My blog followers are worried about me because I haven't posted anything new in two weeks. Usually it's every other day.
It's lunch time when I log in again after my agonizing eleven days, and there are dozens of comments and emails from fans. That's one of the drawbacks of being famous, I guess. People expect you to be "on" all the time, sharing every facet of your life. Perhaps everything that has happened to me is punishment for not being humble and private about my "perfect" marriage and life. Last year, my followers nominated me for the Happiest Woman of the Year Award – a made up accolade that a bunch of them thought I deserved. I won it hands down despite the stiff competition. I could never qualify now, though I reckon I'd be a contender for the Most Miserable Woman of the Year Award!
As the cursor blinks, waiting for me to write something, I think about how much I should tell everyone. I'm ashamed to write anything. But, more importantly, I don't want to prematurely post that my marriage is over without being certain that it is. The second I post, that will make it real.
Just as I'm about to type hello, I hear a noise downstairs. It could be Emily waking up from her nap. No, that's not what it is. I hear the door open and close.
It's her. It's Nikki.
My heart pounds in my chest, my throat grows tight, and my legs feel numb. I get up from the desk and leave the study. She's waiting at the bottom of the steps.
There's something different about her, I notice it straightaway. Is it her hair? No, it's the pallid hue to her skin and a weariness about her eyes. It angers me to see her like this, because I immediately assume she's spent the last eleven days having sex and tiring herself out, instead of being a wife and mother.
I stand at the top of the stairs, glaring down at her, my eyes burning with rage. This is all so I won't burst into tears.
She opens her mouth to speak, but then closes it again. What do you say to your wife after you've left her for another woman?
Is she waiting for me to start? I could, but this is her mess, and she needs to do the talking. If she ever wants us to work things out, she'd better make this damn good.
"I know I shouldn't have used the key just now," is the first thing she says, avoiding my gaze.
I make my way down the stairs, step past her, glowering the whole time. She follows me into the kitchen, hangs back, keeping the distance between us. I can look at her, but by God she's finding it impossible to look at me. My wife, who would stare into my eyes daily and tell me how much she loved me, how happy I made her, can't even look at me for two seconds.
"Where's Emily?"
"What do you care?" Despite my attempts to keep a neutral tone, it comes out aggressive.
"Faye, come on. Of course I care. She's my daughter."
I snort a derisive laugh, pour myself a glass of water. "So you've suddenly remembered that you have a family, huh? Bravo!"
She lets out a long sigh. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you or our daughter. If you believe nothing else, believe that."
"I guess that makes it all right, does it? That you didn't mean to hurt us?"
"No, of course it doesn't. I just need you to know that I hate that I've done this to you."
"Tell me something. And you'd better be honest; it's the least you can do."
She sighs again. "What?"
"When did you stop loving me?" It kills me to ask, and I'm fearful of the answer. I know what I want her to say – that she hasn't. If I know my wife at all, even slightly, I know she hasn't stopped. Because right up to the day she left, that very same morning, she told me she loved me. It wasn't empty, it wasn't a fabrication. I have to believe that. Yet, what if I'm wrong?
"I never stopped," she says. "I'll always love you."
It's what I wanted to hear, so why has it failed to calm my nerves? It's the truth, I can feel it. But there's something wrong with it. Something off about the way she's said it.
"So it must be that I can't fuck you the way she can," I say. Using profanities is for ill-mannered people, and so unlike me, but I haven't been myself in eleven days, and I'm too upset to hold back. I see her wince when the word flies at her.
"Faye, please..."
"What?" I explode. "You don't want to talk about it? Well, I don't want to live it, but I have to. I have to wake up every morning knowing that, despite all the love you say you have for me, despite our family, you were willing to jeopardize that for an easy piece of ass! What are you, a man? Do you have a penis that's doing the thinking for you?"
She bows her head in shame, but not before I see her cheeks burn up. I just hope my shouting doesn't wake Emily. This conversation needs to happen without the interruption.
"This isn't you," she mumbles.
"No, this is me. You've just never hurt me like this before." Goddammit, the tears are falling again.
When she looks at me, her eyes are doleful, filled with remorse. She takes a few steps towards me but doesn't advance any closer after that. She wants to hold me; I want her to. But there's too much standing between us right now.
It's a relief to see the tears glistening on her cheeks, too. At least now I know she isn't a complete monster, that she's not indifferent to my pain.
"I'm so sorry." The words get choked in her throat.
