The Good Wife (35 page)

Sarah was shaking from head to foot, shock giving away to heartbreak. “I’m not stupid, Boone. She’s very pretty—in a skanky, skinny-girl sort of way—and you’re into her. I could see it on your face.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do, too. I stood outside watching, Boone, as she reached out and caressed your face and then you took her hand—”

“She was wiping powdered sugar off my face.”

“The bitch had no right to.”

“Sarah.”

“I’m serious. She had no business touching you. And you had no business holding her hand. Disgusting. Both of you.”

“You’re losing it, babe.”

“Screw you! I’m tired of being played. Tired of being the irrational one. Tired of fighting so hard to keep our marriage together.”

“Baby, you aren’t the only one fighting to keep our marriage together. For the past three years all I’ve done is fight for you, but it isn’t ever enough and just ends up as a fight with you—”

“You betrayed me!” she screamed, aware that they were standing on a busy street corner where everyone could see. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care who saw, who heard, because she was over it. Over all the anger and the fear and the pain. Over feeling only bad things and never good things. “You betrayed me and our marriage has never been the same!”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, babe. I wish I could take it back, I wish I could go back and undo what I’ve done, but I can’t. Jesus, I can’t—”

“I hate it when you sound like the victim,” she snapped, cutting him off, closing the distance between them to jab him in the chest. “You’re not a victim! You brought this on us. You did this to us. You destroyed my trust, and I hope she was worth it. Hope the thrill or chase or novelty of new pussy was worth it—”

Sarah broke off at Boone turned around and walked away, cutting so swiftly across the street that a car had to slam on its brakes to avoid hitting him.

Sarah cringed at the squeal of brakes. Boone didn’t even seem to notice. He just kept walking.

He was leaving her?

Pain surged through her, hot and sharp and livid. She chased after him, running across the street, lucky to have a green light. Her heels clicked against the sidewalk and she ran fast, around the corner to where she saw his black SUV was parked.

She reached him as he was climbing into the car. “If you walk away from me now, you’re done,” she screamed. “Got it? You’re done. Gone. Out of here.”

“Got it,” he gritted, his gaze sliding over her contemptuously.

Sarah’s legs wobbled. Her insides flipped. He didn’t mean it. Couldn’t mean it. So she pushed harder. “And you’re not coming back. I don’t want you back. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

“I hear you, babe. Loud and clear.” And then he slammed the door shut and started his car and pulled away, into the traffic without a single glance at her.

Sarah wrapped her arms around herself and clamped her jaw, teeth grinding together, to keep from screaming for Boone to come back.

* * *

H
e didn’t come home that night.

Sarah had told herself he wouldn’t, trying to prepare herself. But she’d hoped she was wrong. Hoped he’d prove her wrong. So she couldn’t sleep, waiting, listening for the sound of his car pulling through the gates.

She’d pretend she was asleep when he walked in. Keep her back to him, give him the cold shoulder. Punish him for hurting her. He should feel how bad she felt . . .

But there was no car. She lay awake in vain. Boone didn’t return that night. Didn’t show up in the morning. He didn’t call either.

Sarah walked around the house with the phone in her hand all morning, just in case.

She could call him. But she was so mad. And hurt. He hadn’t come home. He’d walked away from her. Drove away from her.

Sarah stopped loading the dishwasher and straightened, staring out the kitchen sink out to the garden with the gated pool and hot tub.

Maybe he wasn’t coming home. Maybe he was done. Maybe he meant what he had said.

Good.

Great.

Maybe now she could get on with her life.

She called him later that afternoon. He didn’t call back. She texted. He didn’t reply. She left angry messages. He ignored them. She left pleading messages. He ignored those, too. She went to bed, shattered, and spent the night wanting to die.

What had happened? What had she done? What had they done?

The next morning there was still no word from him. She sent him another text, asking him to please see her side, that it was confusing walking in, seeing him holding another woman’s hand.

He finally texted back,
I do
.

So we’re okay?
she texted.

No.

Can you forgive me?
she typed.

I am not Jeff. I am not cheating on you. And it’s really difficult having a mistake I made three years ago thrown in my face. Daily.

Sarah read this one, again and again. She exhaled slowly, trying to calm herself.
So what do we do?

You either leave the past in the past, or we end this. Because I can’t live like this anymore. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for me. And it’s not good for our kids.

Does that mean we’re done?

He didn’t answer.

* * *

T
hree hours later, after dropping her kids at Kit’s house, Sarah showed up at the ballpark, talked to a security guard, telling him she was Boone Walker’s wife and there was an emergency. She showed him her driver’s license for proof of identity, adding that she had to see Boone immediately.

