If You Only Knew

Yes. Except I would never send a picture like that.

I gulp a mouthful of wine. My head is starting to pound.

My husband might be having an affair.

My husband is having an affair.

The words don’t sink in.

“So you’re a piano teacher?” I ask him.

“That’s right.”

The wine in my glass trembles, as if we’re having an earthquake. Oh, no, it’s because my hands are shaking. “Some of my friends use you. Elle Birkman? Her son is Hunter. And um, um…Claudia Parvost. Her daughter is Sophia.”

“Sure. Nice people.”

Elle and Claudia aren’t really my friends. We’re in the same book club. We all belong to the COH Lawn Club. The girls and I take Mommy and Me swim classes there. Elle just had breast implants and now wears a string bikini that makes the teenage-boy lifeguard extremely uncomfortable.

Apparently, my brain will think about anything other than that…picture.

“My girls… We want them to take an instrument. I always thought piano would be the nicest.”

He smiles. It’s a sad smile, because he knows. “How old are they?”

“Three and a half.”

“Twins?”

“Triplets.” I smile, but my smile is broken and weak, wobbly as a newly hatched baby bird. “Are they too young?”

“Not necessarily. If they can sit still for half an hour, they’re not too young.” It’s a kind answer, because he doesn’t want to deny me anything right now, because I’m a pathetic, stupid wife, the wife is always the last to know, my wife doesn’t understand me, my wife will never find out, I’m leaving my wife.

I chug the rest of the wine in my glass.

“Why don’t I go?” Leo says.

“Yes. Thank you,” Jenny says, standing up. She walks him to the door, and they murmur for a second, no doubt expressing their horror and sympathy for me.

Jenny comes back and sits next to me, her pretty face concerned. This was supposed to be her weekend. I was supposed to help her, and the girls were supposed to come to cheer her up, because it’s really real now, her divorce from Owen, Owen’s new family, and she loved him so much, and God, I hope he never cheated on her, she said he didn’t but who can really know anything anymore? No one. That’s who.

Suddenly I’m crying very hard, not just leaking tears but full-on, chest-ripping sobs that hurt, they’re so vicious.

“Oh, honey,” Jenny whispers, holding me close. “Oh, sweetie.”

“Don’t tell anyone. I have to figure out what to do first,” I choke out between the awful, shuddering convulsions.

“No, I won’t,” she says. “And…Rachel, whatever you need, I’m here. If you and the girls want to stay here—”

“No!” I yelp, startled out of my tears. “No! It’s way too early to think about anything like that. I don’t even know if it’s true. Please, Jenny.”

“No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

My phone chimes with a text. Adam:

We’re home. How’s Jenny’s place? Should we come over?

A completely normal text. Normal husband talk. “Look at this,” I say, wiping my eyes on my sleeve. “I mean, seriously, it was probably a mistake. Whoever sent that just dialed the wrong number.”

“It… Sure. It could’ve been.”

I stare at the phone, then hand it to my sister. “Could you answer? Just say the place is a mess and I’ll be home later?”

She types my response, then hands me back the phone.

Adam replies, Okay, babe. Love you.

See? He loves me. Of course he does.

When we were engaged, we talked about cheating. I brought it up, even though it was hard, even though my heart was sledgehammering through my chest wall. I mean, I’m not really the ultimatum type, but certain things have to be said. I wouldn’t be able to stay with you if you ever cheated, I told him, and he said he’d never, ever do such a thing. He only loved me. He only wanted me.

He didn’t feel the need to warn me that cheating would be a deal breaker for him, too. Obviously, I’d never cheat on him. It went without saying, even back then.

He loves our life as much as I do. He wouldn’t risk it.

“I think this was all a mistake,” I say with more conviction.

Because if it’s not, everything is different now.

The doorbell rings. Jenny stands and looks out the window. “Shit. It’s Mom. I’ll get rid of her. Why don’t you hide in the bathroom?”

I obey. My legs feel weak, and that wine is throbbing in my brain, thick and sluggish.

“Hey, Mom, I’m not feeling so good,” I hear Jenny say. “I have a wicked headache. And I’m almost done, really.”

“You must be so depressed,” Mom says. “You look awful. Was it heartbreaking?”

“Um…not really. We’ve been divorced for more than a—”

“Of course it was. Oh, honey. I’m so sorry for you. Even though Rob’s life was cut short, at least we never had to even think about divorce. We might not have had many years together, but we made them count. You don’t even have that, you poor thing. Want me to rub your head?”

