Chapter 2
Andre appeared carrying two mugs.
One had a little painted sunflower on it.
I had made that mug during a pottery class on our honeymoon.
He saw me, and his hand jerked.
Coffee spilled over his fingers.
For a second, none of us spoke.
I watched him look at me, then Tasha, then the phone in my hand.
He was calculating.
I had seen that expression during card games with my cousins.
I had never imagined he used it on me.
“Nia.”
“Put the mugs down.”
“Baby, what are you doing here?”
Tasha flinched at the word baby.
Andre noticed.
He set the mugs on the entry table.
“This looks bad.”
“It looks furnished,” I said. “You told me there weren’t even floors.”
He glanced toward Tasha.
“Can you give us a minute?”
“No,” I said.
Tasha’s shoulders tightened.
“No,” she repeated.
Something flashed across his face.
I realized how rarely anyone denied him anything.
He stepped toward me with both hands raised.
“Let’s go outside and talk.”
“We are talking.”
“You’re upset.”
“What an incredible observation.”
“Nia.”
He used the patient voice.
The voice that usually made me feel embarrassed for being emotional.
This time, it made me furious.
“Tell her when we separated.”
He looked at Tasha.
“Tash, I explained that things were complicated.”
“You said you moved out in February.”
I stared at him.
In February, I had spent nine nights sleeping in a chair beside his hospital bed after he had surgery.
I had washed his hair over our kitchen sink when he came home.
“You told her that while I was taking care of you?”
“Nia, don’t turn this into something ugly.”
“It was ugly before I got here.”
He exhaled.
Then he did something I would remember long after I stopped loving him.
He looked at Tasha and said, “You know how she gets.”
Her face changed.
Slowly.
Completely.
“No,” she said. “I know how you described her.”
I almost cried then.
Not because she defended me.
Because I understood how much work he had put into making a stranger distrust me.
Andre’s jaw tightened.
“Can we stop performing?”
I walked past him into the living room.
There was my cream sofa.
The one he said would be stored until the property was ready.
There was the walnut console I had restored myself.
A blanket lay folded over its arm.
Two pairs of shoes sat beneath the coffee table.
A life.
Not a mistake.
A life.
On the mantel stood another photograph.
Andre and Tasha at a beach.
I recognized the hotel bracelet around his wrist.
His business conference in Miami.
I had stayed home filling a rush order to help cover the trip.
“Were there any conferences?” I asked.
He said nothing.
Tasha looked at the photograph.
“He told me his company paid.”
“My company did,” I said.
Andre moved between us.
“That money came from our joint account.”
“Money I put there.”
“You’re my wife. There’s no yours and mine.”
“Apparently there are two homes, though.”
He looked toward the open door.
“Keep your voice down.”
I took out my phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“My sister.”
“Nia, don’t involve Camille.”
That was the first real fear I heard in him.
My sister answered on the second ring.
“Hey. Did he like the surprise?”
I stared at the sunflower mug.
“No.”
Something in my voice changed hers immediately.
“Where are you?”
I gave her the address.
Andre reached toward my phone.
I stepped back.
“Don’t.”
His hand stopped.
Camille heard me.
“I’m coming,” she said.
Andre dragged a hand over his face.
“This is getting out of control.”
Tasha folded her arms around herself.
“How much of what you told me was true?”
He turned on her.
“Don’t start.”
She recoiled.
I saw it clearly.
The tenderness disappearing as soon as she became inconvenient.
Andre saw me watching and softened his voice.
“I mean, let me handle one thing at a time.”
“What did you tell her about me?” I asked.
“Nia—”
“That I was unstable?”
Silence.
“That I refused to sign papers?”
Tasha looked down.
“That you were afraid to leave?”
He stared at me.
“You can be intense.”
I felt something tear.
For years, I had worried about being too much.
Too ambitious. Too tired. Too sensitive.
I had apologized after arguments even when I could not remember starting them.
Now I wondered how often he had created the problem and left me carrying the shame.
Tasha went to the entry table and picked up her keys.
“I’m leaving.”
Andre stepped into her path.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere you aren’t.”
“You can’t just walk out.”
She looked at him.
Then at me.
“Watch me.”
He moved aside.
I followed her to the porch.
Neither of us seemed to know what to say.
She opened her car, then paused.
“There’s something else.”
My heartbeat thudded painfully.
“What?”
“He asked me for money.”
“How much?”
“Forty thousand.”
I gripped the porch railing.
“For what?”
“The property. He said his wife was trying to drain his accounts during the divorce.”
I turned toward the doorway.
Andre stood behind us.
Listening.
He had gone pale.
I looked back at Tasha.
“When did you give it to him?”
“Last month.”
Last month, he had told me the renovation budget was short.
Last month, I had transferred forty thousand dollars from my business savings.
The exact same amount.
Camille’s car turned into the street.
Andre saw it and walked toward me.
“Please,” he said quietly. “Don’t do anything we can’t come back from.”
I looked at the house.
At the sofa behind him.
At Tasha’s shaking hands.
Then I looked at the man I had trusted with my future.
“You already did.”
Camille parked and hurried toward us.
Before she reached the porch, I heard Tasha say one more thing.
“He promised to put my name on the house.”
I turned.
May you like
Andre closed his eyes.
And for the first time that afternoon, I understood that the affair might be the smallest part of what he had done.
