He follows, standing too close as we wait for the elevator. As it opens, he leans in and murmurs, “I really do hear you, you know.”
Time will tell. “Good.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m out of the apartment later?”
I don’t turn my head to look at him. I stare straight ahead and nod. “Thanks.”
In the lobby, I march straight ahead, trying to outpace him, but he has longer legs than I do. When I get to the sidewalk, he’s right beside me again.
“Thank you,” he mutters. “For not telling Sam.”
“For now,” I tell him. “I’ll keep this secret for a while. For my own reasons, not for yours. But you need to take care of yourself, and get some help, because we are going to tell him at some point soon.”
“What do you mean, get some help?”
I unlock my car for the second time this morning, and this time I’m first to the door. I pull it open. “Therapy, Luke. You’re all messed up, and not my problem anymore. It’s time for you to pay someone to care about your feelings.”
10
Luke
“Tell me why you’re here.”
I glance around the therapist’s office on the second floor of a converted house just off College Street. Getting straight to the point. “My wife found out I was having an affair a week ago. It was the worst day of my life. I moved out, because she needs space, but she told me to get some therapy.” I let out a rough breath. “So I’m here. And I want to do this for me, I guess, but also for us. I want to figure out where I went wrong, so I can maybe show her I won’t do it again.”
“You want to repair your relationship.”
“Yes. And I don’t know how.”
“Is that something she’s interested in?”
I hesitate. “I need to do this. I need to try.”
“Why?”
“Because I love her.” The words rip from my chest and leave a wound. “I know how that sounds. Why would I cheat on her if I love her?”
“It’s a good question.”
“Why does anyone do anything?”
“Like what?”
I shrug. “You tell me.”
He nods. “Okay. Well, I mean, we could start with your childhood.”
I tense up.
He notices. I notice that he notices, and he scribbles something on the notepad he’s holding. “Maybe we’ll come back to that. How about substance use?”
“I drink a bit.”
“How much is a bit?”
“Not daily.”
“And when you drink?”
“My brother is a gambling addict,” I blurt out. “We know about addiction.”
“Have you been treated for something like that?”
“I don’t have that same addictive personality,” I mutter.
He nods. “And sex?”
My mind goes blank. I swallow hard. “Excuse me?”
“Was the affair sexual?”
Flashes of mistakes. Regret. “Yes.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“The affair?”
“Yes.”
No. My chest hurts. “It was a mistake.”
“You mentioned that.” He shifts positions. “We’ll come back to that, too. You mentioned that you love your wife. What does love mean to you?”
“I think that’s changed in the last week.”
A pause. “Interesting.”
“It’s like I woke up from a bad dream. There’s old Luke, and I’m looking at him, who he became. Like we branched from the same trunk person, who I used to be, but I don’t recognize myself like that. That’s not who I want to be. It’s not who I am right now. I’m—I spent last night sobbing in the shower. I’ve never cried like that before. And it’s fine. It felt gross, but it was necessary. The new Luke cries.”
“And thinks crying is gross.”
“New Luke is still working on word choice.”
“I cry,” he offers. “It’s cathartic. It feels good.”
“I’m not there.”
“That’s okay. It’s a process. And so is repairing your relationship with your wife. But that’s a two-party process. She needs to decide what she wants. You can’t make her try to repair the relationship if she isn’t interested.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” A small smile tugs at his mouth, but it doesn’t feel like he’s laughing at me. His eyes are warm, creased with lines at the corners.
I think he understands. Did you ever fuck around on the perfect woman? Did you ever blow your life up for no good fucking reason?
“I do,” I say haltingly. “I get it. But we have a bond. We have—had—a really good relationship. It just went off the rails a few years ago. And I need to be better to her. But she loves me. I know that deep down.”
“That sounds confident.”
“I don’t lack in ego.”
He makes a non-committal noise and scratches something on his notepad.
“Tell me about your wife.”
I frown. We’re not going to dig into the ego thing? But I’d rather talk about Grace any day. “She’s amazing.”
“What else? What would the old Luke have said?”
“Which one?” College Luke was in awe of Grace, too. When did we lose that?
“The one who had an affair. What would he say about Grace?”
“She’s too good for me.” I’m getting used to the poignant pause after I say something significant. I shift in my seat. “She’s elegant. Smart. Successful.”
“What made you bristle?”
“Stupid shit.”
“Was it stupid to you then?”
“I had a short temper. I’d pick fights with her.”
“And now?”
“I want to learn how to communicate better. I want to figure out why I picked fights with her.”
“Do you think it might have anything to do with the fact she’s elegant, smart, and successful?”
“No.” I scowl. “She’s also warm, funny, sexy.”
“And you value those things more.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He nods. “No.”
Fuck. “I never meant…”
“Do you still see her as elegant?”
I picture her face, tear-stained and puffy, asleep on our bed. “Yes.”
“Remote?”
I jerk my head up and glare at him. “I never said I thought she was remote.”
“Aloof? Cold? I’m just asking. Those are sometimes synonyms for elegant.”
“This isn’t her fault.”
“No. You made a decision you regret. This is all about you. But it’s also about the stories you tell yourself to justify that decision. You need to unpack all of it, including the negative things you thought about your wife then. Turn them around.”
I stop at the bookstore on the way home and buy every book on the reading list the doc gave me. Then I pick up a grocery order, because I don’t plan to leave my temporary lodgings for a few days. The less I come and go, the better.