The security guard located team personnel, and the team personnel person escorted her downstairs, where she waited in an office for Boone to be found.

He practically broke down the door of the office racing to meet her. “The kids?” he demanded.

He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He’d been lifting weights, working out. She shook her head. He closed the door.

“Your father?” Boone asked.

“No.” Sarah swallowed hard, thinking now maybe this wasn’t the right thing, coming here like this. But he wasn’t taking her calls. He wouldn’t see her. She couldn’t handle being shut out. “I’m not sure what’s happening here, between us, so I’ve come to find out what we’re supposed to do next.”

“Do next?” Boone repeated.

“Are we divorcing or separating, are you moving out or am I? Have you hired a lawyer yet . . . ?”

“They told me this was an emergency.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, Boone.”

His jaw tightened, his eyes flashed. “I ran in here thinking my kids were hurt, Sarah, or maybe dead.”

“You aren’t returning my calls. You didn’t come home—”

“Because I need space, Sarah! I need to figure out how to deal with you when you’re completely irrational. You’ve snapped—”

“I haven’t!”

“You went off on a woman in a restaurant because she was talking to me.”

Sarah glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. “She’s really Meg’s friend?” she whispered, horrified that she’d been so caught up in her own rage and pain that she hadn’t even really looked at the other woman, too focused on Boone. From the time she’d met him, she’d only had eyes for Boone.

“Yes.”

“And you’re not . . . sleeping . . . with her?”

“No. She’s the girlfriend of Chris Steir, my teammate.”

“But you two looked so cozy.”

“We’re friends, Sarah. We talk.”

“But that’s even worse because you don’t talk to me! You don’t have conversations with me.”

“We used to, before you began acting paranoid and treating me like a criminal again, while you’re the virtuous cop, determined to play parole officer.”

She glared at him, arms folded across her chest. “I think I’ve seen that musical and you’re no Jean Valjean.”

He just stared back at her, expressionless. “What do you want, Sarah? Because I’m not doing this anymore. Won’t be your whipping boy. Can’t be. Makes me sick. Makes me hate you.” His jaw eased a fraction. His voice dropped. “And I don’t want to hate you, babe. I’ve spent too long loving you to hate you now.”

Her eyes prickled, stung. She swallowed, fighting tears. What was she supposed to say now? She didn’t know and the silence stretched, heavy, suffocating.

Sarah’s gaze dropped to her feet. The carpet was old. Hideous. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Then stop throwing the past in my face. Forgive me—”

“I’m trying!”

“Not very hard.”

She shook her head. “It’s not easy to forgive something like this.”

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t forgive Brennan if he shoplifted or played doctor with a little girl?”

“Of course I would. He’s my child.”

“And I’m your husband.”

She said nothing. And it was Boone’s turn to be quiet. He was quiet so long that it made her insides hurt. She finally looked up, into his eyes. He was studying her, his expression somber.

“You’re never going to forgive me,” he said at last.

She cringed at the roughness in his voice, his Southern accent suddenly pronounced. “I wish I could.”

“If you loved me as much as you said you did, you would.”

“I’ve thought that, too. But it’s not that simple. I feel . . . different. Crazy. And my thoughts are just getting crazier.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I wake up worrying about you, about us, about every woman on the street approaching you, hitting on you, stealing you from me. I wonder constantly where you are, what you’re doing—”

“If I’m not home with you, I’m at the ballpark, or on the bus—”

“Or at a hotel, or in a bar, or in a bed . . . possibly a parked car.”

He looked at her, appalled. “Is that really what you think of me?”

Her chest squeezed, her heart mashed. “See? It’s crazy, I know. But it’s how my brain works. It’s where I go.”

“To the worst-case scenario.”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.”

The raw, raspy note of incredulity in his voice made her eyes burn. “I’m telling you this, Boone, because I’m scared. I’m scared of what’s happening. I’m scared of who I’ve become.”

He was silent so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “So am I, babe,” he said after another long stretch of silence. “So am I.”

She blinked and wiped her eyes, catching the tears before they fell. “You’re not happy either. Are you?”

“Like this?
No.
”

She knew it. She’d known it. It was over, then. They both knew it. And they’d just been delaying the inevitable. “How do you want this to . . . play out? Should I go, or you? Who should keep the house?”

His shoulders squared. He looked remote, his expression blank, as if she were a stranger instead of his wife for the past thirteen years. “You stay in the house. With the kids. It’s better for all of you.”

