Olivia got Lily to sleep for her afternoon nap with the intention of running a hot bath. She would leave Spencer the monitor so that she wouldn’t have to jump from the tub midway through as she had on previous attempts. She was even contemplating lighting a few candles and cracking open a new book. She began stripping piece by piece on the stairs and entered the bathroom to find Spencer oddly skulking in the corner looking at her phone.
“What are you doing with my phone again?” she asked, more confused than annoyed. Spencer answered by tossing it to her quite rudely. She barely caught it.
“What the hell, Spencer?”
“Well, you come in here spying on me!”
“I’m not spying on you. I’m here to take a bath. Look, I’m naked,” she said, suddenly feeling it.
Spencer stormed out before Olivia could get to the bottom of his anger. She had such a short bath window that she decided not to care, at least for now. She turned on the water and sat on the edge of the tub, dabbing her feet in and out to adjust to the temperature. She unlocked her phone. What is with him lately? she thought. And there it was, in black and white, right on her screen:
Anonymous: He came back again early this morning on a run. He confronted me about my post; his wife must be on this site, too. If you are reading this, I’m sorry. He says you have not had sex in months, and you have an open marriage. I know men say that. I wish I knew if it were true.
Olivia began to shake before she even understood why. Why was Spencer reading that bulletin board? Why was he so angry about this post?
She tried to stay calm, but her thoughts were racing. Spencer went for an early run. Is that where he was at six o’clock this morning?
Her stomach dropped and her mouth went dry. Is this woman talking to me?
She turned off the bath, stepped out of the bathroom, and pulled on a pair of leggings and a T-shirt. She thought that maybe she should wait to calm down before confronting him, but she was too enraged. She didn’t know if calming down was even an option. She felt like an animal. There must be an explanation. She needed an explanation.
“You’re imagining things, Olivia,” he’ll say. I will hear his voice, she thought, the one he uses to soothe me. I will hear his denial, and everything will be OK. But she’d never suspected such a betrayal before, and the possibility of it whipped her into a frenzy. She confronted him straight out.
“What the hell is this, Spencer? Are you having an affair?”
“What?” he asked, as if she hadn’t said it loud enough, which she definitely had. His non-answer raised her antennae even higher. She repeated the question again, slowly and clearly.
“Are you having an affair?”
“Olivia, are you serious?” He looked adequately shocked. “I would never do that. I love you—and Lily—so much. How could you think that?”
She collapsed onto the couch.
“I’m sorry. This post—it sounded so much like us. You’re gone every morning and we haven’t had sex in forever.”
“I always run in the morning. And you just had a baby. I was being respectful.”
He went to hug her and she held out her hand to stop him. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, she just couldn’t breathe and a hug felt like further suffocation. But before she could explain that, his expression changed and he turned on her, nearly shouting in her face, “Hey. I read that post, too. I could—no, I should—ask you the same thing!”
The sudden shift and the strength of his animosity was jarring. This can’t be happening, she thought. Spencer had a tendency to turn things around in a fight, especially when his back was against a wall. But this was insane, even for him. Olivia mocked the absurdity of it.
“Yes, Spencer, your beautiful wife with her leaky udders and stretched-out stomach with this ugly dark line that everyone says will go away, but clearly isn’t? Yes, we are all having an affair.”
“I’m not joking, Olivia. I’m just a few months away from being named CEO of York Cosmetics. You know any impropriety like that could ruin me—could ruin us.”
His logic brought Olivia some relief. Being CEO meant everything to Spencer, and when she really thought it through, she doubted he would do anything to risk it. An uncle of Spencer’s had had a very public affair about ten years earlier that had almost destroyed the female-focused cosmetic brand. It was a publicity nightmare and stood as a huge cautionary tale to all the members of the York family. Maybe she was inventing this whole thing in her head? Just as she settled on that, he started up again.
“Did someone come here when I went for my run this morning? Is this why we don’t have sex anymore?”
Olivia could not believe what she was hearing. Was he seriously gaslighting her? She caught a look at herself in the mirror. Strange red hives had popped up on her face. She felt the air being squeezed from her lungs again. She gasped for more, but it was as if there wasn’t enough in the room to replace it. This whole thing was spinning out of control. She was confused and needed to think it all through clearly, away from him and Lily. She wanted so badly to believe him.
“I have to get out of here,” she said. “I need to take a walk. I can’t breathe.”
She headed to the front door. Spencer chased after her and grabbed her arm.
“Where are you going? To see your boyfriend?”
“Do you hear how ridiculous you sound?” she snapped. “Stop turning this around!”
“Walk out and you’ll regret it,” he yelled, as if choosing a staple threat from a canned domestic dispute.
At that moment, suffocating was the only credible threat that concerned her, plus if none of this were true then she knew from experience that they both needed to calm down, separately. She slipped on her Uggs by the door and left. No coat, no money, no bra; no bra was the biggest problem. Still, she kept walking. When her breath settled, she sat down on the side of the road and read the post again, calmly. Then she read the first post. Her chest tightened back up. Could this really be Spencer? Am I being paranoid? She didn’t think she was. Olivia did know one thing for sure: she had never felt this kind of betrayal before. Whether it was real or imagined, she didn’t like it.
