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promise. It's not
like, 'If you do therapy, you get to come home.' I mean, who knows what you'll
find out." I got butterflies saying that. I suddenly realized anything
could happen. Of course, anything already had.
    "How about two sessions, and
then I get to move back into the house? Into the guest room. Your mom will be
gone by then."
    "Don't you think it's a little
soon to negotiate, 'Mr. I'd Do Anything'? Not twelve hours ago, you were
sitting in our bedroom, telling another woman, ' Shhh ,
it'll be okay.'"
    "You're right, you're right.
I'm sorry." He reached for my hand, but I wouldn't give it to him.
    "I don't want you touching me
right now."
    "Fine. I understand."
    "I need you to give me some
space."
    Fie shifted on the couch.
    "No, not physical space. Well,
that too. But I mean, don't call me, I'll call you. That kind of space. And
time."
    "How much space? And how much
time?"
    "I don't know."
    He sighed. "I truly am sorry.
I'm not just saying that. I mean it."
    "What are you sorry for?"
    "For hiding Laney from
you." Seeing from my expression that wasn't near good enough, he added
quickly, "Even though I would never do anything sexual with her, the whole
thing was wrong."
    It was the kind of dialogue I had
with Jacob after he'd misbehaved, my attempt to teach him morality. I realized
what a bad technique it was—coercing apologies, complete with a recitation of
sins—since Jacob was only trying to avoid punishment and, really, so was his
dad.
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    That night was a kaleidoscope of
feelings, a truly dizzying assortment. When I was a kid, my brother, Charlie,
and I used to get giddy over a trip to the ninety-nine-item Salad bar. Some of
it was nasty, like three-bean salad. But ninety-nine items! Well, this was like
that, only all ninety-nine sucked.
    After Jon left, I did not sleep.
Not one minute. No matter how much I begged the powers that be to let me go, to
let one hour pass in painless slumber, I was held hostage. Of course, I was my
own captor. That's the worst part of insomnia. You're holding the gun to your
own head.
    I watched the room lighten
incrementally for hours, sometimes through eyes gone vacant with exhaustion,
often through a fresh round of sobs. No matter how I tried to spin it, Jon's
version just didn't fit the story those e-mails told. I wasn't sure which was
more painful: his defection with Laney, or that he had become so comfortable
lying that he could deny everything right to my face. That was how little he
thought of me and our marriage. I could only hope that I'd be able to believe
in him again before our baby was born. If not... I didn't even want to think
about that.
    There were a lot of things I didn't
want to do. I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to lie there any
longer staring at the oversized Paul Klee print on our wall (Blue Night —a
cubist jigsaw puzzle of tonal blues and black that had started to seem like a
Rorschach test). If this had happened years ago—before marriage, before Jacob —
I would have stayed in bed for days. That kind of wallowing wasn't an option
anymore, which seemed like both a blessing and a curse.
    It was Black Friday, and not just
for me. The heaviest shopping day of the year, it was downright un-American not
to spend, spend, spend. Huge chain retailers were opening their doors at 6 a.m.
Jonathon and I had originally planned to get an early start and combine baby
shopping and The Holiday shopping (The Holiday being our family's hybrid of
Christmas and Chanukah, with its own idiosyncratic rituals that, to my
perpetual delight, made Sylvia want to shit bricks). Knowing I needed to do
something, anything, I decided to follow the plan. Jon might not like that I'd
done it without him, but I couldn't give him a say right then.
    After taking a shower and putting
on my elasticized maternity jeans and a sweater, I went down the hall to the
kitchen. I could hear the dishwasher running, and my mother was standing at the
sink, scouring a pot.