The Woman He Married (8 page)

Lydia
’s face blushed as she poked at her food. Even though she and
Lydia
had never gotten on, Josie felt bad for her. She thought about how thin
Lydia
looked after recently losing a considerable amount of weight. Her newly highlighted and layered hair, formfitting dress, and three-inch heels looked nice, but out of place on a country girl.

Josie swallowed hard.

“This is arguably the best catfish I have ever tasted.” Thankfully Patrick changed the subject when the laughter had subsided.

Josie turned to Patrick, who looked dapper as usual in his classic Southern gentleman attire, and gave him a weak smile. Nodding in agreement, his wife, Amy, whom Josie hadn’t previously met, sat elegantly dressed in a white satin blouse. Her blonde, shoulder-length hair, turned up at the ends, bounced with the movement.

Then Josie saw, or thought she saw, Trisha’s fingers graze the back of John’s hand, followed by a faint smile turning up the corners of his lips. Her attention leapt back to the bracelet.
Roy
said John bought the bracelet for me—and if he bought it for me, why is
she
wearing it?

And then like the measured ticking of a clock, the sound of the rain slowed until every drop hitting the windows echoed loudly in Josie’s ears as she gradually began to re-assemble crucial, previously unconnected, data. John’s increasing disconnectedness with her and the children, their non-existent sex life and the late nights.
Didn’t John and Trisha have a “thing” during college?

Her body went numb.

She stared blankly at the bracelet as it glittered in the candlelight.
How could I have been so blind?
A sharp pain started to grow in her stomach, spreading to her legs, as the chair beneath her became unstable. Around her, she felt like the walls were getting closer, threatening to crush her, and making it impossible for her to breathe.

Just then a bolt of lighting, followed by a clap of thunder, struck directly over the house, causing the lights to flicker. The sound startled her enough to force air back into her lungs, allowing her to breathe once more.

Lanny
called out, “
Ew
-we, that was a big one!” while vacant voices resounded in agreement.

Josie felt her stomach turn, churning with anger and humiliation. She plucked her untouched wine glass from the table. John caught the movement and raised his eyebrows, giving her a look that said,
“Don’t even think about it.”

Josie returned John’s reprimand with a defiant look of her own. Her stare locked with his, she pressed the glass to her lips, intending to down its full contents in one gulp, when Barbara interrupted.

“Jocelyn?”

Josie withdrew the glass from her lips and turned her attention to Barbara.

“Do you work outside of the home?” she asked, and seemed truly interested.

Josie opened her mouth to answer but closed it again when John spoke first. “Jocelyn’s time is devoted to caring for our children and our home.”

“I thought you were working part-time at a law office, or something,” Patrick offered.

“Is that right,” Barbara said, more as a statement than a question.

Gina entered the room with a basket. “Sure, she just passed the bar with flying colors last July,” she announced, throwing Josie a wink as she set more bread on the table.

“No commentary from the help,” John said under his breath as she passed by him.

Amy said, “Aren’t the two of you in charge of some school production, or something?” She turned to Josie with a sympathetic shake of her head. “I don’t know how you have time to work
and
 
be
involved at school.”

Josie started to answer, saying,
“
It’s no big—”

“That’s just the third-grade play for Bobbie’s school.” John dismissed the subject. “Jocelyn and
Gina
designed
the costumes, that’s
all,” he said, glaring at Gina as she exited the room.

Do I even need to be here for this conversation?
Josie wanted to scream.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Barbara said and then paused as a smile spread across her face. “I’d like to come. Our grandchildren are all grown and…wouldn’t that be great,
Lanny
?”

“What ever you want,
Darlin
’, but we’ll only be in town another night.”

She turned back to Josie, beaming with excitement. “When is it?”

“Tomorrow night, isn’t it?” Andy said. “We should all go,” he offered with a broad smile, and everyone around the table nodded in agreement.

“Then it’s set. Tomorrow night we’re all going to the ‘theater’,”
Lanny
announced with enthusiasm, slamming his hand down on the table.

John began to rub his temples.

Suddenly Josie felt nervous at the thought of everyone coming to the program. Between the day she’d had and this business with the bracelet, she wasn’t sure she could handle the extra pressure of having to entertain this crowd two nights in a row—she was barely holding herself together as it was.

“Jocelyn?”
Lanny
said. “Have you ever been to the
Caribbean
?”

John started to answer, “No, she hasn’t—”

“Uh, sure,” Josie asserted. “I spent a summer in the
Dominican Republic
building houses for Habitat for Humanity with Br…”—she re-thought mentioning Brian’s name—“friends from college.” All of a sudden, Josie noticed that every eye was on her and looking somewhat surprised, as if to say, “She
does
speak.”

Across the table she saw John furrowing his brow while studying her carefully. They’d never really talked much about her life prior to their marriage. She felt a small tinge of satisfaction knowing he was probably angry—he didn’t like being caught off-guard.

