Page 4 of Fox
I looked at that small, blurry flutter on the screen and knew, the way you know certain things without being able to explain how, and I had called her something in my head—not out loud, not officially—just a name I gave her in the private room of myself where I kept the things that were too tender for air.
I don’t say that name anymore.
What I will say is that I stay married because I want to. Because I love my husband.
I loved him in the gutted, hollow months that followedher, when Fox and I moved around each other like we were both made of something breakable.
I loved him when I suggested a few months ago that maybe it was time to think about expanding our family.
I love him now.
I love him, I think, the way you love a home—not because it’s perfect but because you’ve already planted things there, because you feel safe there even with its flaws, because you’ve learned it.
Fox stays, too.
I think it’s because he loves me.
I am wrong about that.
I find that out on a bright April day when the Bradford pears are holding their blossoms, the skies over Cumberland are clean and bright.
I love this time of year. It’s perfection. In a few weeks the heat will arrive and stay, and the air will thicken into something you wear rather than breathe, but right now it’s seventy-two degrees and the dogwoods on the plaza outside Fox’s building are doing something frankly embarrassing in terms of beauty as I walk past the Arcade and through Printer’s Alley, because I always take the long way when the weather lets me.
I carry a bag from Dina’s.
I madecassoulet: duck confit, pork, and white beans.
I called his secretary to confirm he was in, but told her not to tell him I was coming because I wanted to surprise him on the anniversary of the first time he ate my food on the fateful night we met.
I take the elevator to the fourteenth floor.
Fox’s assistant, a young woman named Haley, who has always been kind to me, looks up and smiles conspiratorially when she sees me. I told her we are celebrating an anniversary of sorts.
“He’s in the conference room,” she tells me, her eyes on the bag in my hand. “But I think he’s—he might be wrapping up.”
I smile. “I’ll just set up in his office.”
She nods. “Can I help with anything?”
I lift the bag, shaking my head. “No, I’m all set.”
As I walk to his office, which is right next to the conference room, I hear Fox’s voice, and warmth runs through me. His tone is low and unhurried, which is the way he talks when he’s comfortable, when he’s among people he doesn’t have to perform for.
I wonder who he’s meeting with?
“I don’t love her. I don’t think I ever have.”
I stop. Freeze.
“She’s good people, Fox.” That’s Percy.
Percy Hale is Fox’s oldest friend, the one who stood at our courthouse wedding and took the photo on his phone that is one of the few good wedding photos I have.
“I’m not saying she isn’t. I know she is.”
Who are they talking about? I think. But I know. A sick feeling spreads through me.
“So then what?—“