She didn’t speak, not right away, holding her breath, waiting for something to shift, give, but nothing happened. Just silence. Emptiness. Distance.

Crushing, she thought. And heartbreaking.

To think she’d come rushing to the stadium for this.

To think he’d raced into the office for this.

Brutal.

“What do we tell the kids?” she whispered.

“Whatever you think is best.”

Suddenly hot tears were filling her eyes, falling. She knocked them away. “I can’t imagine telling them we’re divorcing. Can’t imagine a future where they won’t have both of us.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, babe. This is your idea, not mine.”

“It’s not my idea. It’s not. But you won’t fight for me—”

“Baby, I don’t know what else I can do to reassure you besides put a GPS tracking device on me—”

“Would you?” she joked, wiping away more tears.

He gave her a sharp look. “No.”

“I was kidding,” she said.

“I don’t think you were. But maybe it’s better if we don’t say a lot to the kids right now. There’s no need to upset them. They’ve had enough change for the time being. Let them think I’m traveling and we’ll make sure I see them when I’m in town. And then, at the end of the season, we’ll sit down and come up with a custody plan and how we’ll share them.”

Sarah swallowed. “So you’re not coming back to the house?”

“I’ll stay at a hotel for now, and then sometime down the road, when you’re not there, I’ll move my things out.”

So it really was all over.

Impossible.

Twenty-one

S
arah couldn’t get out of bed. She told the kids she had the flu. The truth was, it’d been four days since she’d last seen Boone, four days since she’d last talked to him, and she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t function.

Her head told her this separation was for the best.

Her heart refused to accept it.

Sarah knew that the only way she’d ever have peace was if she were on her own, away from Boone. She knew that eventually it would be easier, once she’d learned to live without him. It was just a matter of getting to the point where she could think of him without feeling like she was dying.

And the truth was, he could move on without her. He’d be fine. He was a man. Men compartmentalized. Within a year or two he’d have someone else. Be in love with someone else.

But the idea of him loving anyone the way he’d once loved her made her physically ill.

Sarah rushed into the bathroom, threw up into the toilet, and then crawled back into bed.

She cried, her face buried in her pillow. She was an addict. And Boone was her crack.

Reason told her it wasn’t healthy to love someone this much. It wasn’t normal to need someone this much. She had to stop this, regain control, regain independence.

Move forward.

Reclaim her life.

And she would.

She would.

As soon as she could stop crying.

* * *

T
hey were supposed to go to her dad’s house on Sunday for his birthday, but at the last second Sarah couldn’t. She called Tommy and Cass, telling them she was sick and needed to go back to bed, and they came and picked up the kids, taking them to San Francisco for her dad’s birthday party.

While Cass ushered the kids to the car, Tommy climbed the stairs to the master bedroom to check on his sister for himself.

“You okay?” he asked, from the doorway.

Sarah nodded. “Just queasy. I’ll feel better sleeping.”

“Is it a stomach flu or . . . ?”

Sarah stared at him, confused.

He sighed impatiently. “You’re not pregnant again, are you?”

“No!”

“Okay. Just checking.” He hesitated another moment. “Is Boone coming to the house after the game today? He’d said he was, when I talked to him yesterday.”

Sarah’s heart flip-flopped. “You talked to him? What did he say?”

“He wanted to know what Dad wanted for his birthday. Why? Were we not supposed to talk?”

“No. That’s . . . good.” She swallowed, pulled the covers up over her legs. “I think I’ll just rest. Thanks for taking the kids.”

“No problem. And if you need Boone here, after the game, just give me a call and I’ll drive the kids home.”

“Thank you.”

It was five when Sarah got a text from Tommy.
We’re bringing the kids home with us. We’ll be there between six and six thirty.

Sarah dragged herself out of bed on Monday to take Ella to her swim lesson and Brennan to a friend’s house to play. She was back home with the kids by noon, and she crawled into bed for a nap, and slept for hours, only waking when Brennan asked her to make him either lunch or dinner because he was hungry.

She told him she would, soon.

They had a fight about frozen pizza.

She was stepping into the shower to try to wake up when Brennan screamed, “Fire.”

Sarah tore down the stairs and there was a small fire, but it was limited to the microwave. Brennan had tried to microwave a personal pizza. Unfortunately, he’d wrapped it in foil.

Fire contained, disaster averted, Sarah made the kids turkey sandwiches for dinner, put on a TV show, and stumbled around picking up clothes, running a load of laundry, doing dishes, killing time until she put the kids to bed.

She went back to bed once they were sleeping in theirs, and she was lying there in the dark, thinking but not thinking, when she heard a door open and close and then footsteps on the stairs.

