The First Husband

“I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I’m not sure if it matters, or makes anything better, but I wanted you to know. That I didn’t know about you. Or your and Griffin’s . . . history. Not really, at least.”

“Why would that make it any better? Griffin knew.”

It wasn’t a bad point.

I shrugged. “Then I’m sorry anyway,” I said. “For the rest of it. For springing it on you the way I did.”

She looked at me for a last second, in the mirror’s reflection, before giving me a sad smile.

“That’s nice of you to say,” she said. “But you don’t need to apologize, really. I shouldn’t have walked away from you like that. It was a little melodramatic, which is not like me. I was just shocked, as you can imagine.”

“Of course. Or, I should say, I can imagine now.” I paused. “I didn’t mean to be the one to tell you that Griffin was married.”

“It’s not surprising that you were,” she said. “Griffin has a hard time with blame.”

Then she gave me a knowing look. And, all of a sudden, I felt like I was on the opposite team than Griffin. On a team with Gia. And I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want her to think I wanted to be there.

“I don’t think Griffin meant to be unfair,” I said. “To anyone. It doesn’t feel like he had bad intentions.”

“I’m sure that’s true. He doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. Though I’m starting to think that was part of the problem. For us, I mean.”

I looked at her, in the mirror, confused.

“It was a good thing he did, leaving to

wn for a while. Going out to California, giving me some breathing room. I have a new boyfriend now. And I’m doing well. We’re doing well. I’m moving on with my life. I’m moving on in a way I probably should have done a long time ago. In a way I probably wouldn’t have been able to do if he had stayed.”

“Oh, good.” I breathed in. “That is really good to hear.”

“I’m not finished.”

“Okay.”

“I shouldn’t have called Emily. That was wrong of me. But you should know something else. About Griffin. He is a good man, a very good one. But he only knows how to love broken people. He can’t show up for people who are whole. That’s why I lost him. I didn’t need fixing anymore. Which meant we weren’t just spinning our wheels, trying to keep moving in place. You know what I mean? We were actually going to have to be in it together.” She turned off the faucet. “You understand what I’m saying? ”

“No,” I said, and shook my head because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to understand, even if I did.

There was a world in which what Gia told me could be construed as the ex-girlfriend trying to poison the well. But in the world I lived in, all I knew was that she didn’t seem like she was trying to be mean. Or she was trying to be a little mean, maybe, by giving me a warning that one of these days Griffin would give up on me. But she also seemed like she was trying to be honest—didn’t her story, in a way, match up to Griffin’s? Just from the other side? Which actually felt much worse.

“I don’t know what was going on with you when you two met, but my guess is you were at a low point, no?”

She eyeballed my coat. She eyeballed my ridiculous heartcovered coat when she asked this. And from the pitying pursing of her lips, she apparently decided she had enough information to answer her own question.

“I’m not sure it’s that simple,” I said.

She smiled and reached for a paper towel, started to dry her hands.

“It never is,” she said. “Except when it is. That’s the hard part. Knowing exactly when something is as simple as can be. I’m terrible at that myself.”

I nodded and started to dry off my own hands. “Right . . .”

“Also, when you have a chance, I’d like my scarf back.”

Then she threw her paper towel in the trash, and exited. Leaving me to look in the mirror. All by myself.

19

Emily Putney was waiting there, in the parking lot, when we got back to the school. Standing outside even though it had started snowing again, standing in her perfect parka and fur-filled boots, waiting to walk the twins home and spend the afternoon with them.