Here She Lies

Chapter 1
    Sunlight poured through our front door’s stained-glass window, splashing the floor with an impressionistic rainbow. My two large suitcases sat at the ready; everything I needed for the next few months was in them, plus various sizes of clothes for Lexy to grow into. I stood there, stunned by the reality of what was happening. I was really doing it: I was leaving my husband. Stood there, in this moment that felt too heavy and too long, torn between letting my baby daughter finish her morning nap and waking her up and leaving.
    I decided I should wake her or we might miss our plane. And, truthfully, I was afraid of another fight with Bobby. Our arguments at this point were just filler; we had been through this for months already and nothing had changed. But before I reached the bottom of the staircase I heard his footsteps, steady echoes from the direction of the kitchen, and I turned to face him.
    “What’s this?” he asked.
    “I can’t anymore.”
    There he was, my handsome husband — sandy brown hair still unbrushed from bed, plaid pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt advertising a dentist in Oregon, ocean blue eyes searching my face — stricken that I was making good on my threat to leave him. There was a smudge of newsprint ink on his cheek; he had been reading in the kitchen. I wanted to cry, but didn’t. Bobby was the love of my life and even now, in the middle of this stalemate, I wanted to move in his direction. I wanted his hands on my skin and my nose in his neck and his breath in my ear. But he was having an affair with some woman who was just delirious over him; he was wining her and dining her and gifting her in a romantic torrent he had not afforded me during our brief courtship. All on our joint credit card, making it so obvious he might as well have brought her home to dinner. He’d denied the affair, disavowed all the unimaginative charges (books of poetry, flowers, candy — not an original gesture on the list, but even so...). I had wanted to believe him — I tried — but if it wasn’t true, why had the charges started up again on our new cards even after we’d canceled the old ones? And why had she written to him again, just today?
    “Annie, please.” He stepped toward me, but I shook my head.
    “I want you to read something.” I opened my purse, balanced atop one of the suitcases, withdrew the e-mail I’d printed out that morning and handed it to him. He disliked computers and rarely checked his e-mail himself; lately, since all this had started, I had taken to checking it for him.
    I watched him, now standing in the colorful puddleof light, as he read the letter. It was without a doubt the most painful one yet, describing his body in accurate detail, the way his collarbones seemed to spread like wings when he was above you, making love. The first time I’d read it, seeing him over her brought such crisp pain I’d had to look away from the page. By the third and fourth readings, I was stoic, and by the fifth, in my imagination I saw him fly away. She began the e-mail using his childhood nickname, Bobbybob, and ended it with a flourish of intimacy that nonetheless concealed her name: Lovyluv.
    His hand, and the letter, fell to his side. “I’ve told you so many times: I don’t know who’s sending these.”
    “I never thought you’d lie to me.”
    “I’m not.”
    “So all those love letters are fictitious?”
    “Annie, please —”
    “And all those credit card charges?”
    “Why won’t you believe me?”
    “I’ve been wanting to ask you,” I said, “and please tell the truth: Would you have even married me if I hadn’t gotten pregnant?”
    “This is exhausting, Annie.”
    “It would help me to know.”
    “I didn’t marry you because you were pregnant. I married you because I love you. The pregnancy just sped things up.” He stepped toward me and reached for my arm, saying, “Don’t go.”
    Reflexively, I moved away, tripping over the nearest suitcase and falling against the door. My sweater-clad elbow pressed into the bottom edge of the stained glass and the first thing I thought was how soft it was as thelead seams bowed under pressure. The next thought: Who would know how to fix such a window? I regained my balance and stepped away from the door. Fixing it wasn’t my problem anymore. I was leaving.
    “What about Kent?” he asked. “When are you going to tell him?”
    Outside, a bird sang a sudden, tremulous spring song. I kept my voice