“Hey,” Bridget calls out from across the parking lot. “Do you have a sec?”
“Of course,” Hannah replies, opening the door to her SUV.
Bridget jogs over. “I— Can you explain what just went on in there?”
“I doubt I can explain everything, but if you have a question, I might be able to help,” Hannah tells her.
“I guess what I’m wondering is, do you think it will help?”
Hannah touches Bridget’s arm. “There really isn’t a guidebook for this,” she says. “See how you feel next week. Talk about what’s going on. That’s the most you can do right now.”
“Does it get better though?” Bridget looks up at the office. The light is still on. “You know, the pain? Does it go away?”
“Time helps,” Hannah says.
“Has it been a long time for you?” Bridget shoves her hands in the pockets of her jean jacket.
“From before we were married.”
“So…” Bridget hesitates. “I mean … why?”
“It’s okay to ask. I wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t.”
Bridget shivers.
“If you want, we can get in my car, and I’ll put on the heat,” Hannah says.
Bridget climbs in, and Hannah starts the engine. The car smells like Cheerios.
“I just don’t know if I can do it. Listen to all that shit. My head spins when I think about it.”
“It’s traumatic and overwhelming.” Hannah grabs two Diet Cokes from the back and hands one to Bridget. The cans make a sharp slicing sound as they open.
“But it gets better. Right?”
Hannah leans her head back. “It never really goes away. It’s like any addiction—it lurks.”
“But lots of alcoholics get better. Don’t they?” Bridget runs her finger along the edge of the can.
“They do,” Hannah says flatly.
“How did you find out the first time?” Bridget asks.
“I was young and in love. My husband, Adam, was charming.” She grins. “I used to joke that we sounded like those cheesy personal ads. You know, walks on the beach, back rubs, late-night talks. A regular old fairy tale.”
“That’s what I thought me and Michael were. The perfect couple. I had no idea.”
“Most of us don’t.”
Bridget doesn’t want to be in the most category. “How did you find out?”
“A week before our wedding, he told me he was an addict.” Hannah shakes her head. “I still can’t believe it, even after fifteen years. At the time, his therapist told me it had nothing to do with me. I believed her. I was in a state of shock on my wedding day. People said I had that glazed look of love in my eyes.” She chuckles. “Little did they know.”
Bridget glances at Hannah’s thick hair and perfectly shaped mouth. She could have had anyone. And she ended up here.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Being naive. Like, I want to believe Michael, and I do, but what if he’s still lying? Then what?”
Hannah takes a sip of Diet Coke. “There is just so much about this we have absolutely no control of.”
“You think that woman up there, that Gail”—Bridget points to the building—“think she’s a control freak?”
“Maybe. It might be a way to deal with some of the stuff that really hurts still.”
“Yeah.” Bridget smiles. “I use anger. Probably kinda obvious.”
“It’s normal to be angry when you’ve been lied to.”
“First, Michael swore he was just consoling a friend. Then there were more calls, plus porn and this other shit, like married-hookup sites, fucked-up stuff. When I think that there might be even more I don’t know about, I feel sick to my stomach.” She pauses. “I still can’t believe it. Any of it. That I’m here, going to a group because my husband is a sex addict. It’s … degrading.”
“The initial discovery is shocking,” Hannah says. “It’s like you get thrown into a different reality.”
“That’s exactly how I felt when I found the first text on Michael’s phone. I kept thinking it was some sort of mistake. Then when I asked him about it, he got all defensive and said it was just a new singer they hired in his band, and she was going through a tough time. I fucking believed him. Not only that, I was relieved.” She ducks down when she sees Kathryn, looking all professional in her black coat, walking to her car.
“We don’t have to hide,” Hannah says.
But Kathryn seems like the kind of person who has it all figured out, and it makes Bridget feel like an even bigger loser. “Think she can help?”
“She seems nice, but young, and this issue is a lot to handle.” Hannah sips her Coke. “Has anyone ever mentioned doing a full disclosure?”
“Isn’t that what we just did?”
Hannah sits taller. “You do it with a therapist, but you have to prepare. You both go in, then Michael tells you everything. It’s awful, but at least you know all the facts and what you’re dealing with.”
“Did you do that?” she asks.
“No.”
“I think I’d die if I found out more details.”
“No, you wouldn’t, even if you felt like you wanted to.” Hannah nods slowly. “We just readjust. I don’t mean that in a simplistic way. But we figure out how to keep going.”
Bridget’s eyes fill with tears. “Think I’m going to have a breakdown?”
“No. That’s not what I meant at all.”
“It will be all right. Right?” Bridget wipes her cheek with the back of her hand.
“God, I wish I could promise it will be. I’m going to give you my numbers. Home and cell. If life feels too horrible and you need to talk, call me.” She rips the corner off an envelope and jots down her phone numbers.
* * *
Bridget gets in her car, starts the engine, and turns the fan on high. Cold air blasts out. She waits for Hannah to leave, then peels out of the parking lot. She hates Michael, hates her life, hates the road she’s driving on.
