If You Only Knew. Kristan Higgins
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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