Answered Prayers (24 page)

She picked up her things at the hotel, and took a cab to National with five of her classmates. They caught a shuttle home, and were back in New York at two. It was perfect. She could get home, organize her papers, and cook him a nice dinner as a peace offering. She stopped at the market on the way home, and let herself into the house shortly after three. She was carrying two bags of groceries and set them down in the kitchen, along with all her other bags and belongings. She felt like she had been gone for weeks. And as she looked around the kitchen, she was surprised to see that it was admirably neat. She wondered if he had eaten out every night after all. And as she set the bags down on the floor, she noticed a pair of shoes under a chair. They were high-heeled black satin pumps, and she didn't own any like them. But more surprising, as she picked one up and looked at it closely, was that it was several sizes larger than hers. Her heart began to pound when she saw it, and with a sick feeling in her stomach, she walked upstairs.

The bed in their bedroom had been hastily made, with the bedspread thrown over the unmade bed. And when she pulled it back, she almost instantly spotted a black lace brassiere, and as she looked down, there was a matching pair of thong underwear, seemingly hastily discarded on the floor. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a sick feeling, and sat down on the bed, feeling faint. This couldn't be happening to her. There was no way to explain it, except for the obvious. This wasn't a house-guest, or a daughter, or anyone she could explain to herself. Alex had had a woman in the house while she was gone. And when she walked into her bathroom, there were cosmetics all over her dressing table, of a brand she didn't wear, and there was long black hair in the sink. There was no way she could paint a prettier picture for herself as she saw another pair of shoes, and a sweater hanging on the towel rack. And all she could do, as she looked at two dresses and three unfamiliar suits in her closet, was cry. It hadn't even been a one-night stand. Whoever the woman was who was staying with Alex, she had obviously moved in for the entire four days.

And then with a sudden feeling of terror, she realized that they would be coming back that night, maybe even that afternoon.

Without even thinking clearly, she ran down the stairs, after throwing the bedspread over the bed the way it had been, and leaving everything else undisturbed. And she was careful to turn off the lights. She ran back into the kitchen, grabbed all her bags, including the two bags of groceries she'd purchased, and left the house. She dropped the two bags of groceries into a trash can on the street, and hailed a cab, with no idea whatsoever where to go. There was no friend she wanted to confess this nightmare to, no place to take refuge, and with no idea what else to do, she asked the driver to take her to the Carlyle Hotel two blocks away, and sat in the backseat and cried.

“That's all?” The driver looked at her, confused. It was so close, she could have walked.

“Yes, yes,” she said, in total disarray, “just go.” She was terrified that she would run into Alex and the woman as they came home. But the worst of all was that it was her home too. He had defiled their home, and their bed. All she could think of as they drove up Madison was the sight of the brassiere and the thong. And all she wanted was to die. It was the ultimate payback for her trip to Washington, if that was what he had intended. But what she also realized as they stopped at the hotel, and the doorman opened the door for her, was that this couldn't have been a new woman to Alex. He wouldn't have moved a stranger into the house for four days. He must have been having an affair with her for a while. Faith felt sick as the doorman asked her if she was checking in, and she said yes.

She didn't want to confront Alex and make a scene. She was going to stay at the hotel, and go home Saturday afternoon, as planned, which meant that Alex and the woman, whoever she was, were going to be cozily ensconced in her house. All she wanted was to check into the Carlyle and throw up.

She asked for a room, and was lucky they had one, since she had no reservation, and told them she would be there for one night, or at most for the weekend. They signed her in, handed her a key, and a bellman carried her Washington gear upstairs. She was clutching her computer as though it were the Sierra Madre treasure, and her last link to the real world. But she didn't plug it in when she got upstairs. She just sat on the bed, sobbing, and it was dark outside by the time she stopped. She didn't even know what time it was. And when she glanced at the clock, she saw it was six o'clock. She couldn't even call Zoe to tell her. She didn't think it was fair to turn her against Alex. She had to sort this out for herself. It just didn't seem possible. But it was obvious to her now that he was having an affair. After all his coldness to her, all his fury and accusations over her going back to school, all the icy unkindness he had showered on her for so long, all the distance, all the silence, all the indifference to her as a woman, he was sleeping with someone else. And the worst part was that she was more devastated than angry. She was beginning to wonder if she should have stayed and confronted them both, but she didn't feel up to it, and she needed time to gather her wits.