“I’m good.”

Nothing makes our mother happier than discussing the troubles of those around her—even her daughters, and sometimes especially us—so long as she can come out the winner. Those four years that I tried so hard to get pregnant, all she could talk about was how easy it had been for her. When the girls were born by C-section, all of them just about four pounds—which was great, given that they were triplets—Mom delighted in telling me for the thousandth time about how both Jenny and I came into this world at twice that weight. Both you girls were perfectly healthy, she said, sounding slightly perplexed. Well. I’m sure yours will grow.

If she saw me now, she’d home in on me like a missile. And unlike Jenny, I can’t hide anything.

My face in the mirror is nearly unrecognizable. I look terrified. I can’t lose Adam. I can’t. I love him so, so much. There has to be a mistake.

After my father died, I couldn’t look in the mirror, because the heartbreak was written over my face so clearly.

I look the same now. Eyes too wide. Skin too white.

They’re still talking; Mom doesn’t want to leave, wants to talk about Owen’s new baby and hear again how Jenny had to deliver her.

“Look, Mom, you’re right,” my sister says. “I’m incredibly depressed, I have a migraine—”

“I’ve never had a migraine. I never even get headaches.”

“—and just want to be alone so I can wallow. Maybe we can have lunch this week. Come by the shop, okay? It’s really cute.”

“Yes, but it’s hardly Manhattan, is it? I hope you won’t go bankrupt. You should’ve moved to Hedgefield. You could live with me until you get on your feet, and we—”

“Okay, Mom, thanks! Bye.” The door closes, and another minute passes. “It’s safe,” Jenny calls.

My college roommate was from Los Angeles, and she described being in an earthquake. If you can’t trust the ground to stay still, she’d said, the entire world seems wrong.

I feel that way now.

“What can I do?” Jenny asks as I come out on my fearful legs.

“I don’t know.”

I have to believe that Adam was not the intended recipient of that hideous, disgusting picture. How do gynecologists do it all day, look between the legs of their patients and not just…just throw up?

My sister takes my hand. Even though she’s younger, she’s always been more certain.

I take a deep breath. I’m a mother. I’m not a weakling, and I have to be logical and smart. I have three children with this man. I can’t just react. “I have to talk to him, I guess.”

“Want me to babysit, and you guys can go somewhere? Or I can take the girls out. They can even stay over here tonight. I’d love that.”

“I don’t know. I just… I don’t know.”

My sister nods, then takes a slow breath. “I hate to ask this,” she says, “but are there any other…red flags?”

Anything that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was cheating, she means.

“I don’t think so. He’s been tired lately. But people get tired. He’s been working on this really complicated case, and… Well. He’s been tired.”

It’s just that tired never meant too tired before.

She doesn’t say anything. Is she pitying me? Disagreeing? Agreeing?

Adam’s a corporate attorney. He knows things that save his clients millions of dollars each year. He’s great at his job, was made partner at the firm, second in seniority only to Jared Brewster, who grew up down the street from us and used to sit on the bus with me. And since Jared’s grandfather founded the firm, I’d say Adam is doing even better, maybe. He’s important. He works a lot, it’s true.

Maybe his lover is a client.

His lover. My stomach heaves at the word. I’ve always hated that word. It’s too intimate, too romantic, too smarmy. I don’t want my husband to have a lover. I’ve never even thought of myself as his lover. I was his girlfriend, then his fiancée, then his wife.

“There’s a lot to lose here,” I whisper.

“Yes.” Jenny squeezes my hand, and I hate that I need a hand squeeze. I’m usually the giver of the hand squeezes…well, in the past year or so, anyway.

It’s now past 7:30 p.m., so the girls are almost certainly in bed and sound asleep.

I guess I have to go home.

For the first time in my life, that thought fills me with dread.

* * *

I SLIP IN the house like a shadow and go right upstairs when I get home. Opening the door to the girls’ bedroom, I feel a rush of love so strong that it momentarily crushes all the horrible worming thoughts that have twisted through my mind for the past twenty-four hours.

This room is pure. I know exactly who I am in this room.

My little girls are asleep; Charlotte is snoring slightly, Grace is sucking her thumb, Rose is sleeping upside down, her feet on the pillows. I kiss Grace first, then Charlotte, then turn Rosebud right-side-up and kiss her, too. I whisper “Mommy loves you” to each of them, breathing in their sweet and salty smell.

