The Affair (2 page)

K
athy’s heart was hammering so hard in her chest that she could actually feel the flesh tremble beneath her skin. She stood in the kitchen doorway, gasping for breath in the chill December air. Stray snowflakes spiralled out of the darkness and kissed her cheeks and forehead. She was blinking furiously, but she would not cry. Not yet. Not now.

Stephanie Burroughs.

With a little red flag beside her name.

The conscious part of her brain suggested that it might be nothing. Stephanie Burroughs was in advertising; Robert was sure to have the names of just about everyone in the business in his phone. But instinct and emotion kept flashing back to the little red flag icon beside the name. You only put a flag beside something important, didn’t you?

It could be perfectly innocent.

But she knew it was not.

Kathy shook her head savagely. She brushed at her eyes with the palm of her right hand, pushing away the threatened tears. She could be wrong. She might be wrong. She wanted to be wrong.

But she knew she wasn’t. Not this time. Not now.

Stephanie Burroughs was back.

Six years ago, around about the same time they’d moved into this house, Robert had had an affair with Stephanie Burroughs. He’d denied it, but Kathy knew—she knew—he’d had an affair. She’d always been slightly nervous about Stephanie’s association with her husband, and then, when a friend—who was no longer a friend—had spotted Robert and Stephanie together at the Stones concert at Fenway Park and had gleefully told her, her suspicions had been confirmed. Three months of too many lame excuses, too many late nights at the office, too many weekend business trips. All of it had suddenly made sense. Everything had pointed to one inescapable conclusion: Her husband was having an affair.

On one terrible summer evening, with the sun low and red in the New England sky, she had turned and faced him. He’d been standing over the barbecue in the backyard, head wreathed in smoke, hamburger meat crisping on the grill. Without preamble, she had asked him flatly if he was having an affair with his researcher. In the instant when his eyes had slid from hers she’d known the truth even before he denied it. Flat-out denied it, with enough anger and outrage to rattle her convictions. She’d brought out her suspicions, and he’d managed to counter every one of them with a rational excuse. She’d never managed to prove it, and weeks of recriminations and anguish had followed. Then Stephanie had left the company and moved away, and with her departure a lot of the heat had gone out of the argument. Things drifted, then Robert and Kathy had settled back into their old routine.

Kathy had almost, but not quite, forgotten about the woman. It had been a long time since Stephanie’s name had flitted across her consciousness, though she still felt that little shiver of insecurity when she saw her husband looking at a pretty woman at a party.

But now, Stephanie Burroughs’s name was in his new phone, with a little red flag beside it.

“Hey, what’s up—it’s freezing out here!” Robert came up behind her, wrapping his strong arms across the top of her shoulders, resting his chin on the top of her head. He smelled fresh and clean, of soap and water and a hint of some cologne she didn’t recognize.

Kathy pulled away and stepped back into the kitchen. “Just getting a breath of air; the kitchen was stuffy. Nice cologne.”

“Yeah. It’s new. I didn’t know if you’d like it.”

“I do,” she said curtly as she closed the door and spun away from him, not looking into his eyes, fearful that he would see something in her face or that she would see something in his; after eighteen years of marriage it was difficult to keep a secret. She began to put return address labels on the last few cards. They were tacky wreath-decorated labels sent from a charity in their annual plea for money. Kathy always wondered if it was bad karma to use the preprinted labels without actually donating to the charity. “I left a couple of cards on the bed,” she began.

“I saw them. . . .”

“I don’t have the addresses, and besides they’re personal cards—it would be better if you wrote and signed them.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly.

Kathy glanced sidelong at him. “Nothing.”

He’d been thirty-one when she married him, tall and gangly with a shock of black hair that refused to stay combed. The hair had remained more or less intact and he’d filled out some, but in truth he’d aged well. Extremely well. Unlike her, she thought bitterly. He’d matured; she had gotten old.

“Why do you ask?” she added.

Robert smiled, the corners of his lips creasing, and he tilted his head to one side, a movement she’d once found endearing, but which now irritated her. “Because you’ve got the tone in your voice.”

“Which tone?”

“
That
tone.” His smile deepened. “The tone that tells me that you’re pissed off at me.”

Kathy sighed.

“Oh, and the sigh is another sure sign. The sigh and the tone. You’re like a great jazz band, Kathy . . . always in syncopation.”

“Look, I’m tired. I’ve been writing cards for hours. Mostly your cards, to your friends and your colleagues,” she added bitterly. “I do it every year. And every year it’s last minute, and I’m always missing addresses. You don’t help.”

She watched the smile tighten on his lips. “Kathy, I’ve just come in from a ten-hour day,” he said, his voice still light and reasonable. “I had a meeting in Framingham, the Pike was a parking lot, and I’ve got a really important presentation in the morning. Just . . . give me a minute to decompress, and I’ll go through my address book. Or you can; I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“I’ve done them all,” Kathy said tightly, fully aware that people who claimed they had nothing to hide always had plenty to hide. “The four on the bed are all you have to do.”

“We’re arguing over four cards?” he asked.

“No,” she snapped. “We’re arguing over the one hundred and twenty I’ve already written. Without your help.”

Robert nodded and shrugged. “I should have taken some into work with me.” Then he glanced up at the clock. “I’ll go and get the kids.”

Before she could say another word, he turned and strode from the kitchen, across the dining room, and out into the hallway. She could see him snatching his leather jacket and scarf off the rack behind the door, and then he left, pulling the front door shut quietly behind him.

Kathy leaned on the kitchen table and listened to the car start up and gently pull away. He’d done it again. Managed to twist and turn her words until suddenly she felt she was in the wrong, that she was arguing about nothing. And then, of course, he’d walked away. He was good at that. In all the years she’d known him, he had always walked away from an argument.

