Chapter 2
He let out a long, heavy sigh and leaned his hands on the counter, dropping his head as if the mere act of speaking to me was draining his life force.
“Rose,” he said, his voice thick with exhaustion. “It was a gift.”
I looked at the counter.
“A gift? For a hotel suite?”
“For a client. A very important client who was threatening to take his account to a competitor.”
He picked up his shake.
“I bought him and his wife a weekend away to smooth things over. I put it on my personal card because corporate wouldn’t approve a luxury spa expense.”
I watched him drink his shake.
“You bought a client a weekend away, but you were the one who traveled that week.”
Thomas closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I went to Atlanta. The client went to Asheville. I kept the receipt for my own tax records.”
He set the glass down harder than necessary.
“Why do you always do this?”
“Do what?”
“Turn everything into an interrogation. I am out there killing myself trying to hit my third-quarter numbers. I am losing my hair over this medical supply contract. And I come home, on a Saturday, and my wife is digging through my filing cabinet trying to find a reason to accuse me of something.”
He looked at me with deep, manufactured disappointment.
“I’m just trying to provide for this family,” he said softly. “And you make me feel like a criminal in my own house.”
He walked past me, taking his shake out to the patio. The sliding glass door clicked shut behind him.
I stayed in the kitchen.
I felt a familiar heaviness settling onto my chest.
That was his specific talent. He had a way of twisting reality just enough that you started questioning your own eyesight.
I had spent the entire week reviewing spreadsheets, answering late-night emails from clients, and finalizing a menu featuring crab cakes and filet mignon for his friends.
Yet, standing in my kitchen, he had managed to make me feel like a paranoid, ungrateful burden.
I looked at the receipt on the counter.
The explanation was plausible. It was just logical enough to make me doubt myself.
A smart woman would have checked the credit card statement against the dates. A smart woman would have called the hotel to see whose name was actually on the reservation.
But I was tired.
I had a budget projection due by noon, and the caterer was waiting for a final headcount for the birthday dinner.
So I took the receipt, placed it inside my planner, and went back to work.
I chose to believe him because believing him was easier than dismantling my entire life on a Saturday morning.
I told myself I was just being sensitive. I told myself the stress of the party was getting to me.
I wrapped myself in the comfort of being busy, ignoring the quiet, steady hum of intuition warning me that the math in my marriage was fundamentally broken.
The dinner table was set for four.
I had spent three hours roasting a pork loin and preparing a reduction sauce, moving between the stove and the kitchen island while Thomas poured drinks in the living room.
It was our standard Sunday routine.
His mother, Brenda, sat at the head of the mahogany table. Mike, Thomas’s oldest friend and golf partner, sat across from him.
Brenda took a sip of her wine and placed the glass exactly in the center of her coaster. She looked at me across the table, her eyes scanning my face, my hair, and the plain gray sweater I had thrown on after finishing the cooking.
“You’re looking a bit worn down, Rose,” Brenda said.
Her voice carried that specific tone of Southern concern that is entirely designed to draw blood.
“Are you getting enough sleep?”
I picked up my fork.
“I’m just busy at the firm, Brenda. It’s the end of the quarter.”
She sighed, a soft, fluttering sound.
“Well, you need to make time for yourself. Look at Thomas.”
She gestured toward her son, who was wearing a crisp, tailored shirt and looking rested and polished.
“A man in his position, out there closing deals and meeting executives, needs a wife who looks the part. You want to make him proud when he brings you to these corporate dinners.”
I looked at Thomas.
He was cutting his meat, entirely focused on his plate.
He didn’t say a word.
He didn’t tell his mother that I ran my own business, or that my income had paid for the dining table we were sitting at.
May you like
Mike chimed in, pointing his knife at Thomas.
“She’s right, though. Thomas is carrying the region on his back right now. The guy is a machine. You’re a lucky woman, Rose. Not many guys out there pulling the kind of weight he does.”
