Annabelle

Ants Marching

Sin is rarely hardest on the sinner. I know now that Lovey’s right about that one. Because, while I was up all night, every night wondering, stressing, plotting and planning, Ben slept as soundly as a worriless child in that bed beside me.

How he and Laura Anne snuck around without worrying they’d get caught, I’ll never know. Because, as I pulled into Holden’s driveway that day, my butterflies had butterflies. I wish I could have said that the jitters I was feeling that day were out of love. But they weren’t. They were out of fear and anxiety. They were out of the worry that I would get caught, that someone would see. And I was only drinking coffee, for Lord’s sake—decaf, at that.

I had taken my parents’ extra car to Holden’s. They thought I was on my way to Salisbury, but I was going to make an unexpected pit stop. As Holden’s back door pushed against its springs and slammed shut, I instantly felt more comfortable. It was all the same—in the sunroom, at least. The sofa with the cashmere Ralph Lauren Black Label blanket thrown casually across the back. The bookcase filled with prizewinning, hand-carved decoys and antique guns leaned against the wall. The smell of Old Spice and pine and Labrador mixing together into a cologne of well-bred, moneyed masculinity.

And then there was Holden, in shorts and an oxford with rolled-up sleeves, Gucci loafers and, for a hint of something new, the monogrammed belt buckle had been replaced by Hermès’s signature “H” buckle with an alligator strip running around his taut waist. Holden stepped over the threshold from the kitchen to the sunroom to embrace me. He held me for a long time there and kissed my hair, somehow instinctively knowing that trying for more was too much too soon.

“My house instantly looks better when you walk through the door,” he said.

I smiled, feeling a familiarity about it all that was somewhat comforting.

“Can I get you a drink? Maybe a Veuve Clicquot?”

“What are you doing with Veuve Clicquot lying around?”

He turned, his hand on the refrigerator door and, looking wistfully past me into the space behind my head said, with a prophet’s voice, “I hoped that you would smell it and come back to me.”

We both broke down into a fit of laughter, and, even with my life gone so terribly wrong, it felt so good to laugh. I leaned over the marble island as Holden poured and handed me a wineglass. “No champagne flute?”

He shook his head. “I went to a wine tasting recently and they told me that champagne flutes are made for aerating bad champagne. Good champagne should be enjoyed from a wineglass.”

I thought of Ben, a brand-new guilt surging, a pain stabbing right through me like a shard of glass in a hurricane. I thought of the RV, of the laughter and the love and the simplicity of that life and how I wished that I could lasso that moment and pull it back to me.

But I can’t, I reminded myself, standing up a little straighter, my shoes tapping on the hardwood floor as I slipped them off and curled up in a chair in the adjoining den, directly across from the piano. Holden sat down at the keys and began to play, periodically looking over his shoulder at me. “So, you know how I feel about you, right?”

I walked over to him and set my glass on the piano, remembering that I couldn’t drink it. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that business-as-usual comment. “Yes, Holden, I know how you feel about me.”

“So is it forward of me to ask why you’ve come here today?”

I shrugged even though he was focusing on the concerto flying from the keys like a horse jumping over its hurdles. “I’m not really sure,” I said. “I guess I’ve gotten your texts, and I’ve read your e-mails, and I’m wondering what you’re really hoping to gain from all of this.”

His fingers stopped all at once, ten ants marching home to their queen suddenly stomped by a careless human shoe. He turned on the slick, black bench and said quietly, “You. I’m hoping to gain you.”

I sat down on the bench beside him, and he put his arm around me. I could feel the tears coming as I laid my head on his shoulder. His comfortable, predictable, even-keel shoulder. He rested his head on mine. “I want another chance, Annabelle,” he whispered. “No big to-do that you don’t want. No my mother pressuring you into wearing pink seersucker. None of that. I just want you for who you are, and I don’t ever want you to change. I want you to be the mother of my children.”

That simple sentence was all it took for my misting over to become a huge puddle on the floor.

I could see his eyes glazing over, as he whispered, “What’s wrong, Ann? What’s going on?”

I sniffed and composed myself. “I’m pregnant,” I said simply.

His head popped up, and I could see the shock pass over his face. He stood up so quickly I nearly fell over. He began pacing the length of the living room. I figured that being pregnant with another man’s baby was enough to scare him away and that, now, no Ben, no Holden, I was really, truly alone.

His shock turned to confusion, and he said, “So what are you doing here? I mean, does Ben not want a baby or something?”

I bit my lip. “Ben doesn’t know.”

True mystification was written all over his face, but then he steeled his jaw and, in that classic, Holden way, that decisive, confident manner that I needed most, he said, “Don’t tell him.”

“What do you mean, don’t tell him?”

“Don’t tell him. If he knows, there will be custody battles and the baby being shifted from place to place and all sorts of confusion.”

It made me realize how little I had actually considered this. I had to tell Ben, didn’t I? I couldn’t keep a secret this huge from Ben. Or could I? He hadn’t been terribly concerned about keeping a huge secret from me.

My thoughts shifted to Lovey. Had she been at this same crossroads? All of a sudden, I began to understand her a little bit better. Because, now, it wasn’t about me, and it wasn’t about Ben and it wasn’t about Holden. It was about this precious little baby and what would be best for it.

I thought of my mother and how she had never had any doubt about who her parents were. And she was happy. And, though I knew it was wrong, I nodded all the same. “Okay.”

