Page 141 of Woman on the Verge

“My thoughts?” he says, seemingly bewildered by what’s being asked of him.

“Yes. How did you feel when you understood that your wife was having this imagined affair?”

He lets out a long sigh. “Well, confused at first. Then angry. I mean, I know the affair wasn’treal, but this whole ... delusion, as you call it ... was still a betrayal.”

Crystal squints at him—her inquisitive therapist stare.

“How so?”

“She was obsessed with this guy. I’ve read the texts.”

Apparently, the whole time I thought I was texting Elijah, I was just texting myself, texts Kyle has since perused. I have never been so humiliated.

“And beyond that, there’s just this disbelief. Like, how did her minddothis? She was staying at the freaking Hilton and thought she was in this guy’s apartment?”

Yes, that’s what I did, which explains Liv finding that hotel key card in my purse. The charges were all there on our credit card: the nights spent at the Hilton, meals out—the breakfast spot I thought I went to with Elijah, the Chinese takeout, the Pier 39 fish house. The amount of money spent suggests I purchased enough for two people. Again, humiliated.

“Okay, let’s take the two things separately. First, her obsession—as you said—with Elijah.”

Crystal glances at me, as if to check if I am okay with where this is going. I am. She and I have already gone here in our sessions.

“Do you want to share with Kyle some of the things we’ve discussed?” Crystal asks me.

I nod, reluctantly, and dare to turn my head to look at Kyle. He turns to me. His eyes are both sad and infuriated. I have never seen him like this.

“I think Elijah represented something to me,” I say, my voice soft and cautious.

Kyle just stares.

“Like, he was this ideal man. He was this escape from reality.”

“And this imagined ideal speaks to a lot of what she felt was missing in her life,” Crystal says. She nods at me, signals to me to continue.

“I wasn’t feeling seen. I wasn’t feeling tended to or cared for. I hated losing my job. I felt put in this position at home with the girls, and you didn’t seem to get it. You didn’t seem curious about what was going on with me. You just seemed ... annoyed.”

“I was annoyed,” he says. Honest, at least.

“Why were you annoyed?” Crystal asks.

He turns away from me to Crystal.

“Nobody said she had to stay home forever. This was a temporary thing. I thought she liked doing the mom stuff. She’s not the only one who didn’t feel ...tended to.”

“He’s talking about sex,” I say to Crystal, crossing my arms over my chest.

“It’s not just sex,” Kyle says. “It’s connection. That’s how we connect.”

“That’s howyouconnect.”

Crystal puts up both hands, telling us to pause.

“Ultimately, what I’m seeing here is a communication breakdown,” she says. “There wasn’t an open and honest discussion of needs, for both of you. You were both expecting a lot of mind reading.”

“Shouldn’t your partner be able to read your mind?” I ask. “We’ve been together since college, for god’s sake.”

“I wish our partners could do that. Alas, they are human.”

She smiles, but I do not find this amusing.