“I can’t discuss it at this time,” he said.
Tears pricked my eyes and terrible sorrow swelled up inside me, choking me. This was how my mother let herself be treated. With every miserable, failing relationship she had, she clung on to hope and let herself be humiliated as men used her, and then cast her aside. It broke her heart, it wrecked her life, and mine.
I wouldn’t live like that.
“We can’t go on like this,” I said, not even trying to hide the tears running down my cheeks. “I’m going to go take a walk, and when I come back, I’m moving into another bedroom. We’ve got like a week left; we can re-evaluate things then.”
“So every time there’s a problem you’re going to just turn and walk out?” Max said furiously.
“Oh, drop dead, Max,” I snapped. “I’m not the one who’s having an affair and refusing to admit it!”
“No, you’re the one who’s falsely accusing your husband!” he shouted.
I stomped out, and ran away from that house as if it were on fire. For once, I ran in human form, jogging down the road until I found a spot near the main family compound. I sat down on a sawed off log by the edge of the woods. There were people on the front porch, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk.
I could scent Virginia coming. I turned to see her walking over. She plopped herself down on the bench next to me.
I glanced up. “Hello,” I sighed. I could see two guys lurking a few hundred yards from us. Virginia smiled ruefully. “Welcome to my personal hell,” she said.
“You pretty much brought that on yourself,” I pointed out.
She stared down at the ground. “I know. And I’m sorry I got you in trouble with my brother. I should have told you the truth.” She glanced up at me. “He’s crazy about you, you know. I’ve never seen him act like this with anyone else.”
“He is?” I said, startled.
“Of course he is!” She looked amused. “How could you even question it? Well, I guess you don’t have anything to compare it to. He was always pretty casual with everyone else he dated. Didn’t care less if any other guys checked them out. With you, my God, if someone says how hot you are, he’s practically ready to Death Challenge them on the spot.”
“People say I’m hot?” I said, ridiculously pleased at that.
“Smokin’.”
“Do you…do you think he’d ever cheat on me?”
“No way,” she said fervently.
“There’s stuff that he isn’t telling me,” I said. “I don’t know what to think.”
“That’s typical Battle behavior,” she said. “If he’s not telling you something, it’s because he thinks he’s protecting you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “I guess I should go talk to him.” Maybe I should have cut Max some slack. Then again, he was hiding a frickin’ picture from me and taking mysterious phone calls that I wasn’t supposed to listen in on. I didn’t know what to think.
Heavy hearted, I got up and started walking back to the bridal house.
As I walked, I called my Aunt Prudence. Normally, I’d call Bess or Cowin, but given how much they hated Max, I didn’t think they were the best people to turn to for advice.
“Josephine! So good to hear from you. Are you all right?” she said.
“Prudence, is everyone in my family cursed to be treated horribly by men? Do we drive men to cheat?” I asked.
“Is your husband cheating on you?” she said, sounding concerned.
“I don’t know. There’s something he isn’t telling me,” I grumbled.
“Well, that doesn’t automatically mean cheating, does it?”
“With my history, it does. I mean look at me, Prudence, I’m a genetic weirdo. How many fat wolves do you know? It drove away every man who my mother ever loved.”
“Don’t you do that to yourself,” Prudence said fiercely. “You know what drove away every man your mother ever loved? Not her fat butt. It was her. She only went after men who were total losers, who treated her horribly from the beginning. I’m sorry to say this, because she’s your mother, but she’d meet men in bars, go home with them that night, and then get obsessed with them. She’d pick up married men and then wonder why they treated her badly. There were a few decent men who were interested in her, but she had no interest in them.”
“Oh,” I said, stunned. Looking back on it, I could see that she was right. I’d just let my mother spin it her own way – we’re fat, we’re different, nobody could ever love us.