He looked horrified.
He had answered a question I hadn’t asked.
I nodded slowly.
“So there was something to hide.”
Mark rubbed both hands over his face.
“Rachel…”
“How long?”
“Not here.”
“How long?”
Dana began crying.
I looked at her.
The woman who had stood beside me when I married him.
The woman I called after my miscarriage seven years earlier.
The woman who held Tyler when I was too exhausted after delivery to keep my eyes open.
“How long, Dana?”
She stared at the ground.
“Eight months.”
The number hit harder than I expected.
Eight months.
I started counting backward automatically.
Christmas.
Thanksgiving.
My birthday.
The weekend Dana stayed at our house because her apartment was supposedly being renovated.
Mark’s work conference in Cincinnati.
Her canceled plans.
His late nights.
Pieces began connecting so quickly that I felt physically sick.
“Eight months,” I repeated.
Mark spoke quietly.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I looked at him.
“What wasn’t supposed to happen? The first time? The second? Or the tattoo?”
Someone behind me muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
Dana wiped her face.
“I never meant to hurt you.”
I almost couldn’t believe she said it.
“You had his face tattooed on your body.”
“I know.”
“You came to my house every week.”
“I know.”
“You played with my son.”
She started crying harder.
“I know.”
“You helped me plan this party.”
That one silenced her.
Because she had.
Dana had helped me choose Mark’s cake.
She had helped hang the lights.
Three days earlier, she had stood in my kitchen and asked me what gift I thought Mark would like best.
Meanwhile, she had already given him something I hadn’t known I was competing with.
Herself.
Mark reached toward me.
I stepped away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Rachel, we need to talk privately.”
“We had eight months to talk privately. You just forgot to include me.”
His father suddenly spoke.
“Maybe everybody should calm down.”
I looked at him.
“Your son has been sleeping with my best friend.”
He looked away.
Mark lowered his voice.
“You’re destroying everything.”
There it was.
The sentence that finally made things clear.
Not I destroyed everything.
Not I’m sorry.