A classic coward.

If that had been her, she’d have slammed the door and revved off at high speed, spattering gravel against the side of the house. He was always just too damned controlled, a true Libra, far too evenly balanced.

Kathy turned away from the table, opened the refrigerator, and grabbed a wedge of Skinny Cow cheese. There were only thirty-five calories in each piece. She ripped open the thin tinfoil packaging and popped the tiny triangle into her mouth. She hadn’t managed to lose any weight for the various Christmas parties they’d been invited to—and was feeling slightly guilty because she’d avoided going to a couple of business-related events that she knew would be populated by gorgeous twenty-somethings as thin as sticks, with designer little black dresses artfully draped on their bones. Robert had gone to the parties on his own; he didn’t seem to mind.

Somewhere, in the distance, there was a long shrill ring.

He’d left his phone.

Kathy stopped suddenly. He’d left his phone. He never left his phone. An oversight? Or, perhaps, the universe was conspiring with her. Tossing the empty foil into the garbage can, she darted up the stairs. As far as she could remember, he hadn’t had his phone in his hand when he’d come into the kitchen. She knew he hated carrying it in his pants pocket; it was just a little too bulky, and he usually wore it clipped to his belt, like a kid wearing a toy gun, or he carried it in his inside jacket pocket like an oversized wallet.

She raced into the bedroom. His jacket was where she’d left it, and there, just visible, was the silver edge of the phone.

She was abruptly conscious that the decision she made in the next couple of seconds was going to have repercussions for the rest of her life. She could hear her mother’s voice now, clear and distinct, the slightly bitter waspish tones managing to irritate her even though the woman had been dead eighteen months.

“Never ask a question unless you’re prepared for an answer you don’t like.”

Was she prepared for an answer she didn’t like? Her last accusation had almost ruined her marriage and destroyed the family. It had been based on instinct, rather than evidence.

Kathy Walker sat on the edge of the bed and cradled the phone in her hands, index finger hovering over the screen. Somewhere deep inside her, she already knew the answer. All she was looking for now was confirmation. Something tangible. Something to corroborate her suspicions. Six years ago, she had been plagued with doubt. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake she had made the last time. Proof. She was looking for proof.

And once she knew the truth, she could prepare for the consequences.

Kathy Walker tapped the screen.

S
tephanie Burroughs.

All of the lines beside her name in the phone were filled in: an address, a phone number, a cell number, two e-mail addresses, a note of her birthday. And a little red flag beside her name.

Kathy’s fingers felt numb, hands trembling slightly as she tapped the flag on the screen. The calendar opened, a series of little rectangles representing the days of the month. Friday last had a little flag on it; the flag on Stephanie’s name was linked to it. She tapped the screen again, bringing up the day.

Friday had been a busy day for R&K Productions—or at least for the R part of it. There had been breakfast with a client at eight a.m., then a ten a.m. meeting followed by a voice-over session at the studio at eleven thirty. Artwork was scheduled in for three o’clock, then nothing.

Except for a red flag at five. No notation.

Kathy frowned, remembering. Last Friday . . . Robert had been home late last Friday; he’d been meeting a client, he said. It had been close to midnight when he’d arrived home.

Conscious that time was slipping by, she changed back to the month view and moved to the next red flag. It was for the previous Tuesday. Again, late in the afternoon, the last event of the day, with no appointments scheduled after it. The flag before that was for the previous Friday. She nodded quickly. He’d been late that Friday, but she couldn’t remember anything about the Tuesday. Robert was often late getting home from work; in fact he was late more often than not. The flag before that was for the first Tuesday of the month. Leave it to her husband to develop a red flag pattern.

Now she scrolled forward in the calendar. The next red flag was for tomorrow night, Friday night. Red flag at four, with no appointments following it. Apparently, Tuesday nights and Friday nights were date night in the world of red flags, Kathy thought bitterly.

She changed back to the Contacts app and quickly scrolled down through the names. She only came across two other names with red flags, and she recognized both as longstanding clients.

Feeling unaccountably guilty, she went through the other jacket pockets, not entirely sure what she was looking for. He’d taken his wallet with him, and all she found were a couple of parking receipts, a packet of mints, and a receipt from Au Bon Pain in the CambridgeSide Galleria. Two beverages. She smoothed out the receipt on the bed, trying to decipher the date.

It looked like last Tuesday, at 5:10 p.m. What had Robert been doing in Cambridge last Tuesday? Robert hated shopping, hated shopping malls particularly. Getting out to the shopping mall in pre-Christmas traffic would have been a nightmare; getting back, even worse. When Robert wanted to pick up a quick gift, he usually just popped over to Brookline Booksmith and bought a book.

Lights suddenly flared against the bedroom window as a car pulled into the driveway. Calmly, Kathy put the parking receipts and the mints back into his jacket pocket. She stuffed the Au Bon Pain receipt into her own pocket. Then she slipped the phone into her husband’s jacket pocket, and she was in the process of descending the stairs when the hall door opened and Robert, followed by Brendan and Theresa, bundled into the house in a tumult of noise and chill air.

“We got takeout,” Brendan called, holding up the brown paper bags.

“More than takeout, I see,” Kathy muttered. There was a smudge of chocolate on her son’s upper lip, the hint of white on his cheek. They’d probably stopped for ice cream on the way home.

She looked up at Robert. He saw her looking at him and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Kathy wondered when Robert had become the “fun” parent who took the kids out for dessert before dinner and she had become the disciplinarian who nagged them about homework and chores. She could be fun. She was fun . . . She used to be fun. Kathy smiled at Brendan. “Great. I was going to suggest takeout.” She was looking at her husband, at the man she had thought she knew and realized she didn’t.

Robert caught the quizzical look and tilted his head. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she lied, “just fine.”