It was eight o'clock in New York when she called Brad. She was going to discuss it with him calmly. She wanted his brotherly advice, just as she would have called Jack if he were alive. And she knew from Brad that Pam had had several affairs, and he had strayed once. She expected him to be calmer and more worldly about it than she was, and maybe he would tell her not to get upset. But as soon as she heard his voice, she started crying again, and couldn't even form words. She just sobbed uncontrollably into the phone, and for a minute he didn't know who it was. It wasn't unusual for him to get hysterical calls from potential clients, or their parents, and for a second he thought it was one of those, and then realized with horror that it was Faith.

“Fred? … shit… oh my God, what is it? … come on, baby … talk to me … tell me what it is….” He was afraid that something might have happened to one of her kids. “Fred, sweetheart… please … try to calm down … take a breath … tell me what happened … are you hurt? … are you okay? … where are you?” He was getting more desperate by the second, and she hadn't made sense yet.

“I'm in New York,” she croaked, and then dissolved into sobs again.

“Come on now, try to tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”

“No … but I wish I were dead….” She sounded like a little girl, and all he could envision was the little eight-year-old he had known and loved, with blond braids and no teeth, when they first met.

“Are the kids okay?” That was his worst fear for her, it was what all parents feared most. He prayed that wasn't it.

“Yes … I think so … it's not them… it's Alex …,” she said, still crying, but she could get the words out now, and Brad was relieved by what he had heard so far, except for the fact that she was so desperately upset. He wondered if Alex had had an accident, or maybe a heart attack, and had died.

“Is he hurt?”

“No, I am. He's a total shit.” Brad suddenly realized they must have had a fight, and it wasn't as bad as he had feared. But it must have been a lulu, for her to be in the state she was in. He had never heard her like that. He wondered if he had beaten her up. If so, Brad thought in anticipatory fury, he was going to nail him himself.

“I thought you were in Washington. What are you doing in New York?” He knew she wasn't due back till the next day.

“The professor's mother got sick, and she had to leave. So I came home early.” She was still crying, but coherent enough to talk to him at least. He was panicked over her.

“Then what?” He was anxious to hear.

“I went home.”

“Did you have a fight with him?” Brad waved his secretary away from his desk. She was signaling that he had three calls waiting, but he didn't care. He wanted to talk to Faith, without interruptions. Everyone else would have to wait, or go to hell. His priority was Faith.

“No, the house was empty.” Suddenly, real panic overtook him. Maybe she'd run into an intruder, and been raped.

“What happened, for God's sake? Fred, you have to tell me.” She was driving him insane. He couldn't help her if he didn't know what had put her in the state she was in.

“He had a woman there,” she said, and blew her nose in a wad of Kleenex from the box next to the bed.

“She was in the house when you came home?” Brad was stunned. Alex didn't sound like the type, from what she'd said.

“No, her clothes were. There were shoes in the kitchen, her clothes in my closet, her stuff all over my bathroom, and her underwear in the bed. He's been sleeping with her!” It certainly sounded like it to Brad. There weren't many ways to explain what she'd seen. “It was disgusting … there was a thong …” She dissolved into tears again, and he couldn't help but smile in sympathy for her. Poor kid.

“Poor baby. I wish I were there. Where are you, by the way?” She had obviously gone somewhere to call. He couldn't imagine she was sitting in the house, waiting for them to come home.

“I'm at the Carlyle. I took a room for the weekend. I don't know what to do. Do you think I should go home and throw her out?”

