—an answer in itself—then says, “Yeah. Of course I do ... But I wouldn’t take it back.”
“You wouldn’t?” she asks, wanting to be certain.
“Hell, no ... I want to do it again,” he says, more quietly.
A chill runs down Valerie’s spine, just as she hears Ruby ask, “Do what again? Who are you talking to, Daddy?”
“A friend,” he tells her.
“What friend?” the little girl presses, as Valerie wonders if it is mere curiosity—or some sort of freakish intuition.
“Uhh . . . you don’t know this friend, honey,” he tells his daughter, carefully keeping the gender neutral. And then, to Valerie, in a hushed voice, “I better go. But can I see you later?”
“Yes,” she says as quickly as she can. Before she can change her mind—or her heart.
33
Tessa
A short time later, after I’ve avoided two follow-up calls from April and exchanged somewhat tearful good-byes with Cate, I am on my flight back to Boston, eating a standard-issue bag of miniature pretzels and unwittingly eavesdropping on two loud-talking men in the row behind me. From a quick glimpse over my seat, I glean that they fall into the beefy, guywalks-into-a-bar category, both sporting goatees, gold chains, and baseball caps. As I stare at the map in the back of my in-flight magazine, examining the myriad of domestic flight possibilities, I do my best to tune out the discussion of the “sweet Porsche” one wants to buy, and the other’s “douche of a boss,” before the conversation really revs up with the question: “So you gonna call that chick from the club or what?”
“Which club? Which chick?”
(Hearty laughter accompanied by either a knee slap or high five.)
“The double-jointed chick. What’s her name? Lindsay? Lori?”
“Oh yeah, Lind-say. Hell, yeah, I’m gonna call her. She was sexy. Sexy as shit!’
I cringe, comparing them to my intelligent, respectful husband who would never, under any circumstances, think of putting sexy and shit in the same