“Fuck you,” she screams to no one as she remembers the morning she came home from her night shift and found that first text. She’d been looking forward to snuggling with Michael.
Bridget pulls into the driveway and parks behind Michael’s pickup truck. Maybe he will be asleep. But that will piss her off too. How can he sleep when their marriage is cracking?
Gradually, she makes her way upstairs.
“How was it?” he asks, and pushes himself up so that his feet are no longer hanging over the edge of the bed.
“It sucked.”
“Sorry.” He pats the bed as if she’s supposed to hop in next to him, to talk to him as if she just went to a book club.
“It stinks that on my night off I have to drive to Jamaica Plain to listen to a bunch of women whose husbands have fucked them over.” She sits on the edge of the mattress, as far away from him as possible.
“Sorry.” He sounds like a broken record.
“And stop saying you’re sorry. Or at least say you’re sorry for the right thing.”
“Bridge.” He gets up and walks around to where she’s sitting. “I’m sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused.”
“Just tell me now if there’s anything else you haven’t told me,” she says. “I want it over with. I don’t want to look through any more phone bills or see on the computer that you’re still chasing after women.”
He sits and places his large hand on her back.
She shrugs him off. “Don’t touch me.”
He obeys, and yet she misses him.
“What do you want me to do?” he asks.
She thinks of something Hannah said. “I want you to give me a full disclosure,” she tells him.
“Okay,” he replies.
“You know what that is?” she asks, surprised.
“I’ve heard guys in my group talk about it.”
“Did you ever think to bring it up, that it might be helpful for me?”
“I thought it would happen when you were ready. That’s all.”
“So what else haven’t you told me?” Her veins feel twisted.
“Bridge.” He slaps his hand on his thigh. “I’ve told you everything.”
“All the details?” she asks.
He stands, walks to his closet, and tugs on a T-shirt. “It’s not like you think,” he says, backing up so that he’s nearly at the door.
“What is not like I think?” The question comes out tight, whispery and terrified.
“I mean … what I mean is … There was this guy in group the other night. He said that you can’t really move forward unless you’ve sort of … you know … put it all out there.”
Her body feels like it’s on fire. “But you just said you told me everything. Right?”
“Um. I told you most of the stuff. But this guy, he says that it’s, like, important not to keep secrets. It’s one of the steps,” he explains.
“You had to learn that from some guy in a sex addicts’ group? You don’t know it’s not okay to keep secrets from your wife?” Her voice rises.
“It just happened once.”
“It?” She stares at him. His back is against the door.
“I can barely remember. I hated it,” he mumbles.
“Remember what?”
“It wasn’t good. I mean, it was awful. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Did you fuck someone else?”
“I … I had sex with her.”
“Who’s ‘her’?”
“Vivian,” he whispers.
“The one you first lied about? The one who was supposedly a singer in your band and just needed some comfort?”
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry. But I had to tell you. It’s like the guy in group said. You have to start from a place of honesty.”
“Do you even know how stupid you sound? A place of honesty? You don’t know what the word means.”
“I’m trying, Bridge, that’s why I’m telling you this. I want us to have an honest, open relationship. I want to work toward that.” He runs his fingers through his hair.
“And if I don’t?”
“I won’t blame you,” he says.
“Ha. How fucking generous. You won’t blame me. And who will you blame? Your alcoholic mother? Your father who didn’t pay enough attention to you?”
All she wants to do is fight. She doesn’t want to think about him sleeping with Vivian. About how he felt her tits and her cunt.
He takes a step toward her. “Stop,” she yells. “I don’t want your filthy hands near me.”
“I only want to help.”
“Too late for that. Tell me, were there more?”
He looks like he’s pondering the question.
“Uh…” he stutters. “I mean … Well, yeah, I guess. There was one. A while ago. They didn’t mean anything. If I cared about them, it would be different. But I don’t.”
She stands, walks to her closet, and takes out an overnight bag, which she tosses onto the bed. From her closet, she yanks a shirt, then a pair of underwear from her dresser. In her head she hears her mother, counting. That’s what she used to do to help Bridget fall asleep when she was a little girl. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen …
“Bridge, listen. You got to listen. I didn’t want to have sex with them. It was the chase, but it led … Shit, there’s no good way of saying this.”
She drops her hair dryer into the bag and zips it up. Then she counts her way down the stairs. When she’s near the door, Michael charges down, pushes her aside, and stands, large and solid, in front of her.
“Bridge, I love you,” he says.
The words are pellets, pieces of hail that bounce off a metal roof.
She slips past him and counts her way to her car, out the driveway, all the way to Huntington Ave where she finds a Holiday Inn.
The hotel receptionist gives Bridget a key card to room 135. Once inside, she paces, pulls at her hair, and kicks the foot of the bed. Her toe throbs. She has no idea how to get through this. In her pocket she feels the slip of paper with Hannah’s number and hopes it’s not too late to call.