LITMIR.BIZ

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one of her best friends, not to mention the mother of Teddy’s best friend, Mark, but even so Jen hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her the real reason she’d gone out of town. Spa weekend with her sister, she’d claimed, a late birthday gift to Tanya. It wasn’t like Cricket’s and Tanya’s paths would ever cross, so it was a safe lie, but Jen felt guilty, anyway. But if she hadn’t been able to talk about Sid before the trip, she was even less willing now, so when Cricket asked she just said that the spa treatments were relaxing, the restaurant very good.

      Teddy fell asleep in his car seat on the way home. She carried him up to his room and put him to bed; a nap wouldn’t hurt, considering the boys had been up late the night before. Ted was taking a shower in the hall bathroom, and Livvy’s door was closed, which only deepened Jen’s dark mood as she went to unpack.

      The door to their own bathroom, the one Ted was renovating, was closed. On the floor of their bedroom was a mound of clothes, a sweatshirt and jeans and socks that were still warm when Jen picked them up to toss them in the hamper. She had lifted the wicker lid and was about to drop the clothes in when she noticed something odd: in the bottom of the hamper was only a single pair of boxer shorts.

      Jen stared at the boxer shorts, thinking. She had emptied the hamper Friday when she did the laundry. In her arms were the clothes Ted had worn today while he worked on the bathroom. The flannel pants and T-shirt he slept in were on the floor by the bed, where he left them every morning for Jen to fold and put under his pillow.

      She dropped the clothes in and let the lid fall shut, and went looking for his gym bag. She found it on the floor of the closet, unzipped it and confirmed there was nothing in it but his MP3 player and a couple of water bottles. Nowhere was there another set of dirty clothes.

      Ted hadn’t done laundry since Livvy was a baby, and he never wore the same clothes twice. Which meant he had hidden or disposed of yesterday’s clothes for some reason.

      Or left them somewhere else. He could have left the house yesterday with a change of clothes in his gym bag, gone somewhere else where he showered and changed, leaving the clothes for someone else to wash. Sarah, for instance. Sarah, who probably had one of those stackable units in her condo, who was in training to take on the role that Jen played, learning how Ted liked his T-shirts folded and his socks rolled and—

      “No,” Jen whispered. There had to be a good explanation. It was crazy to equate a note and some missing laundry with a full-blown affair.

      Ted walked into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, a thin sliver of shaving cream under his chin. He looked exhausted. Jen toed the gym bag out of sight in the corner of the closet.

      “Hey,” he said, giving her a tired smile. “Welcome back.”

      She watched him get socks and underwear from the dresser, clean clothes from the closet. He dressed unhurriedly, tossing the damp towel across the hamper. If he was covering up a guilty conscience, he was putting on a hell of an act.

      “How was the drive?” he asked. “Any snow on your way back?”

      “A few flurries. Nothing that stuck.” She forced a smile. “So, I can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to all weekend.”

      His expression slipped, and his eyes darted to the closed bathroom door. “Okay, look,” he said nervously. “Don’t lose it when you see the tub. I mean, where the tub was. It was a big job getting it out of there.”

      “What do you mean? What happened?”

      “Nothing happened. Look, Jen, that thing weighed a ton. It would have been a job no matter who took it out.” He opened the bathroom door, and light poured in from the window.

      “I hit the wall trying to get it out of here,” Ted continued, talking fast, his face going slightly red. “And listen, there’s a little damage to the subfloor, too, but I was lucky, I lost my grip, and I’m telling you, if I’d dropped that thing there’d be a crater there and not just a dent.”

      Jen pushed the door open the rest of the way, willing herself not to react. No matter how bad it was, it could be fixed, and—

      “Oh, wow,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth. Where the old tub had been, she saw a gaping hole edged with ragged plasterboard, wallpaper hanging in strips. The wall tile was gone, leaving exposed lath and scarred plaster. The subfloor was filthy and gashed, and the whole thing looked like a bomb had gone off in it.

      And nothing else appeared to have been done. Ted had promised to finish stripping the wallpaper and replace the light fixtures—not to mention replacing the bathtub—by the time she was back from Murdoch. Instead, he’d gotten the tub out and then...what?

      “Like I said, I know it looks bad,” Ted said.

      “It’s just...I don’t understand what you’ve been doing all weekend. With us gone and the house to yourself—” She stopped, because if she kept going he might actually tell her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Never mind. Just never mind.”

      “Don’t you think I’m trying?” Ted said. “Is this really about the job search? Is that what this is?”

      “What? No, I know you’re trying. I know it’s a tough market out there, and—”

      “No. You don’t know what it’s like to send out thirty résumés and get only four callbacks. You can’t know what it’s like when a guy you trained—a guy who got out of business school in two thousand five, for Chrissakes, gets hired instead of you.”

      “Ted, please. The kids’ll hear.”

      “Hear what? We’re just talking, and it’s long overdue. I guess you’ve been wanting to say this to me for a while, and—”

      “I didn’t even say anything! You brought it up. I have never once criticized you for not looking harder, not trying hard enough.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she swiped them away.

      “Hey, hey,” Ted said, instantly abashed. “Jen. Jesus. I’m sorry. Don’t cry. God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on you like that.”

      He reached for her, and after a moment she stepped into his arms. She pressed her face pressed against the soft cotton of his sweater, feeling his heart beat against her cheek. What was she doing? How could she really believe Ted would cheat, would risk everything they had built together?

      “Jen, look...it’s my fault, too. I don’t—I know I’ve let you down. I’ve let the family down. It’s just, knowing that I’m not providing for you guys, it eats away at me.”

      “Oh, Ted...” Jen closed her eyes and inhaled, his soapy shower scent tinged with the faint metallic sweet smell he had when he drank too much the night before.

      A tiny leftover spike of suspicion flared inside her, but she fought it back down. He probably took a break to watch a game, have a beer...and just let the afternoon overtake him, that was all. She could hardly hold it against him, considering she’d had more than enough herself last night.

      “We’re going to get through this,” she said as much for her own benefit as his. “They say the economy’s picking up, and even if it doesn’t, we’re fine—we have money put away for exactly this situation. We could go another year before we have to worry.”

      “Oh, Jesus,” Ted said heavily. “I don’t think I could take that.”

      “No, that’s not what I meant, honey. You’ll find something long before that. I just mean that there’s nothing to worry about.”

      They held each other for a moment longer before Ted pulled gently away. There was something in his eyes, some troubled emotion. God, she hoped he found something soon.

      “I’m going to do better,” he muttered. “I’m going to make things right.”

      Chapter Four

      In the hours before dawn on Wednesday, Jen dreamed

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