“Daniel.”
Behind me, my youngest daughter yelled that someone had taken her goggles. One of the twins shouted back that goggles were communal property. A towel slid down the stairs like a surrender flag.
He held out his hand.
“Sorry,” I said, stepping aside. “They’re excited.”
Daniel glanced past me into the noise.
“Looks like kids going to a pool party.”
I picked up the cooler before my hands could start shaking.
The truth was, I had not hired Daniel because I wanted revenge.
I hired him because Ryan was going to be there.
And Lucille was going to be beside him.
I hired him because Ryan was going to be there.
Three months earlier, Ryan had stood in our kitchen while the dishwasher hummed and our youngest daughter’s spelling test sat on the counter.
“I want a divorce,” he said.
I thought I had misheard him.
Then he added, “I’m with Lucille now.”
“I want a divorce.”
Lucille was his secretary.
Ten years younger.
Polished in a way I had not been since the first baby spit up on my favorite blouse.
Ryan watched my face break.
Then he looked at my body.
“Understand this, Maggie. You’re not the woman I married. You used to be slim. Now you’re just not attractive enough for me anymore.”
“You used to be slim.”
He said it like he was explaining a bill.
***
After he left, he brought Lucille everywhere.
Restaurants. Work events. His cousin’s birthday. Even to his mother’s house.
“Lucille used to model,” he told people.
Always loudly.
Always close enough for me to hear.
He brought Lucille everywhere.
So when Elaine, Ryan’s mother, invited me and the kids to her annual Fourth of July pool party, I said no.
“Maggie,” she told me, “you’re still family.”
“Ryan will be there, Elaine.”
“I know.”