"Do you want to know the worst part about all of this? It's that it's taken you so long to come here and face me. In the past you found it hard to stay away just one day, yet it's been eleven."
"How could I come here, Faye, after what I did? Seeing you like this is killing me."
"You still should have, instead of being a coward and leaving me to explain to our daughter why her mama isn't here to tuck her in at night." I know what effect these words will have on her; at this point I'm sending her on a guilt trip. I'm going to make her suffer before I let her back into this family. I want her to truly appreciate the repercussions of her actions.
"What did you tell her?"
"That you were away on business and that you would be home soon."
She looks down again and is silent for a beat. I watch her carefully. My eyes are fixed on her when she says, in a small voice, "You shouldn't have told her that."
"I know we'll need a lot of counseling before you move back home–"
And now she's looking at me. Not with the same pained, melancholy look from before, but one of pity.
"Faye, you shouldn't have said that to her," she says again. "I can't come home."
"Not immediately, no. I need more time. But eventually–"
"No, you don't understand. I'm not coming home...to you. To us..."
She's right, I don't understand.
Perplexed, my throat dry, my temple throbbing, I shake my head in confusion. "But, but you came back. Isn't that why you're here, to work things out?" It has to be. We're forever, aren't we?
She shakes her head slowly, that pitying look in her green eyes immobilizing me. This can't be happening. "I came back because my daughter is here, and because we need closure."
I grip on to the counter top to steady myself, a sudden dizziness sweeping over me. She hurries over, tries to steady me, but I shove her away.
"Get the hell off me!" I scream. She backs off. "Why are you doing this? Do you hate me this much?" I don't know which emotion is stronger – the anger or the pain. My body feels heavy; it's as if I've lost control of it.
"It's not about that, Faye. This isn't about anything you've done. Don't blame yourself."
The look I shoot her could kill. A part of me wishes it would.
"You son of a bitch! I don't blame myself. You're the one with her face between another woman's legs. You're the one destroying five years of marriage for a whore that's engaged to your father!"
I'm screaming and thrashing out at her, something I've never done before. And she isn't fighting back. I don't know where all of this rage is coming from.
"Don't you remember our vows?" I say, tears streaming down my face, making my vision blurry and watery. "You said we were everlasting. Till death. Those were your fucking words."
"I said my love for you would be everlasting. It is. But I can't help how I feel. I tried, I really did."
"Try harder," I plead. I'm begging her. That's about as pathetic as it gets. But I don't care. "I'll forgive you in time. I know we can work it out. Just...don't do this."
When her head bows again, I know there's no hope. She made her decision the day she left – it's obvious. I didn't stand a chance. This whole time I'd been under the misconception that this affair was merely a fling, and that once she got it out of her system, she would come home to me. And I always knew that I would forgive her. As despicable as infidelity is, love trumps that every time.
"I love her, Faye. I don't think I ever stopped. I need to do this."
This is the thing that finally breaks me. Those words were mine alone for six years: I love you. And now they're Angelique's. Now I realize that they've always been Angelique's. I'm the other woman.
"Mommy, what's wrong?" Emily's arrival only causes me to bawl harder. She has that just-woken-up look, and her brown locks are messy. She doesn't go to Nikki, which surprises me, as she's been asking for her the whole time. Instead she comes to me and wraps her little arms around my legs. I crouch down to her level and embrace her, crying into her hair. She doesn't know that my world has fallen apart, that our lives have been altered forever. She doesn't know that I feel like dying.
"Emily, honey, Mommy's just a little upset at the moment," Nikki says. "She'll be all right. You have to take really good care of her, all right?"
"Okay," Emily says in her sweet, childish voice.
"That's not her job, that's yours," I say bitterly, sniffling. I'm trying to pull myself together for my daughter. It must be upsetting for her to see me like this.
When I let go of her, she finally runs to Nikki, and Nikki picks her up, tells her she's missed her, and they disappear into the living room while I pick myself up off the floor.
My hands are shaking when I twist the faucet to pour myself another glass of water. They're still shaking when I take sips from the glass. I hear Emily's childish laughter from the living room, and Nikki's animated chatter as she entertains her. How can she be so cool when only a couple of minutes ago she was ruining my life?
She's only in there for five minutes or so, before she calls from the hallway to inform that she'll be back again in a few days. She doesn't come back in to see me, to see the damage she's caused.
I collapse into a chair, and rest my head on the table. Crying again won't solve anything, even though it's what I desperately want to do. Now I need to decide how to go on, if in fact I can. I need to learn to live without her.