Here, in this room, I know everything that really matters. I was born to be a mommy. These girls are my life.

Some of the sticky fear slips away.

I go downstairs, through the living room and into the den, where Adam is talking on the phone. “I feel the same way,” he murmurs, then catches sight of me and jumps.

Guilty.

“Hi,” I say.

“Eric, my beautiful wife just came home,” he says, smiling. Not guilty? “Can we talk on Monday? Great. Thanks. You bet.” He clicks off the phone and stands up. “Hi, babe! I didn’t hear you come in. Want a glass of wine? I made the girls mac and cheese, but I could make you an omelet or something.”

Of course he made the mac and cheese.

And yet, these are not the words of a cheating husband.

“I’ll have some wine,” I say. We go into the kitchen, he pours me a glass of white, and I take a sip. The kitchen is sloppy; granted, I’m almost obsessive about neatness, but the pot from the girls’ unnutritious dinner is sitting in the sink, the powdery cheese sauce hardening, and mail is strewn over the counter, which hasn’t been wiped down.

Usually I’m just grateful that Adam doesn’t view spending the afternoon with his children as a heroic feat, like some fathers do. But it would be nice if he just once cleaned up the way I do a thousand times a day.

“How’s the new place?” he asks, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “Is Jenny happy with it?”

“It’s great,” I answer. My heart pumps too hard, and I picture a big ugly hand around it, squeezing ruthlessly, forcing the blood to gush through my veins. Arteries. Whatever. “It’s really charming.” What are we talking about? Oh, yes. My sister’s place.

He waits for more. He likes my sister.

I wonder if he finds her attractive.

God, where did that come from?

“Adam, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure, babe.” He waits, his dark eyes expectant. I love his brown eyes. Mine are boring blue; Jenny got our father’s dark, dark eyes, almost black. But Adam’s are light brown, whiskey-colored and special.

“Um…how were the girls today?” I ask, suddenly dreading what I’m about to say next.

“They were great. Well, Rose was a maniac at the museum, and Grace’s shoe came untied, and you know how she hates that, and I had to take all three of them into the ladies’ room. Got a lot of dirty looks from some women, but really, what am I supposed to do? Take them into the men’s room? No way.” He grins. “My babies aren’t going to see a man’s junk for forty more years.”

I smile. A tiny ray of relief seems to break through the clouds around my head, checking to see if it’s okay to stay.

This is not how a cheating husband talks. It had to have been a wrong number.

“So what did you want to talk about?” he asks.

I fold my hands, which still seem to have a tremor. “Well, um, yesterday, something happened.”

“What?”

Should I even show him? Maybe it would be better if I didn’t. Maybe—

“Rachel? Hello? What, honey?”

I showed Jenny, and I asked Leo, and he’s a stranger. I have to show my husband of the past nine years. He deserves to know.

I pull my phone from my bag and tap on the text so the disgusting picture fills the screen. Slide it across the counter to him.

Color rises from the collar of his polo shirt, up his neck, into his jaw and cheeks, a heavy, dark red.

Guilty.

Oh, God. Guilty.

Adam clears his throat, then slides the phone back to me. “What is that?”

“You know what it is, Adam.” My voice trembles.

“Yeah, okay, I can guess. Who sent it to you? And why would they do that?”

“It was sent to you.”

He blinks. Is his face getting redder? “What are you talking about?”

“When you were putting the girls to bed last night, someone texted this to you. I forwarded it to myself and deleted it off your phone.”

“You deleted it? Why? Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me last night?” He presses his lips together. “And why are you checking my phone all of a sudden? Why would you do that?”

“I was putting your jacket in the dry-cleaning bag, and I saw it.”

“So you just… You… Why didn’t you tell me someone’s sending me porn?”

“Who sent it?”

“I don’t know!” His voice slaps off the stainless-steel appliances. “How should I know? Did you call them back? Let me see that again.” He grabs the phone back. “Private number.” He looks up at me. “Could be anybody.”

“Anybody sending a crotch shot, that is.” I sound like Jenny.

He stares at me. “Do you think I’m cheating on you?” His eyes are hard.

I don’t answer. All of a sudden, the tables are turned, and my face is the one that grows hot.

“Jesus, Rachel! Are you kidding me?”