Her tears flowed, not hysterically, but consistently. Quite out of nowhere she spotted a high-spirited dog trotting down the road. He stopped and looked at Olivia, as if sensing her desperation. She smiled through her tears and reached out to pet him. “Hey, boy, are you lost?”
He perked his ears up, but then bolted away from her until he was invisible among the trees.
A voice called out from the distance, “Here, Truffles, I have a treat. Come on, boy!”
She hoped the dog with the funny name was heading back home. She thought maybe she should do the same, but she needed more time.
She started walking, purposefully breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. Soon she found herself in town, her mouth dry from gulping down air; she needed a drink. She entered the Café Karma Sutra and went right up to the counter. Her breasts were so full under her T-shirt that she felt as if she were naked. She remembered she didn’t have any money. She approached the multipierced barista a bit timidly.
“May I please have a cup of water?”
“Did you bring a receptacle?” he countered.
She was confused by the question. She hadn’t brought a receptacle. She wasn’t even sure what that meant. Why did she ever leave Manhattan? There she would have a million places to run away to, where everyone spoke the same language. Now she was alone and thirsty in a foreign land. She felt the red blotches returning to her face. They were radiating heat. She read the words painted across the wall behind him: “I Am Perfect Because I Exist.”
False advertising, she thought. She hated when people pretended to be so Zen but were in fact quite the opposite. It should read, “I’m Perfect If I Exist with a Receptacle.” Her eyes teared up and her breathing accelerated. The pierced guy seemed to notice. He took pity on her and filled a glass with water.
“Here,” he said in a tone more capitalistic than karmic.
“Oh, a receptacle.” She smiled, trying to appear sane.
She turned around and bumped smack into Alison Le and her baby. She recognized her from somewhere, but was too out of her mind to remember where. And she didn’t care to find out. She ducked her head, her eye on the door. Fake left; go right, she thought. She had no idea that Alison was desperate for adult interaction and that she had no chance of getting away.
“Olivia, right?” Alison smiled. “We met at the real estate office. Alison.”
Olivia nodded and shook her hand with one eye still on the door to purposefully signal brevity.
“How are you?” Alison asked naturally. There was nothing natural about her response. Olivia tried to hold back her emotions, which caused them to escape from her mouth in a gust of pain so guttural that she even startled herself. People stared. The “fixer” in Alison took over and she leaped into action.
“I live right down the street. Do you want to get out of here?”
Olivia shook her head yes.
“OK. Wait one second.” Alison directed her to a chair and headed to the counter. She thought comfort food might be in order.
“Two rain forest muffins to go, please.”
“Did you bring a receptacle?” the pierced barista asked.
“I have no clue what you are asking me,” Alison replied.
Olivia laughed, which made her smile. Thank God that she was OK enough to do that.
They walked back to Alison’s house, just a few doors away, in silence, each holding a bagless muffin in their hands. Zach had fallen asleep in the stroller, so Alison left him in the foyer of her house and set them up in the living room. Olivia was quiet, somber really. Alison wondered if she should change the subject and talk about the kids or ask her what she was upset about. She unwittingly did both.
“Did you see the post about Circle Time at the library on that local bulletin board?”
Tears exploded from Olivia’s eyes. They didn’t well up or pour down her face but arrived so fast and furiously that they ricocheted off the side of her nose. Alison had never witnessed anything like it, and she had witnessed a lot.
“I am the woman from the bulletin board. I am the woman,” Olivia sobbed. Alison knew exactly what she was talking about.
“Oh my God. You’re anonymous?”
“No. It’s worse than that.” She could barely say it. “I’m the wife.”
Now Alison was tearing up. A pit filled her stomach and she couldn’t get enough air. Motherhood has made me soft, she thought.
“How awful,” she said, hugging her. Olivia melted into her arms sobbing, the two strangers now intimate friends.
As Olivia wept, Alison regained her composure. This situation called for the Iron Lady, not the wussy confection of hormones and baby love that she’d become. Toeing the line between lawyering and mothering, Alison began her line of questioning while brewing a pot of chamomile tea.
“How are you certain it’s your husband? Did he admit it?”
“No, he denied it. But I’m sure.” Olivia pulled up the first post on her phone and showed it to Alison. She now knew it by heart and read along in her head.
Anonymous: I just moved here from the city with hopes of starting over after an affair that my husband knows nothing about. The man I was having the affair with followed me here and keeps showing up at my door . . .
“OK, is this all you’ve got? Because there is some major circumstantial stuff going on here. I understand that you moved here recently, but so have many other people. I bet there are other couples having the same fight right now!”