“I don't think that's such a great idea. First, you need to calm down. And then you need to figure out what you want to do. Do you want to divorce him? Leave him? Do you even want to tell him you know? If you don't, maybe it'll just blow over.” That was what he had always done with Pam, in the interest of saving their marriage. But she had been smart enough not to bring them home. If nothing else, he thought what Alex had done was just plain dumb.

“What if he's serious about her?” Faith sounded distraught.

“Then you have a major problem.” But they both knew she did anyway. Their marriage had been unhappy for years, and Alex had just severed the last thread, along with any respect she'd ever had for him. He had broken her heart with the thong. She felt like she'd been hit by a bus. And then Brad had a thought. “Do you want me to fly in? We can hash this out before you go home. I can take the red-eye tonight if you want, and come back tomorrow night.”

“No … it's okay … I have to figure this out… what am I going to do?” She wondered what Jack would have said, but she had the feeling that whatever it was, Brad would say pretty much the same thing. They were very much alike in their views.

“I think you really have to figure out what you want before you confront him. This is your show now, Fred. You've got the ace here.” She hadn't thought of it that way, but she wasn't convinced.

“Maybe not. Not if he's in love with her.”

“And if he isn't? Do you want to stay married to him? Can you forgive him for this? A lot of people do, so don't be embarrassed if you want to just forget about it. These things blow over eventually. Most of the time at least. It's usually just a passing thing.” He hated what Alex did to her anyway, but he was trying to be fair to her, and not get her more worked up than she was. Other people had forgiven their spouses for affairs before. He had Pam, and she him. It all depended on Faith's point of view.

“How could he do this to me?” She was having a typical reaction for anyone in the situation she was in.

“Stupid probably. Bored. His ego needed a boost, he was feeling old. All the same dumb reasons everyone else has for doing that kind of stuff. Most of the time, it's not true love. Just true lust.”

“Great. He doesn't even look at me anymore, and he is sleeping with some woman in a thong. She has long black hair,” she said, remembering the hair in the sink, and Brad smiled, and wished he could give her a hug. She needed one desperately. “Maybe she's really young.”

“I can guarantee you one thing, sweetheart. You're more beautiful than she is. And it doesn't matter if she has a beard and wears a toupee. He's probably just having some fun while you're away.”

“Meanwhile, he acts like I committed a felony because I went back to school. And I've been eating shit for a month to make it up to him, and scraping around on my hands and knees. Maybe this is his idea of revenge.”

“I'm almost sure it has nothing to do with you. It's about him. Screw him. Let's worry about you. What do you say you wash your face and order a cup of tea from room service, or maybe a drink? I'll call you back in half an hour, and we'll try to figure this out. All I want to help you decide is what you want to do. What I think is irrelevant here.”

“But what do you think?” she wanted to know.

“What do I think?” he said, trying to stay calm. “I think he's a complete son of a bitch, and a pathetic little prick, but not just because of this. He drags you around by the hair constantly, in one way or another, he freezes you out, you're lonely all the time, and now he does a dumb thing like this. Personally, I think he should be shot. But if you want to stay married to him, I support you a hundred percent. Because I don't love him, you do, and I'm not married to him.” He respected her marriage, and her desire to stay in it, as much as his own. Although he wished she had left Alex years before, for her sake.

“I'm not sure what I feel for him anymore. Right now, I hate him, and I feel humiliated and stupid and unloved. I don't know if I love him or not. I just thought I'd always be married to him, now I'm not so sure.” A door was opening that seriously frightened her, and she felt desperately insecure.

“Well, don't make any rash decisions until you figure that out. I'll call you back in half an hour.” He had eleven urgent phone messages waiting for him by then. He answered seven of them, asked his secretary to take care of the others. It was six o'clock for him by then, and fortunately he knew Pam was going out with friends.

Faith had ordered a pot of tea, and had splashed cold water on her face by the time he called her back half an hour later. But she had no idea what she was going to do about Alex, and just thinking about him in their house that night with the woman in the thong made her feel sick.

“How are you doing?” he asked sympathetically.

“I don't know. I feel weird.” And she sounded it. Like she was disconnected, and tired.