“Keep your voice down,” I say. “Don’t wake the girls.”

“I’m sorry! I’m a little upset! My wife thinks I’m cheating on her. I guess she thinks I’m a really shitty person!”

“Adam, there’s a picture of…that on your phone. What am I supposed to think?”

“Maybe you could think ‘Hey, this must be a mistake, because my husband isn’t some douche-bag scum.’”

“I—I’m sorry, okay?” I take a breath, feel the burn of tears in my eyes. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would be sent by mistake, that’s all. I’d think you’d be really careful about getting the right number if you were sending that to someone.” Thank you, Leo.

“You told Jenny about this, didn’t you? I bet she had a fucking field day. She hates men these days.”

“She does not. And no, she didn’t have a field day. I showed her because…well, I wasn’t sure what it was. I hoped it was a mistake. I did. But I needed to talk to you about it, and it’s new territory, okay?”

He gives a short laugh. “Yeah. I guess so.” He takes a breath and releases it slowly. “I love you, Rachel. I thought you loved me, too. I’d hope you’d at least give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“Of course I love you, Adam. It’s just very…weird and horrible, and I didn’t know what to ask, or how to talk about this, or…or…”

“Do you believe me?”

His voice is cold and sharp, and suddenly, that terror rears up again.

I don’t want things to change. I have cupcakes to make tomorrow, six dozen, because the girls are all in a different preschool class, and each class needs two dozen cupcakes. Also, I call my mother-in-law every Sunday morning to give her a grandchild report, and what would I say if Adam is cheating on me? And Jenny’s just moved, and there are going to be long, happy dinners and lovely spring evenings on the back patio, and Adam… Adam cried when the girls were born. Really cried. He loves me, and he loves our daughters, and he loves our life.

“Rachel, do you believe me?” he asks again, more loudly.

“Yes. I do.”

He closes his eyes and lets out a long breath. “Thank you.” Then he comes around the counter behind me and slides his arms around me from behind. Kisses my neck. “Baby, I love you. The picture is disgusting, but come on. Don’t be so dramatic next time. Not that there’ll be a next time, please God.”

“You’re right.” Two tears slide down my cheeks, and honestly, I don’t know how to feel. Relieved? Sick? Happy?

I was wrong. It was a mistake.

We go upstairs. We make love. It’s good. It’s us. We know what the other likes, what to say and when, what moves to employ, where to touch for the best effect. It occurs to me that I’m glad our birth control is condoms, and then I push that thought out of my head.

We’re okay. We’re still us. Adam and me and the girls…everything is the same.

It’s just that everything feels so different.

Chapter 5: Jenny

THE NEXT DAY, I have to go to the city for a fitting from a bride who’s so high-maintenance that asking her to come to Cambry-on-Hudson might well cause a brain aneurysm. The gown hangs in its blush-colored bag; I had a hundred of them ordered for Bliss, as well as special hangers that can hold up to twenty-five pounds, because some of these dresses are heavy. The bride, Kendall, is the kind who treats me like a servant, texting and complaining as I kneel at her side, pinning her last-minute changes and adjusting the seams since she’s lost ten pounds in the past two weeks out of sheer rage. To call her bridezilla would be unkind to Japan’s favorite monster.

But first, my sister.

Rachel texted me last night around ten, saying it was all a mistake, and she felt terrible for thinking Adam had cheated. I asked if I could call, but she said she was really tired.

I’m not sure I believe my brother-in-law, and I hate that I’m not sure.

When I first met Adam, Rachel was already overwhelmingly in love. Her first love, really, though she’d had a few boyfriends, always these rather nice, shy, geeky man-child types who wore Doctor Who T-shirts and spoke Klingon. But Adam was different, very sure of himself, and very charismatic. She glowed around him. They dated only a month or so before he proposed—asking for permission from Mom and me first, which won serious points with me and turned the event into an “I Miss Rob” occasion for Mom.

Adam cried when he saw Rachel in the church on their wedding day—it wasn’t just the dress, which, trust me, was amazing, a modified A-line satin and French lace with a sweetheart neckline and delicate capped sleeves. He kept his sense of humor through the infertility years, and he brought Rachel flowers twice a week all through her pregnancy.

