Just Around the Corner
Page 87
“But a smart man, or woman, is going to welcome your talents, Phyllis. Smart people understand how lucky they are to have such great values in their lives. You make people happier with your help—it’s that simple. How could any reasonably intelligent person turn that down?”
Rows and rows of rainbows. Swimming rainbows. Floating in a sea of tears.
“CAN I ASK JUST ONE more thing?” Matt broke the silence a few minutes later. He’d started to think Phyllis wasn’t going to say anything at all, ever. He felt pretty certain he was correct where she was concerned, but had no idea how a guy like him reached a psychologist who knew everything he knew—and so much more.
“Yeah.”
“Who is it that hurt you so badly?”
“There wasn’t just one person. I wouldn’t make life decisions based on a single incident, but rather on a series of them.”
“So this series of incidents, they were all with men?”
“Every one of them.”
“Guys you dated in college?” He pictured the cocky college boys he’d known.
“Most of them.”
Could easily see them being too self-absorbed to know what a gift they’d had in Phyllis.
“You said you’d been married. How long ago was that?”
“A few years.”
Matt didn’t like to think of her married to another man. Loving another man. But she must’ve loved him. A lot. To have given him the power to hurt her this much.
“And how long were you married?”
“Four years.”
“So what happened?”
“Brad thought I was a know-it-all. Couldn’t stand how I always had the answers, as he put it. It got to the point where he never heard a word I said. Never really even listened to me when we talked. He heard what he thought I was going to say and nothing else.”
“Sounds like a great guy.”
“It wasn’t completely his fault, you know,” Phyllis said quietly.
Attacked by a pang he hardly recognized, Matt had to wonder if Phyllis was still in love with her ex-husband.
“And why is that?”
“Brad had to quit listening to me or lose himself. He quit listening to protect himself. I didn’t mean to, but I made him feel stupid, insecure, unsure. And in retaliation, he was always trying to educate me,” she said with a hint of bitterness. “Holding forth on political theory or the Industrial Revolution or Manifest Destiny—or whatever. Because it made him feel smarter than me.”
What the guy deserved to feel was stupid, Matt thought but didn’t say. Brad was stupid, and a jerk besides.
“So which one of you finally decided you’d had enough?” he asked, instead. Not that it mattered. She might still be in love with this Brad, even if she’d been the one to leave.
She laughed, a brittle laugh, still watching the tree that had been holding her attention for the past half hour. “It wasn’t as straightforward as that.”
“What happened?”
“Brad eventually grew so insecure that he turned to another woman. I caught him with her.”
“He had an affair.”
“More than one from what I understand.”