“Great. Then you’ll know what to expect on our little excursion,”
Lanny
said.

Josie stared at him. She’d no idea what he meant. “What? I’m
sorry,
I don’t know what you’re—”

“The island resort I am taking ya’ll to…the day after tomorrow,”
Lanny
said, surprise clearly evident on his face that she could forget such a thing.

Josie looked to John for answers.

John subtly cleared his throat. “Jocelyn’s not going to be able to make that,” he said, breaking his gaze from hers. “With the kids and all, she’s just too busy.” His voice might have sounded apologetic to their guests, but Josie wasn’t fooled.

“Nonsense.
All of the spouses are going. You’ve got two grandmothers around here, don’t you?”
Lanny
said, looking at John and then back at Josie. “Surely, one of them can take the kids for five days.”

Five days!
Josie hadn’t ever been away from the kids for… Well, never.

With all eyes on her, Josie was watching John as his gaze smoldered with resentment. And then she knew.
Knew that he didn’t want her to go.
Her heart began to sink, cutting through the anger—the betrayal—bringing her back to where she was before.
Before this night and this dinner.
Before the bracelet and the trip.
She felt her defiance slowly wane as her mind rushed to protect its fragile ego by dispelling her previous assumptions.

“Well, it would be…difficult to make arrangements with such short notice and all,” Josie said and felt her heart fall deeper as she silently cursed herself for coming to John’s rescue. Perhaps she did it because she’d been putting up pretenses for so long it had become a second nature. Perhaps it was due to her increasing desire to believe that somehow she was overreacting. That all this could simply be some sort of misunderstanding. After all, no woman wants to believe the man she married, the person she promised to love until death, could possibly be so cruel.

As an awkward silence fell around the table, Barbara turned to John, and using her sweetest accent, said, “You can make it work, can’t you? If Jocelyn can’t go, well then, I don’t see any reason for the rest of us to go either.” Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were saying, “Discussion over
.
”

* * * *

The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly. Everyone loved the gumbo, the fish, and especially the Red Velvet cake. With a smile teasing her lips, Josie allowed herself a moment of self-satisfaction at having pulled off the impossible with such finesse. After supper John went into the study and called Josie’s mother, asking her to drop everything and stay with the kids for five days. He must have really turned on the charm too, because she agreed.

Wiping up the counters in her kitchen one last time, Josie couldn’t help but feel disorientated. Her bracelet, possibly, on another woman’s wrist, the trip that she wasn’t invited to go on. Oh, and the years of denial that had morphed into the general state of dysfunction that was now her life.

With the events of the evening slamming reality back at her with so much ferocity, she shook her head as she rinsed crumbs from the sponge, knowing that she couldn’t avoid her problems forever. The only question left was—
Where to start?

As she stood alone with her dinner guests gone and the kids asleep in their rooms, the house seemed so quiet and empty. Taking one last look around the kitchen, clean now as if nothing had taken place here tonight, she shut off the lights. Wrapping her arms tightly around her waist, she had one more thing to do.

Josie stopped at the threshold of the study and leaned casually against the doorframe. With his suit jacket hanging on the back of his desk chair, and his shirtsleeves turned up once, John was leaning over his desk writing. His hair was mussed now from a long evening. When he sensed she was standing there, he stopped writing but didn’t look up.

There were so many questions she needed answered. Why didn’t he invite her on, much less even tell her, about the trip? Where was the bracelet he bought from
Roy
? What else was he hiding from her? Not knowing where to start, she said, “So. I think things went pretty well tonight—don’t you?”

“Uh, huh,” he grunted as he put the pen tip back down on the paper and continued to write.

“Yeah, well, there were a few moments today when I didn’t think I was going to pull it off. It’s a good thing Gina and the others were able to step up and help.”
God, I sound like an idiot
.

Still writing, he mumbled, “I’m just glad you
both
behaved yourselves.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Josie asked, but John simply kept writing. When she didn’t get an answer her irritation spurred her on. “Why didn’t you tell me about the trip?”

He signed the bottom of the page and looked up. “Since we’re going on this trip to work on campaign strategies, and that doesn’t concern you,” he paused to snap the top onto the pen, “I didn’t think you would be interested.”

Nice try
. Josie crossed her arms. “If
Lydia
, Amy, and
Denton
all want to go, why wouldn’t I?” she said, trying to look adamant rather than disconcerted.

He gave her a weary look. “What difference does it make now?” he said. “You’re going, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point,” she continued, but stopped when he checked his watch, got up, and slipped his arms into his jacket. “Where are you going? It’s ten-thirty.”

“Out,” he said as he walked over to her and dropped a light kiss on her cheek. “Thanks for getting the dinner together. Everything was real nice.”