Chapter 7: Staten Island

I set the glasses down on the counter before I dropped them.

"No," I said. "I didn't cheat on him. Not once, not ever."

"He said months, Audrey. He said everybody at your office knew."

"Can I come see you tomorrow? I want to show you something. To your face, like you said."

She was quiet for a long moment.

"Come for lunch," she said. "I'll make the eggplant."

I left Brookline at seven the next morning in my mother's car.

It was four hours to Staten Island.

I spent most of it rehearsing, and then gave up somewhere in Connecticut and just drove.

The hardware store was closed on Sundays.

The family lived in the apartment above it, up a narrow flight of stairs that smelled like sawdust and garlic.

Chris's mother opened the door in an apron.

Her eyes were swollen.

She hugged me anyway, hard, before she remembered she was supposed to be upset with me.

Chris's father was at the kitchen table with the newspaper.

He stood up when I came in, the way he always did.

"Sit," his mother said. "Eat first. Then talk."

I ate a plate of eggplant parmigiana with the cheese scraped off, because she'd made a corner of it without cheese for me.

She'd done that for five years.

Her son had never once remembered.

When the plates were cleared, I put a folder on the table.

"I'm not here to fight with him through you. I just want you to see it."

I laid out three photographs.

Me, in the white dress, in a hotel ballroom two years ago, holding a bouquet in front of an empty spot.

Me, in the same dress, in a vineyard last September, sitting on a hay bale with my shoes off.

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