“What is going on?” Boone asked, flipping on the light as he entered the bedroom and came to stand at the foot of the bed.

Sarah sat up. “What are you doing here?”

“Brennan called me. Said you were sick and couldn’t get out of bed. Not even when the kitchen caught fire.”

“The kitchen didn’t catch fire. The foil he wrapped the pizza in did. And I wasn’t in bed when it happened. I was getting ready to take a shower.”

“Why is our eight-year-old cooking his own pizza?”

“Because he didn’t want to wait for me to make it.”

“And why should he wait for his dinner?”

“Because in real life, people wait. They wait for things all the time, Boone. It’s part of life.”

“Oh, so you’re going to tell me about life.”

“Yeah.”

He grimaced. “Have you been drinking?”

“No!”

“Not even a glass here and there?”

“No
.
”

“So what’s going on?”

God, he sounded cold. “I’ve had a bug.”

“Is that why you didn’t go to your dad’s house yesterday?”

“Yes.” She picked at the comforter. “Why didn’t you go?”

“Why do you think?”

She held her breath, trying to keep her cool.

“Brennan said you’ve spent the last four days in bed.”

“I took them to swimming and a friend’s house today.”

“Why was Brennan cooking without supervision?”

“He was supposed to wait.”

“He said he’d waited hours.”

“Not hours.”

“But more than an hour.”

“He knows where the pantry is. He could get himself a snack—”

“Just like he could microwave his own pizza?”

“You’re right. It’s my fault the microwave caught fire. It’s my fault he was hungry. It’s my fault our marriage is over. Just like it’s my fault that I gave up law school and all my dreams when I fell in love with you.”

“What does that mean?”

Sarah’s chin jerked up. She met his gaze, her expression just as furious and flinty as his. “It means I’m furious. I blame me. You never asked me to give it all up for you. I did it myself. I did it without thinking twice. And now I don’t understand why . . . why did I give up what I wanted, what I needed, to be with you?”

“Wow. So that’s how you feel.”

“You know how I feel? Angry. Betrayed. Betrayed by what I thought it would be. Betrayed by what I thought it would mean. I loved you. I still love you. But somewhere in loving you I stopped loving me.”

He looked at her for an endless moment before nodding. “Okay.”

Okay
.

She wanted to laugh if only to keep from crying.

Okay
.

What the hell did
okay
mean?

“I’m saying this because I love you, Sarah. But you need to get away . . . get some rest. Pull yourself together so you can be a good mom to our kids, kids I know we both love very much.” He paused, waiting for her to speak, and when she didn’t, he continued. “I’m going to stay here with the kids until I leave Friday for the next road trip. I’ll find someone to stay with them while I’m gone. If you’re feeling better next week, come home. If you need more time to sort through things, then stay away. Just let me know by text or phone what you want. But I can promise you this, we’re not going to tear those kids apart. We’re not going to put them in the middle, not like Meg and Jack did. I’d rather cut off my right arm than have those kids hurt. They’re good kids. They deserve to be protected. Can you agree with me on that?”

She nodded. Her eyes burned.

“And I’m not kicking you out, Sarah.” He dropped his voice, his tone gentling. “This is your home, and you’re a great mother, a very devoted mother, but you’re clearly burned out. You need some time to take care of you now.”

“But where do I go? What do I do?”

“You could travel, or go to a spa, or do a girls’ trip somewhere.”

Her shoulders shifted. “I don’t know anybody here.”

“You have your sisters.”

Sarah blinked, taken aback. But he was right. She did have her sisters. Funny, she kept forgetting about them. Forgetting about her big, sprawling Brennan family.

How was that possible?

But then, how was it possible that she and Boone were divorcing?

Tears filled her eyes and she struggled to breathe through the heartbreak. A life without Boone . . . a life without the person she loved best . . .

“Maybe you go do one of your Brennan Girls’ Getaways, where you go to Capitola,” he said, still gentle, his expression kind. “You like the beach. You can sleep in. Drink.”

Of course he’d mention drinking.

She turned her face away, brushed the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Boone. Sorry about everything.”

“I hear you, babe. So am I.”

* * *

B
oone called Kit.

Sarah had no idea what he said to her, but in the morning she and Cass were on her doorstep, hugging the kids, chatting with Boone in the family room, where they’d stumbled onto him sleeping on the sofa.

Fifteen minutes later Kit had packed a bag for Sarah, and then she and Cass were dragging Sarah out the door, hustling her into Kit’s Prius, informing her they were heading to Capitola for a Brennan Girls’ Getaway. Meg and Brianna would meet them there.

