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“You’re just going to go home?” he asked, confused.

“Yes.” I walked to my car without turning around. I couldn’t believe I had given up my marriage for this jerk.

CHAPTER 23

It was 5:52 a.m., and I was alone in the middle of my kingsized bed. I closed my eyes, hoping to go back to sleep, but my mind was racing with all the mistakes I’d made. I had denied what was happening with Michael for so long, and then when I couldn’t deny it any longer, I’d rationalized it. I told myself that if Jim was going to ignore me, then it was okay if someone else found me sexy and interesting. I didn’t think about how devastated and betrayed he’d feel if he found out. I was short-sighted and selfish, and I’d hurt him deeply. I regretted that more than anything. I didn’t know if he’d forgive me, but I had to try to make it up to him and fight for my marriage. As I got out of bed, I checked myself out in the mirror. Sheet marks had taken up residence on my face. I hoped they’d move out soon.

I made two poached eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee and took it out to the table on our back deck. As the morning sun was lighting up the woods behind our house, the scent of marigolds wafted over me. It was spring, although my mood was far from springy. The neighbor’s garage door rattled as it went up, then down, and his motorcycle reverberated as it traveled down the street. I barely ate anything, and the slippery yellow yoke on my plate was making me queasy. After I’d washed the dishes and cleaned up the house, I needed to do one thing before Jim and Gia got home in order to move on.

At ten o’clock, I was standing in front of Michael’s apartment. As I was debating whether to ring the bell or knock, he opened the door to get his newspaper. He had on shorts and the same Captain America T-shirt he’d been wearing the first time I saw him, and the tattoo on his arm was on full display.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said and motioned for me to come in. I sat on the couch, as far away from him as I could. He sat next to me. I took a throw pillow and placed it between us. “You’re so confusing,” he said. “One minute we’re about to have sex, the next you’re running out the door. Last night, the way you were dressed, the way you flirted with me, you wanted me as much as I wanted you. Are you just a tease?”

“No. Last night your phone rang while you were in the bathroom, and I saw it was from Gia’s friend Taylor.” I was going to stay cool and see what he had to say.

“That’s why you were weird?” he said. “She’s just somebody I met at the gym.”

“Funny, I don’t wear a bra and panties when I work out.”

“I wish you did,” he said and moved the pillow from between us. He inched closer to me and put his hands on the buttons of my blouse.

I moved away from him. “You can’t really think I’m going to sleep with you.”

“You’re going to give up the opportunity to fulfill your fantasies with me because of one stupid girl?”

Right now, my fantasy was running him over with my car. “I would never be with someone who’s sleeping with other women.”

“So I date other women. It’s not like we’re committed to each other. And you didn’t seem to care before Jim moved out.”

“Taylor is one of Gia’s friends. And she’s nineteen!” I said loudly, hoping that he didn’t know her age.

“I told you a long time ago I dated younger.” He clearly knew her age.

“You’re a thirty-four-year-old man dating a nineteen-year-old girl, and you don’t see anything wrong with that?”

“She’s an adult,” he said emphatically. I was hoping that he’d feel bad, but that was obviously not in his repertoire of emotions.

“I can’t believe you said that,” I said. I knew what the expression “hot under the collar” meant. Not only was I hot under the collar, but my whole body felt feverish. “My husband is a far more honorable man than you are!”

“The same man who’s been ignoring you since we met?”

“I’m not going to discuss that with you.” I softened my voice. “This isn’t how I wanted this conversation to go.”

“Really? How did you think it would go?” he asked sarcastically. “Like I was going to stop seeing all the young, beautiful women in my life?”

He was so arrogant. How did I make this guy out to be someone he wasn’t? I had sunk so low. “I only came here today to say goodbye and thank you for being there for me the past few months. No matter what, you helped me through a tough time,” I said.

“Well, it didn’t get me laid.” He was showing his true colors, which made me confident that coming here had been the right thing to do. I walked to the door, and he followed close behind. “You’re so lost—you have no idea what you want,” he said.

As he reached in front of me to open the door, the words of his tattoo were almost in my face:Death Before Dishonor. I laughed and then looked him in the eyes. “You’re an immature, vile, crude, loathsome scumbag.” Adjectives were flying out of me. “Don’t call or text me ever again,” I said.

“No problem. Even the nineteen-year-olds I date are more together then you are.”

As I walked over the threshold, he shut the door quickly, leaving me standing on his doormat with the wordwelcomestaring up at me. I felt stronger and more self-assured than I had in a long time. If I had the strength to do that, then I had the strength to get my marriage back on track.

When I opened my car door, I saw the padded envelope that Jerry had given me at my mother’s funeral wedged in the corner. I reached across the seat, picked it up, and held it in my hands. When I tore open the envelope, a small square box fell out, along with a letter. It was handwritten on my mother’s butterfly stationary.

Dear Maggie,