Page 17 of The Husband Diet
‘Alright. It’s OK. Let’s meet in my office and we’ll discuss this calmly. OK?’
‘Um… no, I can’t.’
‘I understand. You need time. Next week?’
‘No, I, um… I’ve changed my mind.’
Silence.
‘Gotta go, Doctor Bowers. Sorry! Thank you for everything!’
And I hung up, a new braver, determined me. There was no way I could ever forgive Ira for cheating. There was no way I could forgive Ira for everything he’d done to me. Not even the gaping years of loneliness looming ahead could change my mind.
Erica had literally left the building!
6
One Way (Out)
You can imagine what happened when Ira got home and realized I hadn’t gone through with the operation. His eyes widened in surprise to see me there and then narrowed when he saw I was stillallthere. Perhaps he thought I’d come home looking like Miss America, or maybe even his pantie-less lover in stilettos. I don’t think anyone told him it would take months for me to shed the weight and that they wouldn’t just hack off the fat bits like a cut of meat at the butcher’s counter. Like I wanted to do to him right now. All the murder fantasies and I finally knew what my unconscious had known and been telling me all along. My eyes swung to the knife block in the kitchen, then back to him.
The asshole would have let me go through with a life-threatening operation when all this time, he’d had his own skinny-assed floozie waiting for him under the sheets. Bastard. This was the ultimate – the worst offence he could have thrown at me.
And now, just looking at him from across the kitchen island, I knew I could do it on my own. Not just the diet, but my whole, entire life.
‘Erica,’ he said. ‘What are you doing home so soon?’
‘I didn’t go through with it,’ I answered simply, feeling my cheeks turn to fire as I looked at him superciliously, forcing myself not to hurt.
But who was I kidding? Inside I was dying, tearing myself to shreds smaller than his lover’s panties. Horny bitch. Horny bastard. How could he throw away twelve years of marriage and two children for an hour’s romp in the sack? Pardon me – eight minutes on a good night.
He frowned. ‘Didn’t go through with it? What the hell, Erica. We discussed—’
‘I know about your affair,’ I said calmly.
He sighed. ‘Are you at it again? I’m not having an affair.’
‘You dropped your cellphone in my hospital bed. She sent you this message.’
He patted his breast pocket and I held the phone out for him to read when instead I wanted to ram it up his nostrils. Dirty, pathetic cheating bastard.
Pale, he looked up at me in shock. I could see his mind churning, looking for another lie.
He swallowed, his eyes wide. ‘Erica, we just—’
I exhaled and it hurt like hell, as if an eighteen-wheeler had fallen from the sky and landed smack dab on my chest. ‘Don’t bother, Ira. I’m not interested. It’s done and I can never forgive you.’
Awkward silence. No ‘I’ll do anything to make it up to you’, or ‘Can’t we just start all over again?’ Instead, he nodded, as if he were all too eager to get out of there. How humiliating for me.
‘What about the kids?’ he asked. ‘How… do we break it to them?’
I inhaled – slowly. Exhaled again. How the hell do you tell your kids that mommy and daddy don’t love each other anymore? How do you relieve them of the gut-twisting pain and ensure their lives will benefit from it?
I shrugged, feigning indifference. ‘We tell them in the New Year. No point in ruining their Christmas. Until then, you stay here and act like a decent father for once.’
He thought about it at length, as if debating, and my evil eyebrow shot up.
‘Surely your lover in stilettos and no panties understands you have children who will always be more important than her, no matter how many tricks she turns?’