Sarah allowed herself to be pushed into the backseat, but she knew this was no Brennan Girls’ Getaway. This was an intervention.

An intervention staged by Boone.

Kit drove, with Cass in the passenger seat. Sarah was fine being in the back. As the youngest, she’d been relegated to the backseat from birth. It wasn’t until her brother and sisters had all gone off to college that she got to ride in the passenger seat, and by then, she’d gotten her driver’s license and was driving herself everywhere.

But the backseat wasn’t all bad. In the back, she didn’t have to help navigate or keep the driver company.

In the back, you could sleep or cry. Which was what she did now.

“Almost there,” Kit said as she took the ramp from 17 onto Pacific Coast 1 South.

Good, Sarah thought, closing her eyes. Soon the drinking could start.

* * *

M
eg and Brianna were already at the beach house when they arrived.

Sarah glanced into the kitchen. From the boxes and bags in the kitchen, it looked as if Meg and Brianna had taken care of the groceries while Kit and Cass had taken care of her.

Sarah opened the refrigerator. No wine.

Seriously?

She closed the fridge, shouldered her overnight bag, headed upstairs, wondering what Kit had packed for her, and then shrugged, not caring.

It didn’t matter. None of it really mattered.

But upstairs, on discovering that Meg had put her suitcase in the master bedroom, thereby claiming it as her own, Sarah felt annoyed and let it show. “Why do you get Mom’s room, Meg?”

Meg had been unpacking her vanity bag, placing her toiletries on the dresser, and she straightened abruptly, glancing at Sarah, and then at the others, bewildered. “I’m sorry. I was just in here all summer.”

Meg’s expression made Sarah hate herself. But instead of backing off, she just came back, swinging harder. “Well, it’s not summer, and this is the Brennan Girls’ Getaway with your sisters, so you’re stuck in the girls’ bunk room with the rest of us.”

Meg frowned. “But if we have an empty bedroom—”

“It’s Mom’s,” Sarah said fiercely. “And it’s empty because she’s dead.”

“Sarah!”
Kit protested.

Bree put a hand on Sarah’s arm.
“That’s not necessary.”

And Sarah, who’d already opened her mouth to say more, because she had to say more, because she was burning on the inside with this rage she couldn’t deal with, realized she was unleashing it on the wrong person.

She was venting here, because she was terrified she’d vented the wrong things at home.

She hadn’t wanted to end her marriage. She’d wanted to end the pain. But ending the marriage seemed like the only way to end the pain.

But the pain was still in her, burning hotter and brighter than ever before.

“I’m sorry,” she said, breaking away from Bree. She stumbled out the door, down the stairs to the front porch.

Cass and her sisters followed.

Sarah stared out at the sea, refusing to turn around when the screen door opened and banged closed.

“Sarah,” Meg said. “It’s okay.”

Sarah held up a hand, jaw tight. “It’s not. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m being such a bitch—”

Meg came up behind her, wrapped her arms around her, and hugged her. “I miss Mom, too,” she whispered in Sarah’s ear. “I miss her so much. And there’s nothing we can do.”

Sarah covered Meg’s hand, squeezed it, refusing to cry because tears would solve nothing now.

Tears wouldn’t bring Mom back.

Or heal her marriage.

They were self-indulgent at this point, and something not to be tolerated.

* * *

I
t was Cass who coaxed them all off the front porch and into the tiny aqua-blue kitchen, where they were gathered now—well, squished was more like it—making the Brennan Girls’ favorite, fresh strawberry margaritas, for their traditional happy hour.

They always had happy hour every day at the beach house during their getaways and today was no exception.

Kit sat crouched in front of the ancient oven, keeping a close eye on the tray of nachos she’d placed beneath the temperamental broiler, Cass hulled the strawberries, and Meg put the fresh crab and shrimp on a plate. Sarah observed all from her perch on the rickety step stool in the corner, looking forward to the first cocktail.

“I’ve got some news,” Kit said casually as she rescued the nachos from the oven, the cheese bubbling and browning on top of the tortilla chips as she plunked the hot cookie sheet on top of the stove.

“What kind of news?” Brianna asked, dumping ice into the blender.

“Um . . . I think it’s good,” Kit said, pulling off her oven mitts and tossing them onto the counter. “I hope you will, too.”

Cass had been in the middle of dropping the basket of washed, hulled strawberries into the blender and looked up abruptly, missing the blender, dropping berries onto the floor.

“Cass!” Brianna scolded. “We need those.”