Now
Sunday, August 15
Woodstock, New York
I stared at George, lying in this bed in Woodstock. I’d barely slept all night, even though he’d been conked out, at peace, it seemed, with the fact that he’d won me back, with the effortless well of confidence George always managed to draw from, dip his cup in and drink, drink, drink.
My limbs were heavy, my bones tired from lack of sleep, and my skin, naked, was damp with sweat, my chest burning with acid from the pizza, the sips of champagne, from the anxiety of all these months—who even knew.
Shame filled me up as last night’s images flickered through my mind. George kissing me, harder and harder, as I let him. George’s hands all over me. The smell of his skin. The way our bodies knew what to do even though I didn’t really want it, was tired of fighting, exhausted from these last months and all that would follow. It was like I shut down, just let it happen, because I didn’t really have the energy for anything else. And then, my body completely taking over, contracting, convulsing, because in that moment, I did want it, because George knew what to do—he’d always known what to do with me—and that in and of itself was something, after so many months lost on my own. And maybe for a few moments afterward, as we shared a glass of champagne; as George flicked through his phone, showing me photos of Alex that his parents had sent him; as we made our way, sleepily, into bed, George’s fantasy—because that was all it was—had seemed tempting. Another child; an easy, financially secure life. All the comfort that security brings. Letting inertia take over.
Now, in the bright daylight, I knew I’d made an enormous mistake. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—go back to him, not after what he’d done, not after he’d proven to me that my fears had been right, that he’d never let me have my own voice, that he’d call the shots, or else.
I grabbed my phone now, checked the time—nearly nine. Alex would already be up, digging his hands into a bowl of Cheerios and moving his trucks back and forth along an imaginary track on the rug. Lord, what would Ruth and Frank Haywood be telling my little boy, that Mommy and Daddy were on vacation together in Woodstock, that Daddy was going to make sure Mommy came home for good? My stomach churned.
I wiggled a bit, so the mattress would shake. George took only a moment before his eyes fluttered open. He smiled instantly, the corners of his mouth turning up, almost to a smirk, one that had always got me going before. His teethwere white, shiny, and perfectly straight.
He pushed himself up, then leaned in, planted a kiss on my lips. “Morning, beautiful.”
I pulled away instantly. “This was a mistake.”
“Mary,” George started. “I know you tend to question things. I know you like to go over it and over it in your head, but just don’t this time, okay?” His eyes cased down my body, to my breasts, limp from where nursing Alex had stretched them. “The moment is too lovely.”
Instinctively, I pulled the sheets up around me, tucking my nipples away. “This doesn’t change anything. I’m still—” I said. “We’re still—”
“We’re still us, Mary. A family. You can’t just abandon that.”
“Like I said, it was a mistake.” I pushed the sheets back and fished through my bag for new clothes, haphazardly pulling on a T-shirt and shorts.
I headed to the kitchen, setting the champagne flutes into the sink, pouring the remains of the ridiculously overpriced bottle down the drain, a vision of shoving cash into a blender, watching it pulverize into confetti, running through my mind. I poured myself some water, gulped it down.
I returned to the bed, where George still lay, as if he owned the place. As if what I’d said didn’t even matter. Because what Mary says never matters, does it?
“You can’t stay,” I said. “You need to go.”
George raised an eyebrow. “What are you going to do, throw me out?”
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I have things to do. I have to get myself established up here. I don’t need this . . . this distraction.”
George’s eyes scrunched up. “Up here?”
“Yes,” I said. “Like we agreed.”
His head cocked to the side for a moment, a confused puppy. “You don’t mean they didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
George began to laugh. A hateful, bitter laugh. Then he stepped out of bed, pulled on his pants. “Cut-rate lawyers,” he said. “I mean, I knew yours was bad, but I didn’t think he was that bad.”
My heart hammered in my chest. “What are you talking about?”
“The divorce,” he said. “The one you want so badly. You should have received papers from the lawyer. On Friday.”
My heart was racing so fast now that I half-wondered if George could hear it. “My attorney was out on Friday. The paralegal—she emailed me yesterday. I tried to check the portal, but—” I said, feeling suddenly stupid. Foolish. Naïve. “But I couldn’t remember my password. I got locked out, so no, I couldn’t see anything—but you said.”
George pulled on his shirt, grabbed his wallet from the nightstand, and tucked it into his front pocket. Then he turned to me, looking at me almost with disdain. “You didn’t seriously think I was going to go for that, did you?”
“You agreed,” I said.
“I said that might work. Nothing was ever in writing, Mary. And my lawyers wanted me to keep my cards close anyway.”
“So what did—what do—the papers say?” I asked, my fingers quivering with anger, with fear.
George laughed again, that awful laugh. Then he walked out of the bedroom and to the front, where he slipped his shoes on, sneakers that cost a month’s rent. Finally, he turned back to me. “What do you think they say, Mary? The prenup is airtight. And there’s really no need for child support if I have Alex full time.”
I walked forward, fuming, as George opened the front door.
“You wouldn’t,” I said.
“I always made it clear that I would.”
“No,” I said, wringing my hands together desperately. “Only in the beginning, when you were angry, when things were so new. These last couple of months, you started to be more flexible. You agreed to . . . to everything I was asking for.”
“I told you, Mary, my lawyers told me not to reveal all. Did you really think I wouldn’t fight you on this? I don’t want to lose you. Haven’t I made that clear?”
“The courts will never take a kid away from his mother,” I said. “Never.”
“Maybe not normally, but there are extenuating circumstances, aren’t there? You had a hard time of it in the beginning. That’s all documented, you know.”
My heart cinched up. “You can’t be serious.” I’d had an awful bout with postpartum depression, right after Alex was born. At George’s urging, I’d spoken with the Haywoods’ family doctor, a psychiatrist, and later, a therapist. But surely they couldn’t use that against me. It was so common—it was nothing.
“Mothers have PPD, George. Lots of them do. They don’t lose their kids.”
“Yes, but leaving Alex alone so you could go out drinking till all hours.”
“That was one night,” I said, knowing instantly what he was talking about. Cassandra had taken me for drinks when Alex was six weeks old, and it had been so long since I’d been out that the alcohol had hit me horribly. She’d practically had to carry me home. I felt terrible about it, of course. “It was a fluke. A freak thing.”
“What about when you ran off to the Hamptons that weekend, leaving your son who needed you on his own?”
I blinked back tears. “You told me to take that weekend.” It had been a couple of months later, when the pressures of constant nursing and caretaking were getting the best of me. “You set it up and everything. You told me between you and the nanny, Alex would be fine. And he was.”
“You want to take a risk, really go to court? Fine. We’ll see how things shake out. But given how on it your lawyer’s been so far, personally, I wouldn’t take the chance.” George took one step out onto the porch. “But if you come back to me, all of this goes away.”
“You’re horrible,” I said, my voice raised now, my pitch high-strung, what some might call hysterical, tears blooming in my eyes. “You’re a horrible, horrible man.”
“And yet I’m yours,” George said, his smirk returning.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I said, and I couldn’t help it. I reached both hands up and shoved, sending him back so he tripped over the porch steps, fell, and caught himself with two hands, his body crashing onto the walkway—splat.
I’d never touched George. I’d never touched anyone in anger.
“Oh my god,” I heard from a middle-aged woman, power walking by. “God, are you okay?”
Before I could take in her horror, before I could see her rush up to help him, as if he were the victim here, and I the aggressor, I slammed the door.