Genuine Lies

thing she’d ever asked of me was that I keep my sinful relationship private and spare her the pain of exposure. Hadn’t she honored her vows? Hadn’t she nearly died trying to give me a child?”
    And hadn’t she chained a man to her in a loveless, destructive marriage for nearly fifty years? Eve thought. She could feel no sympathy, no guilt, and no regret for Muriel Flannigan. And beneath the love she felt for Victor was a resentment that he should wish her to.
    “It was an ugly scene,” he continued. “With her damning my soul and yours to hell, calling on the Virgin for strength.”
    “Good Christ.”
    He managed a wan smile. “You have to understand, she means it. If anything’s kept her alive these past years, it’s been her faith. It’s even kept her calm most of the time. But the book, the idea of it, sent her over the edge into a seizure.”
    He closed his eyes a moment. The image of his wife writhing on the floor, her eyes rolled back, her body bucking, made his skin clammy.
    “I called for the nurse. She and I were able to give Muriel the medication. When we finally got her to bed, she was quiet, weepy, apologetic. She clung to me awhile, begging me to protect her. From you. The nurse sat up with her until dawn. Sometime after that and before I checked on her at ten, she took the pills.”
    “I’m very sorry, Victor.” She had her arms around him now, her face pressed to his, rocking, rocking, as she would a small child. “I wish there was something I could do.”
    “You can.” He put his hands on her shoulders, pulling her back. “You can tell me that whatever you have written, you won’t include our relationship.”
    “How can you say such a thing?” She jerked away, amazed that after all these years, after all the pain, he could still hurt her.
    “I have to ask you that, Eve. Not for myself. God knows not for myself. For Muriel. I’ve taken enough from her. We’ve taken enough from her. If she lives, this would be more than she could survive.”
    “For nearly half of my life Muriel has held the upper hand.”
    “Eve—”
    “No, dammit.” She swooped back to the bar to slop champagne in her glass. Her hands were shaking. By God, she thought, there wasn’t another man on earth who could make her tremble. She wished she could have hated him for it.
“I’ve
taken from
her?
” Her voice cut the air between them like a scapel, separating it into two equal parts that could never, never make one whole. “My God, what a crock. She’s been your wife, the woman you’ve felt obligated to spend Christmas with, the woman you’ve had in your home night after night while I’ve been forced to live with whatever’s left over.”
    “She’s my wife,” he said quietly while shame gnawed at him. “You’re the woman I’ve loved.”
    “Do you think that makes it easier, Victor?” How much easier, she wondered bitterly, was it to swallow a handful of pills? To end all pain, to erase all mistakes instead of facing them. “She had your name, carried your child inside her in front of the world. And I have your secrets, your needs.”
    It shamed him that he’d never been able to give her more. It ripped at him that he’d never been able to take more. “If I could change things—”
    “You can’t,” she interrupted. “And neither can I. This book is vital to me. Something I cannot and will not turn awayfrom. To ask me to do so is to ask me to turn away from my life.”
    “I’m only asking you to keep our part of it ours.”
    “Ours?”
she repeated on a laugh. “Yours, mine, and Muriel’s. Plus all the others we’ve taken into our confidence over the years. Trusted servants and friends, self-righteous priests who lecture and absolve.” She made an effort to beat back the worst of her anger. “Don’t you know the saying that a secret can be kept by three people only if two of them are dead?”
    “It doesn’t have to be made public.” He rose, snatching at his glass. “You don’t have to put it in print and sell it at any bookstore … or supermarket!”
    “My life is public, and you’ve been a part of that life for nearly half of it. Not for you, not for anyone will I censor it.”
    “You’ll destroy us, Eve.”
    “No. I thought that once, a long time ago.” The last of the anger drained out of her as she looked down into the bubbles dancing in her glass, and remembered. “I’ve come to believe I was wrong then. The decision I made was … incorrect. I