Chapter 68

68

When Violet was with me, it was like living in the house with a ghost. She rarely spoke to me, but she made her presence felt. She left lights on, taps dripping. She seemed to change the air in the room. I knew the feeling of resentment well by then, enough to recognize it in the thickness of the space around her.

Who did she blame for the separation? The obvious answer would be me, if she blamed anyone at all. I think she liked the splitting of our family into two. She seemed to flourish in her new role as a child of divorce, quietly delighting in the amnesty she’d been given from me. We hadn’t heard from her teachers in a while. I wondered if we were in the calm before the storm.

On the way to school one morning I reached back and handed her a muffin. She was fishing for something under her scarf but stopped to take it from my hand. When I turned back around she pulled out a delicate gold chain with a small round pendant, similar to the one you’d given me years before that I never wore anymore. I watched her touch it tenderly in the rearview mirror.

“Where did you get that?”

“Gemma.”

She hadn’t said her name aloud to me since that first lunch at your office. I desperately wanted to keep up my secret relationship with Gemma, so I never asked Violet about her. I could not incite any possible reason to be mentioned in your household.

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•   •   •It didn’t take me long to establish a connection with Gemma. She was chipper and high energy and enjoyed being asked about herself. She had a habit of going into long talks and then, midthought, squeezing her eyes closed to say, “I’ve really gone on, haven’t I. What about you?” and then touching both of my wrists in the most delicate way, as though she were patting the paws of a bunny. The gesture was charming, and I understood the reprieve you found in her while we were standing inside the quietly crumbling walls of our marriage.

We began sitting together during the weekly presentations and then mingling with the women afterward. I stayed as close to Gemma as I could so that I never missed a chance to hear something new. She was a puzzle I was putting together slowly, week by week. My heart raced the entire time I was with her, eager, desperate to learn more about her. I often found myself staring at her, visualizing what you looked like next to her. How you touched her. How you fucked her. How you watched her nurse your baby and soothe him to sleep and tickle him in the morning and how utterly happy she made you.

“I love it actually—I love being a stepmom.”

I snapped out of my fantasy and saw her clearly again. She had never mentioned Violet before. I had been waiting.

“She’s eleven, which can be a tough age for some girls. But she seems to like me. I’m lucky. I mean you hear the horror stories of stepchildren . . .”

Someone else jumped in and changed the topic. Later, when we were alone, I asked her about what she’d said.

“I didn’t know you had a stepdaughter.”

“Oh, I haven’t mentioned her? Her name’s Violet. She’s a sweetheart. My husband is very close with her, so she’s with us a lot.”

“And you get along, it sounds like?”

“No issues at all. We just work so well, our little family. My husband dotes on us. He loves having the four of us together.”

“And what about her mother?”

“She’s not really in the picture much. It’s a long story. She has some issues and so we sort of keep our distance.”

I nodded and was quiet, hoping she’d say more.

“There’s some history there and I stay out of it. Seems like she’s not the most loving human being, from what I gather. Although who are we to judge, right?” She sighed and eyed the room.

I wanted more. I wanted to know every last lie you had told her about me. “Violet’s lucky to have you, then.”

“That’s sweet of you, thanks. I love her like she’s my own.”

I searched her face for the truth. I was looking for the same uneasiness that had consumed me about Violet. But Gemma swayed to the music overhead and put her empty cup on the cash desk. “Shall we go?”

I cleared my throat and followed her to the door. “And so Violet, does she like the baby?”

“She adores Jet. She’s the best big sister.”

I hugged her good-bye, feeling her swollen milky tits against mine.