LITMIR.BIZ

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Alicia was going to come off.

      He actually had his hand on the refrigerator door handle when he saw the note on the gleaming black granite countertop, pinned down by his favorite coffee mug. He swung away from the prospect of food and picked it up. Okay, Alicia, so you did leave me an explanation, but why on earth didn’t you text, so I could—

      It’s not working, MJ. And you’re never here. There’s no point saying this in person, and I doubt you’ll care. I’ve taken the kids to Vermont for some time out. I’ll talk to a lawyer in the next few days about a divorce. A.

      He stood with the piece of paper in his hand. His empty stomach dropped like a stone and his temples throbbed in shock and disbelief.

      Alicia had left him.

      “You see, there’s green fields and little towns in Ireland, just like this,” Nanny Maura explained to Alicia in the same tone she might have used to explain her preference for coffee over tea. Her Irish accent was strong. “I came to America for a taste of city life, like. I don’t want to be stuck in the country. You didn’t tell me you were gettin’ a divorce when we were packin’ to come up here. I thought ’twas just for a few days.”

      Alicia felt a weird and close-to-hysterical desire to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing. Tell her nanny she wanted a divorce before she told her husband? Good plan! Add “Oh, by the way, I’m leaving my husband” to her daily list of instructions about activities and errands? No problem! Be fair to the nanny, while her life was in tatters and her children didn’t understand what was going on? Easy peasy!

      But she recognized that Maura had a point. There was a huge difference between New York City and rural Vermont.

      And maybe she didn’t even need a nanny now that she was here. It would be better, really. Maura was just another person she didn’t want seeing her cry. And she’d left her schedule of beauty treatments and shopping trips and charity lunches behind in Manhattan. She would have plenty of time for hands-on child care.

      “When would you like to leave?” Alicia asked, not sure of the answer she wanted to hear.

      This had already been a painful interview, conducted once the children were safely asleep upstairs. She’d broken the truth to Maura—that there was a reason for the larger-than-usual amount of luggage they’d brought, and for the lack of the text messages to MJ that she would normally have sent if she was going up to his brother Andy’s with the kids for a few days, as she’d done once or twice. Leaving now … on the thruway.

      Maura had hidden any shock—or possibly lack of shock—behind the well-schooled facade that low-level, expendable employees learned to wear when confronted by difficult or irrational behavior from their employers. Alicia remembered the expression well from the countless times it had appeared on her own face. Maura had asked how long they would be here in Vermont, and on learning that it might be months, she’d come out with her explanation for not wanting to stay.

      “When can you spare me?” Maura asked now, in response to Alicia’s question.

      “It doesn’t matter.” Because nothing much did. She’d left MJ. That was all that counted. “Whenever you want.”

      “Tonight?” Maura suggested hopefully. “If I check the schedule, could you drive me to the bus? A friend texted me about getting together tomorrow for—”

      “Tonight is fine. I’ll give you cab fare to get you to the bus station.” Why go through an awkward evening? This way, Maura wouldn’t even need to unpack.

      “I’m sure there’d be some lovely girls up here looking for child-care work,” Maura told her in an encouraging way.

      “I’m sure, yes.” No point in telling this girl that she didn’t intend to replace her.

      “You were going to give me those clothes that you didn’t want anymore….” Maura offered next, referring back to a conversation from a week or two ago that Alicia had totally forgotten.

      “Give me a forwarding address, as soon as you have one, and I’ll mail them.”

      This apparently dealt with the last of Maura’s concerns. Cast-off designer outfits, yippee! Her eyes lit up, and she gushed her thanks in the Irish accent that Abby and Tyler were both starting to pick up. They spent far more time with Maura than they spent with Alicia.

      Well, that was about to change, big-time.

      She looked at the clock.

      Eight.

      MJ was probably still at the hospital, or maybe winding down with a drink on the way home, with a couple of fellow doctors. When you added it up, she only saw him a few hours each week, and even those weren’t spent the way she would have chosen.

      He was either dog-tired and silent, wanting only to sprawl on the couch eating the tired leftovers of a meal that had been fresh two or three hours ago, or else they went out to a charity event or a gallery opening or dinner at a smart restaurant. He always touched the small of her back as they moved through one of those public spaces together, as if to say to any other man who caught his eye, “Look what I’ve got. Pretty special, huh?” He rarely touched her when they were alone.

      It was her own fault. She hated herself for it. She’d done her best—busted her gut—to marry for money and status. She’d worked her looks and her fashion sense and her hard-won poise for all they were worth, and her strategy had succeeded.

      She’d snared MJ.

      She hadn’t put a foot wrong.

      She’d seized on that stupid, unforgettable night in Vegas when they’d gotten a little tipsy and stumbled into a garishly themed wedding chapel, and she’d gotten MJ over the line before he could sober up enough to rethink.

      Brass ring, Alicia.

      Married to a rich man with no prenup.

      Not bad for a waitress from the wrong side of the tracks.

      She’d been so goal-oriented about it that she hadn’t even stopped, before the ceremony, to think whether she loved him, or whether he loved her or whether they could possibly make each other happy.

      She’d done her best for almost seven years to fulfill her side of the bargain. She’d given him two children. She’d kept her looks and her figure with an almost obsessive number of gym visits and spa sessions. She’d spent his money in all the ways he wanted her to. Everything they owned, from the children’s clothes to the hand-crafted dining table and matching chairs, was the product of hours of research on quality and brand names.

      She’d said as little as possible about the foster homes she’d grown up in, from age ten to seventeen after Grammie died, and she’d never, ever, ever even hinted at the desperate straits she’d been in when he’d walked into her restaurant that first morning and given her the eye.

      It wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t.

      MJ’s first sizzling state of shock switched quickly to anger and an absolute refusal to accept his marriage was over. He found some chicken nuggets and oven fries in the freezer and nuked them in the microwave. While they were heating, he went into the bedroom and threw a couple of days’ worth of clothing into an overnight bag. The microwave pinged and he ate directly from the plastic dish, while he got on the phone and called his junior attending surgeon.

      “Raj, something’s come up, and I won’t be available tomorrow.”

      “I’m sorry, Dr. McKinley. I hope nothing’s wrong.” The deep and slightly accented voice at the other end of the line strove to find the midpoint between professional distance and courteous concern.

      “Everything’s fine. Family stuff. But let me catch you up on the schedule.” He switched quickly to the common language of their profession—the medical jargon and shorthand that safely took away any sense of the personal. In a couple of minutes, he covered from memory and electronic notes on his phone every patient going in

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