Thought I Knew You(35)

Greg coughs. “Melinda was showing me pictures of their vacation in Hawaii.” But his eyes are looking at my chin.

I cock my head to the side. Melinda slides off the barstool, unsteady. A bit too much to drink? Possibly. I am cemented to the floor. Greg comes over and puts his arm around me, kissing my forehead. Slipping out of his grasp, I step over to the sink, retrieve a paper towel, and move past him, back outside to clean up Hannah’s juice. I look back into the house through the French doors, and Greg and Melinda are talking. He looks uneasy now, his body angled toward the door as if to inch away. Melinda leans in closer to him. She puts a hand on his arm and gestures with her wine glass. Greg looks surprised, and then laughs, his head tipped back, mouth open.



He glances out at me, but I look away. I think of how beautiful Melinda is, with her long blond hair and gym-toned body. A size four to my size ten. She has a small waist and long legs. One of the playground moms once suggested that she may have breast implants. When I look back at them again, she’s standing so close to Greg that one of those implants is touching his arm.

I pick up Leah and tell Hannah, “Let’s get going. Time to leave now, sweetie.” I try to be cheery, but the flirtation stings. I poke my head inside the door. “I think we need to get going. Leah seems cranky.”

Greg looks surprised. Ignoring him, I turn and walk toward the car. He jogs after me and tries to take the diaper bag from my shoulder. He’s smiling now. His headache has been cured. We drive home in silence. He knows I’m angry, but won’t give me the satisfaction of talking about it.

When we get home, I put Leah down for a nap and settle Hannah in front of Cinderella. I find Greg sitting on the couch in the living room, watching ESPN.

I move to stand in front of him. “I want you to talk to me like that, look at me like that. Laugh with me like that.” I wince at how pathetic I sound.

He says nothing.

I take the remote, turn off the TV, and sit next to him. “Why do you stonewall me?”

“Why do you nag me?” he shoots back.

I am momentarily stung silent. “I’m not nagging you. You were flirting. With Melinda. The way you were with her, you haven’t been with me in a long time.”

“She was friendly. We were talking. She is flirtatious; I’ll give you that. But it felt… nice. You’re always trying to make me into a different person. ‘Greg, you should be happier.’ ‘Greg, doesn’t this movie make you sad?’ ‘Greg, be more social,’ and now, ‘Greg, be less social.’” He shakes his head. “Melinda was happy talking to me, Greg, exactly the way I am.”

I fold my arms. “I want to talk to you the way you are. But you don’t actually talk to me.”



He reaches out and touches my hand, his thumb caressing my palm. Despite my anger, a thrill goes through me. He hasn’t touched me in months. His hand slides up my arm and strokes my hair. It feels delicious. I tilt my head back and close my eyes. He kisses my neck, softly, leaning in toward me. His body is warm against mine. He is aroused. By me or Melinda?

“Mommy, I’m hungry.” Hannah is standing in the doorway of the living room.

Greg jumps as if caught doing something wrong. I give him a wry smile. Later, I mouth. The evening passes, dinner, bath, bedtime. Slowly, Greg retreats back into himself. The moment has dissipated. I try to draw him out, be more ‘Melinda-ish.’ It doesn’t work. By the time I come back downstairs after putting the girls to bed, he’s asleep on the couch. Frustrated, I go upstairs. Alone.

At two, I hear him walking around downstairs—his nightly wandering. I think I hear his voice, but I can’t tell if I’m dreaming. I drift back to sleep. When I wake up in the morning, he has left for work. It’s Monday. Tomorrow, he will leave for a business trip to San Diego.





Chapter 17



One thought plagued my mind regardless of what I was doing, and I could not break free from it. Is Greg in San Diego? I’d stayed up all night more than once, looking for the link between San Diego, California, and Rochester, New York. I couldn’t find one, except for the fact that Advent sites were in both places. His secret life, as I’d come to refer to it, had to be linked to his job.

I began seeing a therapist, a bespectacled fifty-something woman whose office was more like a day spa with sandscapes and trickling fountains. She played Enya softly in the background, and her office had woven tapestries hanging from wooden dowels on the wall. The place was calming, and I found myself thinking of it in moments of despair. She advised me to channel my fixation constructively into my children and reminded me to let the police focus on finding Greg.