The Good Wife(129)
At the top of the stairs, she picked Ella up and discovered she was wet. Sarah changed her out of her wet pajamas, dressed her again in a clean nightgown, and took her to bed in the master bedroom, where Ella curled up against her in bed.
Lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, she stroked Ella’s hair, wondering how her thirteen years of marriage to Boone had changed her from Sarah Brennan, all-star, to Sarah Walker, no one.
* * *
Boone returned from Baltimore in the middle of the night, sometime around two, but when he climbed into bed he stayed on his side. Usually he reached for her, or slid up against her and put an arm around her waist. He didn’t. Sarah lay in the dark, wondering if she should go to him but feared being rebuffed. So she clung to the edge, too upset to sleep.
Now it was morning and he’d come downstairs, and entered the kitchen.
Sarah asked if he wanted coffee. But instead of answering, he walked past her and poured a cup for himself.
“Don’t ignore me,” she said, more sharply than she intended.
He just looked at her as he reached into the refrigerator for cream.
“I don’t know why you’re mad at me,” she said, watching him add cream and sugar to his coffee.
One of his brows lifted. “You don’t?” he drawled sarcastically.
She swallowed hard. He was still angry. Well, fine. She was still angry. They could both be angry, then. But he really had no right. He was the one who’d messed things up by having the affair. He was the one who sent that lady all those goddamn messages about how much he wanted her—
“I’m not cheating on you, Sarah,” he said, setting his spoon down hard. “I told you I’d learned my lesson—”
“But how do I know that?”
“Because I’m telling you, Sarah. I’m telling you to trust me.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then we’re not going to make it. We’re just not.”
“Why not?”
He gestured, the sweep of his hand moving back and forth between them. “This,” he said, gesturing again, “isn’t working. This, isn’t good.”
“I’m having a hard time with your career right now.”
“Why? What have I done?”
“It’s what you did.”
“Three years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Sarah, I can’t undo the past, and I’m sorry for what I did, but you have to believe me when I say there’s no other woman in my life but you. You are my girl. You’re it.”
Her eyes searched his, wanting to believe him, needing to believe him, but there was a brittle part of her and it had broken off inside and was rattling and humming really loud. “I want to believe you,” she whispered.
“Then do.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it, shook his head, looking away. Sarah studied his profile, seeing all the beautiful lines had gone hard and tight. Closed.
She was pushing him away.
She knew it, felt it, and yet felt helpless to stop it when she couldn’t feel anything but anger and despair.
He’d loved someone besides her.
He’d made love to that woman, touching her body, exploring it, pleasuring it, the way he’d pleasured hers.
How could he do it? Their love had been sacred. Their love had been beautiful. Their relationship had been special . . .
“I don’t understand how you could be with that woman,” Sarah whispered. “I don’t understand how you could tell her those things, and text her those things, and then come home to me.”
Boone’s jaw jutted. His shoulders shifted. “I was stupid and wrong.”
“It still hurts, Boone.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him sideways, wondering if he meant it. “It kills me that you’d do things with her . . . that you’d do with me.”
“I love you. I never loved her.”
“But the idea of you with her—”
“Stop going there. Stop thinking about it. You’re torturing yourself. Torturing me. I’m not proud of what I did and I hate that I hurt you, Sarah. I hate that I’ve caused you so much pain, but you have to help us get through this, too. You have to help us move forward. You have to forgive me and move on.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then maybe we stop trying to make this work. Maybe face the fact that we’re not going to survive this, and then we move on.”
Separately.
He hadn’t said that last word, but it hung there between them, unspoken.
Sarah swallowed hard, suppressing the lump in her throat. “Would you like me to make you something for breakfast?”