Olivia wasn’t buying it. She scrolled forward to the next post while explaining Spencer’s crazy reactions to reading them, and how he was gone in the morning at the same time the cheating woman claimed to be running with her boyfriend. Olivia read the next post. Alison was skeptical.
“Everyone runs in the morning. Did you confront him?”
“Yes.” She began crying again. “He turned it all around, accused me of cheating. It was so frustrating, and . . .” She took a deep breath to try and calm herself. “And so embarrassing. I mean, look at me. To accuse me of cheating . . .” Olivia’s milk had come in right on schedule, leaving her with circular stains on her gray T-shirt over each nipple and a good amount of guilt for having left a now-sure-to-be-hungry Lily at home. She buried her face in her hands. The teapot whistled. Alison fixed Olivia a cup of tea and placed it and the muffin in front of her.
“Here, eat something. I’ll go up and get you a sports bra and a clean T-shirt. I’ll be right back.”
Once upstairs, Alison called her best friend from college, a detective named Andie Rand, who specialized in domestic disputes after suffering a particularly horrendous one of her own. Recently engaged, she was finally not rendering anyone with a penis automatically guilty. Alison came back down, armed with a change of clothes and some very logical advice. Olivia went to the bathroom to wash her face and change. She took her time and came out somewhat renewed.
“I hope it’s OK, but I called my friend who owns a detective agency in the city. I didn’t give her your name.”
Olivia didn’t mind. She was desperate for direction. “I’m so thankful I bumped into you,” she said.
“Me too. So first off, she understands that you want to hear the truth from your husband, but if he is a cheater, then he’s also a liar. She says he will feed you lies, and you’ll want to believe them.”
So far she was right. Olivia only wanted to hear his explanation, to hear the words “I would never cheat on you” and to believe them and turn the page on this whole episode.
“It’s pointless to confront him until we gather as much evidence as possible.”
Olivia’s eyes filled with tears. Alison assumed it was because she was probably being cheated on, and as the timeline suggested, it was likely going on during her pregnancy. Alison reflected on her own experience of childbirth and shuddered at the thought of it being laced with duplicity. Poor Olivia. How soon before she started questioning months of interactions in her mind? Olivia’s awful situation affirmed Alison’s decision to go it alone, not that she’d really had much choice.
As it turned out, this trickling of tears was out of gratitude, because Alison had used the word “we.”
“Thank you so much for helping me like this. You don’t even know me.”
That was the best part of it for Olivia. While she was in the bathroom, she had resisted the urge to call her parents, her sister, or her best friend. She knew once she did, she could never take the words back. True or not, the damage would be done, especially if she told her father. She vowed only to confide in this stranger until the whole ordeal was resolved, regardless of the resolution.
“I don’t mind at all. I’m happy to be here for you, really.”
Olivia shook her head with a mixture of relief and appreciation.
“Did you tell your friend that he accused me back?” she asked hopefully. The more Olivia thought about it, the more she realized that Spencer could have come up with the same conclusions about a cheating spouse from the post that she had. The story did work both ways, and he had made little effort to conceal his behavior.
“I did tell her.” Alison paused, as the answer would not be fun to hear. “She said it may be true, but more often than not the guilty party hopes to defuse anger with confusion.”
Olivia’s face sank.
Alison knew one was innocent until proven guilty, but her career had swayed her to often believe the opposite. She was very familiar with the emotions involved when someone wanted so badly to believe that the person they know is blameless. She felt terrible for this woman.
“She said we can come see her at her office on Monday, if you want.”
Again, we. Olivia jumped at the chance. “The sooner the better. I have my sitter on Mondays. She can watch the kids if you want.”
“Both of them?”
“Absolutely. She’s a retired kindergarten teacher who raised a family of her own. She could probably watch ten babies more easily than we can watch one. I promise.” Alison agreed to it.
“The thought of having any control over this . . .” Olivia couldn’t finish her thought. Her eyes welled up again.
Alison went into defendant mode. “Don’t start. You have to go home and backpedal. Tell him you are not having an affair, and you’re sorry you accused him of having one. Then just try and act normal.”
Olivia had no idea how she was going to pull that off. Alison read it on her face.
“Remember, Olivia, questioning a cheater only makes things worse. If you signal what you know, he’ll cover his tracks, and it will be very hard for us to get at the truth. Plus we have no idea if this is for real. What’s that saying about worrying?”
“No use in worrying until you have something to worry about?”
“Yes, something like that.”
Olivia knew what she had to do. As she trudged home, she directed her thoughts to uncovering the truth. She swore to control herself and go about everything purposefully and emotionlessly for her and Lily’s sake. The only thing worse than being cheated on was being made a fool of, and if that was what was going on, she would take him down. She thought of something that happened last week, something that had touched her. She’d been giggling at a silly cat video when he walked in, caught her, and smiled a huge grin.
“What?” she had asked, and he said, “Nothing, I just love to hear you laugh.”
She would think of that nice moment when her mind drifted to hating him and promised to stop before the worst thought took over. The worst thought being that everything, including that moment, was a lie.