He’s also a really good dad, though perhaps not as good as Rachel thinks he is… He’s a little too aware of the fact that he does more than some of his peers, but he’s content to let Rachel do the hard stuff, the getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-when-someone-has-the-pukes stuff, the grocery-shopping-with-all-three-of-them-at-once stuff. But he’s there, and he loves them, and he does contribute. And let’s face it. Rachel loves being a stay-at-home mom.

I call Rachel just before I leave the house. “Oh, hey,” she says. “Just a minute, okay? Charlotte, honey, I have to take this, okay? Can you please give that to Daddy? Thank you, sweetheart.” There’s a pause, and I hear a door close. “Hi,” she says.

“How are things today?” I ask.

“Well, I showed him the picture,” she whispers, “and he was really confused and then he got upset that I thought…you know. He has no idea who sent it. But he was really nice about it.”

“Nice about what?”

“About me thinking that maybe he…strayed.”

I press my lips together. “Hmm.”

“So we’re good. I think this is just a case of a mistaken phone number. I just feel really bad for what I thought.”

“Rach, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think your husband is having an affair when Private Number sends him a crotch shot,” I say. “I hope he got that.”

“No, no, he did,” Rachel says. “We’re past it. Actually, we’re just leaving for church, so I have to run, okay? Listen, I’m so sorry about yesterday. I really wanted to help you get settled. I just freaked out.”

“It’s really okay. You deserved to freak out.” I pause. “And I’m glad things aren’t what they seem.”

Except I smell a rat. Leo, a total stranger, smelled a rat. Yes, yes, there’s a chance Adam is telling the truth.

But my gut is telling me he’s not.

“He’s a great husband,” Rachel says. “And you know how the girls adore him.”

“Yeah. I do. You go, hon. I have to run down to the city with a dress.”

“Okay. Hey, tell your friend thanks for me. I’m so embarrassed.”

“My friend?”

“Leo.”

“Oh, right. Okay, have a good day. Talk to you later.”

If Adam is cheating on my sister, I will rip off his testicles. Through his throat.

I pick up the dress and my purse and head outside. Leo is lying on his lounge chair, eyes closed, dog by his side, bottle of beer in his hand. “Hi,” I say. “A little early for drinking, isn’t it?”

“It sure is, Mom,” he says, taking a swig without opening his eyes. The dog lifts his head and growls at me.

“My sister wanted me to say thanks.”

“She’s welcome.”

“And thank you from me, too. You were very nice.”

“No problem. I excel at catching women when they faint.” He scratches behind Loki’s ear, and the dog makes a guttural sound.

There’s something arresting about Leo’s face. Angular and a little thin, unshaven. Despite his easy words, there are two lines between his eyebrows. He looks up at me.

“No eye-fucking,” he says.

“Because you’re gay?” I suggest.

“Only where you’re concerned, darling.” He winks, and though I’ve just been rather brilliantly insulted, I can’t help a smile. “Are you going to the prom?” he asks, gesturing with the beer bottle at the dress bag.

“No.” Placing the dress carefully on the backseat, I secure the hanger onto the hook. “I’m a wedding dress designer.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That’s a real job? I mean, they all kind of look alike, don’t they?”

“Have a nice day,” I say, waving. Well, my middle finger waves. Leo laughs, and there it is again, that warm pressure in my chest.

* * *

“I WANT YOU to take all the rosettes off,” Kendall says.

We’re in the living room of her parents’ Upper West Side apartment, and I’m kneeling at her feet, my pincushion strapped to my wrist, taking the dress down from a size 00 to microscopic. It looks like her bones are about to slice through her skin.

“Your wedding is in six days, Kendall,” I say. “It’s a little late to change the design completely.”

“Look, I hate them, okay? Just lop them off or something.”

Being a custom wedding dress designer means one thing—the bride gets what the bride wants. We start the process, which takes a year on average, with the bride emailing me pictures of wedding dresses she loves. But there’s a reason she’s not getting one of those, and it’s either that she’s a hard size to fit, or she wants something completely unique.

Kendall wanted something unique. She sent me thirty-nine pictures of dresses she loved, from a minidress to a ball gown with twelve-foot train. I made her seventeen sketches, then, when she finally settled on one—the one festooned with beautiful, creamy rosettes—I ended up making twenty-two alterations to that sketch. Then, when she said she was deliriously happy with the design, I made the pattern. Cut the dress out of muslin and had her come in for a fitting. She wanted the dress changed again; not a problem, but from then on, it would cost her. A lot.