11th hour

Chapter 64

It was reckless, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I picked up Joe’s BlackBerry, clicked to answer, and put the phone to my ear. I heard the traffic sounds of a faraway city. It was painful to do it, nearly impossible, but I waited the caller out.

“Joe?”

“No, it’s Lindsay,” I said. “Joe’s wife.” I sat down on a bar stool at the counter.

There was a long silence as the woman’s mind fumbled for a moment. My head was spinning too.

“Ohhh. Lindsay. Hi. I — is Joe there?”

Her voice was softer, sweeter than I had imagined.

“Joe’s sleeping off his jet lag,” I said. “June, I want to know the truth. Are you and Joe having an affair?”

I suppose I could have eased into it sideways, asked about the charity event the other night, said that I’d seen the photo and that it made me wonder why Joe hadn’t mentioned the black-tie dinner to me. A less direct approach would have given me room to retreat, but retreat was the last thing on my mind.

My pulse throbbed in my neck as the question hung on a virtual phone line three thousand miles long.

Are you and Joe having an affair?

Finally, the woman sighed.

She said, “Lindsay, maybe this isn’t the best time to discuss this.”

“So, when would be a good time, June? What works for you?”

“I didn’t want it to turn out like this. We didn’t want you to know, but I guess there’s no point in lying anymore.”

The ground seemed to open beneath me and I dropped into the void. I heard, as if from a long distance away, my voice saying to June, “You didn’t want me to know that you’re sleeping with my husband? You’re aware that I’m pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“I guess that’s all I need to know.”

“Wait, Lindsay. Joe loves you very much.”

Her girlish voice was like a frigid wind blowing through my hair. She said, “Joe and I are close, have always been close, but it’s not marriage, Lindsay. It’s just one of those things.”

I turned the phone off.

I remember steadying myself with both hands on the counter so that I didn’t fall off the bar stool.

Was I losing my mind? Had my husband’s mistress just told me that my husband loved me? I had had to hear that from her? That bitch!

And what did she mean by “just one of those things”? Something inevitable? Chemical? Ordained?

And Joe.

How could he have lied to me, cheated on me, made a fool of me and our marriage and everything I felt for him?

Who was he? Who was this man I had married?

Joe had said to me last night, Do we ever really know anyone?

What was I going to do?

What the hell was I going to do? I had a baby on the way. Our baby.

Joe’s phone rang in front of me again.

I stared at June’s name, picked up the phone, clicked to connect, then disconnected instantly. I didn’t want to talk to her and I didn’t want her to leave a message for Joe.

I grabbed the phone, went to the half bath off the kitchen, lifted the lid off the toilet tank, and dropped the phone into the water. I stared at it. It was ringing again.

And then it stopped.

What was I going to do?

As if a message had floated up from the inky depths of a Magic 8 Ball, I knew.