She reached into her purse, pulled out a business card and wrote Scott’s full name on the back. Scott Rush Somersby. She texted a picture of the two of them. They were smiling confidently for the shot. There were pictures like that framed all over their house. So many people thought they were the perfect couple. “Here you go. I don’t remember his license plate number, but it’s a new Escalade, dark blue. I’ll send it to you when I get home.”
“Okay, then I can get started.”
After a quiet moment she said, “Finish your beer. I’m going to finish my tea. And I promised the hostess I’d order some food.”
“You’ll feel better about making a decision after you have the information you need,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t think I’m ever going to feel better about this.”
“Yes, you will,” he said. “If I find what you expect me to find, you’ll want all of the facts before you make a long-term decision.”
“What makes you think I have an expectation of what you’ll find?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t have called me otherwise. And Justine, I doubt you’re as dependent on him as you think.”
* * *
Justine tried to remember when, exactly, she’d given up her individual power. It might’ve been right away, when Scott said, “I’ll take the right side of the bed.” Then he proceeded to give her a list of her advantages to being on the left side. She would be closer to the bathroom, would have the better reading lamp and when he turned on his left side toward her, he could caress her with his right and dominant hand.
He must have forgotten about the dominant hand lately. Or, more like for years. Because he wasn’t ever in the mood anymore. That hadn’t bothered her much, since she worked such long hours and was frequently tired.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized he chose the TV shows, the dinners, the vacations, managed their social life. He told her to take the LSAT. “You’re a good test taker. You always have been. I know you like teaching, but you can make more money in law and I bet you’d like it.”
“Why don’t you take the LSAT. I’ll help you study,” she’d suggested.
“We both know that’s not a good idea,” he said.
He was good in sales, any kind of sales, because he was good with people. He was the fun and entertaining one. But it was probably when they moved in together, right after college, that she slowly began to give away any decision-making power in the partnership. And once she became a lawyer, she began to defer to him lest he feel that masculine bite from being the less successful of the two.
When she thought about it, he was quite eager not to work. She had always assumed they would both work and find a nanny or a reasonable day care. She had no problem after thinking about it. And in practice, it seemed to work. It seemed so modern and progressive.
Oh, but the neighborhood women loved him. He showed up at all the school events, was usually the only man to volunteer in the classroom, went on school field trips, had coffee with the stay-at-home mothers. They used to fuss over him, comparing him to their working husbands who never pitched in. Justine had wanted to say, “He has a cleaning lady, you know,” but she said nothing. And Scott had many limitations—he refused to do laundry and he wasn’t very helpful with homework. “You’re the teacher,” he always said.
So, what did he actually do? He took care of the kids and he was very good at it. He tidied up the house after they were safely dropped off at school. He paid the bills and managed their retirement funds. Those funds she now needed to get up to speed on.
Five years ago Scott had received a text at 5:00 a.m. and she’d wrangled the phone away from him to read, Coffee later? on the screen. It was from one of the elementary school teachers, a former teacher of Olivia’s. They’d had a big fight over that. She told him he should not be texting with or meeting a woman for coffee. It was inappropriate! So he said, “Fine, I’ll tell her. Consider it stopped here and now.” Justine asked a few times if that nonsense had stopped, and he offered her his phone. She didn’t take him up on the offer. She wanted to believe him.
Now, suddenly, she wondered if there had been inappropriate liaisons all along. She tried to envision Scott kissing a woman in a public place, and it made her sick to her stomach. She had to go home and face him. She’d talked to him twice today and he said he wasn’t planning to go anywhere in the evening, so she’d have to wear a poker face. She could plead a headache. She was in the mood for a very large martini but she’d be careful; a too large martini could loosen her tongue and cause her to scream, “You’ve been cheating on me, you lowlife son of a bitch!”
There was no one to talk to about this. It was important that while Logan Danner did his investigating, she not tip off Scott. She knew a couple of women from work who had gone through messy divorces, but she hadn’t paid close attention because she’d believed that was never going to happen to her.
