Page 21 of Every Step She Takes
“I spent a very long time hating you, Lucy,” she says as she settles back into her seat. “I was hurt, obviously. Devastated. In my position, it’s difficult to allow anyone into my house, around my family.”
“You trusted me. I betrayed you. I understand that. I have nevernotunderstood it.”
She nods. “Then perhaps you were the more mature one. I apportioned blame, and I gave you the lion’s share. I took some, too, for allowing you in based only on Karla’s recommendation. And I gave some to Colt, but not nearly as much as he deserved.”
She tugs her skirt over her knees. “I made excuses for him. He was going through a rough patch. Roles were drying up. His body wasn’t what it used to be. He was feeling old, and I brought a pretty girl into our home. What did I expect?”
“That he’d act like a forty-year-old husband and father andnotsee a teenage employee as a potential conquest?”
She flinches at that, but I don’t withdraw the words.
“Yes,” she says slowly. “I blamed myself for putting temptation in his way. I blamed you for falling under his spell. That’s what we do, isn’t it? Blame women for treating men like rational beings capable of controlling sexual impulses. Even in my bitterest anger, I realized Colt had done the seducing, and yet it was easier to blame you.”
“You needed someone to hold accountable for your husband’s infidelity, and I was the disposable person in your life.”
She leans back in her chair. “There was no ‘infidelity,’ Lucy. Colt and I had an open marriage. For him, life has always included an all-access pass to sex. I used to joke that expecting monogamy was like expecting a man of appetite to refuse a buffet. I don’t make that joke anymore. Appetite is an excuse. The truth is that he’s a glutton, and he cannot look at the buffet and tell himself that he has better food at home.”
She sips her coffee. “I offered him non-monogamy because I knew he’d cheat. I had other reasons to be with Colt. We were good friends and good partners, and I knew we’d make good parents. Refusing his proposal because I couldn’t expect fidelity would be like finding the perfect house and walking away because it lacked a master bath.”
“Perhaps,” I say. “But you could always add the master bath. Or you could ask your husband to look inside himself and figure out why he couldn’t walk away from the buffet, what need it satisfied and how that hole could be otherwise filled.”
Isabella’s burst of a laugh flings me into the past. “I used to think you were someone I’d like to know when you got older. You’ve grown into a woman who is much, much wiser than I was at her age.”
“Don’t,” I say and then add, softer, “Please.”
She nods. “You are painfully correct about Colt, but at the time, I felt like such a progressive and modern woman, granting his sexual freedom to lift that specter from our marriage. Sex, then, was not the issue. The issue was that, when I married him, I had the wisdom to protect my future family and, yes, my heart. There were rules. Strict rules. He had to be discreet. He could have flings but not full-blown affairs. He would never bring that side of his life home – he wouldn’t mention the women to me, and his children would not find out. Distance and discretion.”
“A one-night stand with a fellow actor who would maintain his privacy,” I say. “Not a fling with an eighteen-year-old tutor at your summer house.”
After a moment, she says, quietly, “Yes.”
“And that’s why he did it, isn’t it? Giving a child all the cookies doesn’t mean he’ll stop stealing them.”
“Because it isn’t just about the cookies,” she says. “It’s about the thrill and challenge of the theft.”
I shrug and lift my coffee cup. “I won’t presume to analyze your husband and your marriage, but you threw me into a position where I had to do that if only for my own understanding. Colt loved you very much. That was obvious. But he was bored and feeling old. I was a diversion. It had nothing to do with either of us. It was all about Colt.”
“He’s told me that many times. He accepted responsibility, but I still felt responsible. I was busy that summer, and he felt neglected.”
“As if it was your wifely duty to surrender your dreams to nurse him through his midlife crisis.”
Her lips twitch. “I could have saved myself a lot of money on therapists and just talked with you.”
“I wish you had talked with me,” I say, my voice low as I set my coffee down untouched. “That was what I wanted more than anything. To talk to you.”
Tears glisten. Then she blinks them back and straightens. “I understand, but I also hope you understand why you couldn’t. You were having sex with my husband.”
“No, I wasn’t. I was a virgin when I arrived at your home and a virgin when I left.” I manage a wry smile. “I even went to the doctor afterward to see if my hymen was intact. Now we know that’s bullshit, but at the time, I thought it was what I needed to clear my name. Yes, it was intact, but my mother rightfully convinced me that going public with that would only make things worse.”
“Just because you didn’t have penetrative sex–”
“There was no sex of any kind. Unfortunately, a doctor’s note wouldn’t provethat. My only hope was that you would believe me when I explained it in my letter. Obviously, you didn’t.”
She goes still, and something in her eyes…
“Youdidread my letter, right?” I say. “You must have. You sure as hell replied.”
She flinches at the profanity, however mild, but then that look returns: discomfort and dismay.
