Chapter 13 - DEREK’S APARTMENTI went there once.
Another mistake.
Derek had left a box of my tax documents mixed with his files.
He said I could pick it up.
I arrived at 6:30 p.m.
Jessica opened the door.
Not Derek.
Barefoot.
Wine glass in hand.
My first thought was almost comically mundane:
She changed clothes.
No denim jacket.
Soft gray sweater.
Leggings.
Comfortable.
At home.
I stared.
Jessica said:
“Sarah.”
“Where’s Derek?”
“In the shower.”
Of course.
I laughed.
She flinched.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“People always say that because sometimes it works.”
“We were working.”
“Barefoot?”
She looked down.
Bad instinct.
I should have left.
Instead I said:
“Did you sleep with him?”
“No.”
Too fast.
“Are you in love with him?”
Her face answered before her mouth did.
I stepped backward.
Derek appeared down the hallway.
Hair wet.
T-shirt.
“Sarah.”
I held up one hand.
“Don’t.”
He came closer.
“I can explain.”
“No. You really can’t use that sentence tonight.”
I left without the tax box.
Rachel later had it transferred through counsel.
I cried in my car for forty minutes.
Not because I knew they had slept together.
I didn’t.
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Because whatever had existed between them was intimate enough that Jessica belonged inside the apartment where my husband showered.
And seventeen days earlier she had stood behind him while he accused me of adultery.
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