She thought about Addie. She wished she could talk to her but felt she couldn’t show any vulnerability or weakness to her younger sister. Yet the circumstances they both suddenly faced called to her. They had both become isolated—Addie because she chose to take care of their parents and Justine because she worked, worked, worked and let Scott decide how they’d spend their time. Even among their couple friends, she didn’t have a lot of time to spend with the women.
Addie and Justine had become loners. For Justine it was almost twenty-five years ago, after passing the bar and settling into her job. But for Addie, just eight, when she came home from school with a baby bump and never went back.
Justine was overwhelmed by the feeling that she had failed everyone. She’d failed her daughters, who would be devastated by this family crisis; she’d failed Adele, to whom she should have shown more support. And she’d failed herself. Here she was, fifty-two and had never felt quite so alone. She had done nothing wrong and yet couldn’t escape the feeling that everything was all her fault.
* * *
Scott was snoring loudly as Justine came to bed. It was something she had become used to over the years, but now it just hit her as the biggest insult under the circumstances. Circumstances that were very bad.
She had boldly paid Logan Danner’s retainer with her credit card, confident the detective would have some news for her before Scott would notice. And indeed he did. It hadn’t taken long for him to contact her to let her know that Scott had been a regular at the kayak shack on the beach for quite a long time. Any PI worth his salt knew that strangers would tell strangers anything. He reported to Justine that he had said to someone, “That guy, I think I know him. Dave Besteil?”
“Naw, that’s not his name,” said the young man putting up kayaks. “That’s Scott Somersby and he’s around here all the time. He’s tight with the owner, Cat.”
Logan texted a few pictures of passionate kisses and afternoon trips to the No-Tell-Motel. One picture was time stamped for Thursday when Scott had claimed he’d been playing ball. Instead, he was having dinner at an ocean-side lodge, after which the couple went to a room. Scott left alone while the lady stayed on, presumably for the night. He was quite late getting home—he said he’d gone out for a beer with the guys after the game. According to Logan, he had not been on that team for a couple of years. It had not yet been determined if he was still part of the bowling leagues.
The woman Scott was seeing had quite an interesting history. Divorced twice, she had a couple of bankruptcies, was currently struggling with debt, but her late-model car was paid off. Oh, and she was married to her third husband. There had also been some police calls for domestic disturbances. “It’s possible the woman is in an abusive relationship,” Logan said.
“Would that explain her fishing around for a new boyfriend?” Justine asked.
“Well, I suppose it could. But typically abused women are afraid of the abuser and don’t take those kinds of chances. There haven’t been any assault charges filed, but people lie and cover up domestic violence all the time. You need to keep in mind that Scott might have gotten himself into an explosive dynamic.”
Justine did not know exactly how long her husband had been involved with Cat. She could only assume it had been quite a while. Years, perhaps. It was possible she was just one of many.
Justine felt like a complete fool.
Logan Danner had given her as much information as she needed to move forward and said he would remain available if there was anything more she needed from him. But she could take it from here. She would need a court order to do a forensic accounting, find out if he had other bank accounts and credit cards. This was her wheelhouse. It’s what she did for a living.
* * *
It played out at their next counseling appointment. Scott opened the session as he usually did by giving Justine her report card, as if this marital crisis had only to do with her behavior.
“Justine has been great about remembering to say thank you. I think we’re making great progress,” he said, as if counseling a first grader learning to say please and thank you.
As if she should remember to thank him for warming up frozen burritos for dinner while he didn’t find it necessary to thank her for working so hard for the generous paycheck that paid for that food.
When it was her turn to speak, Justine was very calm. “Scott has been having an affair with a woman named Cat Brooks. I’m not sure how long exactly but at least a couple of years. We have some urgent decisions to make. We have two daughters at very vulnerable ages, and I won’t have them lied to.”
The counselor, a thin, bald man wearing wire-rimmed glasses, looked shocked and off balance. But it was brief. He was about to speak but Scott reacted first.
“You’re out of your mind! I’m only friends with the owner of the kayak shop because I love to kayak! And you know that!”
“I have lots of proof,” Justine stated.
“And how would you come by proof when I haven’t done anything?”