Then I started crying again. “Holden, this won’t work. I mean, I won’t be divorced for a year at the minimum, and I’m going to be pregnant and having this baby with you . . . Our families will absolutely die. What will people say? What will they think?”

“I don’t give a shit what people think,” he said. “We’ll move. I’m sick of Raleigh anyway.”

My heart was starting to warm to him, to realize that, for all his faults, this was a man that was capable of being a rock for me when I needed it most. That’s when I made the mistake of glancing down at the Love band adorning my left finger.

I had made a vow. I had promised to love Ben and cherish him and be faithful to him until the day I died. And he had broken that vow. And now, sitting in the tapestried den of my ex-fiancé, I was the one who felt broken. “Where will we move?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But we’ll just go. And our families will be pissed, but, wherever we go, the people there won’t know. We’ll just act like we’ve been married the whole time. And, when it’s legal, we can sneak off somewhere, just the two of us, and get it done.” He cleared his throat and looked down at my stomach. “Just the three of us, I mean.” He winked at me. “I think a little return trip to the BVIs might be nice.”

I thought of that trip with Holden, the night we got engaged, the joy I had felt at the Christmas-card-perfect life that I had won for myself. And how I had thrown it all away on a fling that hadn’t ever really loved me. The weight of all of my bad decisions suddenly felt like it was suffocating me. I had to get outside and get some fresh air. I started toward the door with Holden following behind me. “Where are you going? I think we have a few more details to iron out here.”

I shook my head. “I know, Holden. But I have so much to deal with between now and then. I just need to go.”

In the way I needed most, he said, “Okay. I’m here whenever.” He paused. “Do you want me to get a crib or something?”

I looked back at him, my hand on the car door already and said, “For right now, let’s just wait. Just don’t tell anyone.” I turned back and added, “Can you just wait a little longer for me?” I put my hand on my belly. “For us?”

He grinned like his horse had just won the Derby and said, “Oh, Ann, I’d wait for you forever.”

I sped out of the driveway and down the highway, angry at the uninvited tears crashing my party. As I drove, music blaring in the background, I sobbed for the person that I had pushed away the most: my husband. And for this baby that we had made out of so much love.

Somewhere along the two-hour drive from Raleigh to Salisbury, I composed myself, and I thought about my options. I had spent so long thinking that the only choice was to leave Ben, but what if that wasn’t it? What if I could stay? What if we could move away and go back to that simpler time where we first fell in love and we were both so happy? What about that option?

The pride surged in me, and I thought about Doug and Sally. I knew that I could never be that woman, that I could never live with a man when I knew that he had someone else filling his heart and his bed, knowing that I wasn’t enough for him. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to face Laura Anne forever, of her knowing that she had battered my ego and humiliated me, that she had taken from me everything I thought was real.

Having to go to Laura Anne’s house for the party she threw us, smile politely and thank her graciously, had been unthinkable enough, especially considering that I couldn’t drink. I would say it was one of the hardest nights of my life, but, in other ways, it was one of the proudest too. I kept my composure, I didn’t kill either of them, and I made it through almost two hours before claiming a migraine—I don’t get migraines, but Laura Anne doesn’t know that—and having to go home. Ben had given me an odd look, but never said a word about my fake condition. In fact, in the car, he said, “Oh my gosh. You don’t think this headache could mean you’re pregnant, do you?”

I flat-out lied with a simple, “No.”

And I knew that night that I couldn’t bear the thought of being the woman that stayed and took that from a man, even one that she was convinced was the other half of her soul.

Worst of all, I couldn’t imagine the humiliation if Ben didn’t want me anymore. What if I gave him the option to rebuild what we had and he chose her anyway?

The hardest thing for me about the affair was that, though I was so seethingly angry with Ben, I still loved him so madly. He had been my entire life, every laugh, every heartbeat, every tear had been with him and for him. And, oddly, it didn’t seem like he loved me any less. When I saw him standing in the doorway of the pool house, waiting for my headlights to pull up, I broke down again. And it was Ben, as always, who pulled me onto his lap, stroked my hair and whispered, “Everybody needs a good cry every now and then, TL.”

And then I started crying even harder because I knew that I wasn’t his TL, at least not in the way I wanted to be. I knew our marriage was over, and he had no idea. The man who had changed everything about my life would be gone from it soon. It was as though everything I had put my faith in on this earth had fallen into a mythic hand that had closed and crumbled it all in one fell swoop.

I composed myself, picked my head up from Ben’s shoulder and looked at him.

“What’s the matter with my girl?” he asked, nuzzling my neck.

I looked into his eyes, and I knew it was the right moment. I needed to tell him something. About the baby. That I knew about the affair. But, instead, I said, “It’s just so hard to see Lovey like that.”

“I know, sweetheart. But she’s going to be fine. She has so much love around her, and, when you’re surrounded by love, what else do you really need?” He kissed me. “After I found your love, I haven’t needed another single thing.”

And that’s when it hit me. What if I had my facts wrong about Ben? What if Laura Anne zipped up in his golf bag that day hadn’t meant that he was cheating? What if it was something else entirely, something that the four of us would sit around a fire pit and have a good, long laugh about in the near future?

And there I was again, back to questioning everything, back to feeling like the axis of my life was tipping so far to the left that I was on the verge of falling off of the world. For a moment, I had hope. Maybe there was another explanation as to why Ben had to sneak Laura Anne out of the pool house. And maybe there was some other explanation to the whole blood-typing, birth certificate fiasco. Maybe it was nothing more than a mistake, a slip of the pen. Another explanation for anything, at this point, would be a very welcome change.