Sunrise on Half Moon Bay Read online

  “But I was a teaching assistant in the English department at Berkeley!” she would protest.

  “Eight years ago,” was the reply.

  Then she did something she’d done before, many times. She looked up Professor Hadley Hutchinson on the website of UC Berkeley. He was still there. It was an old picture. He would be over forty now. And still drop-dead handsome.

  She sighed deeply and longed for cake.

  * * *

  Ultimately Scott admitted that he had strayed. That was his description of what had happened. He’d strayed.

  “So, do you love her?” Justine asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, sounding exasperated. “I enjoy talking to her. We have a lot in common. We’re both obsessed with fitness, and you don’t show much interest in that...”

  “I work sixty hours a week to pay for your fitness program!”

  “Hey, I cover that cost!”

  “Yeah, while you didn’t have to make a mortgage payment or save for college or pay for utilities or—Never mind that for now. Go on.”

  “We talked a lot. And I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, but one thing led to another...”

  “You could have said no,” Justine suggested.

  “If you must know, I did. But there was something missing with us, with you and me. There was an empty place inside me and—”

  “Stop that!” she yelled. “Stop feeding me those stale old chick flick lines. If there was something missing with us, you should have stopped going to that kayak shack and addressed the problem with me.”

  “I did. We’ve been in marriage counseling,” he said.

  “Much too late! You’d already been involved with her for a long time! Years.”

  “Not years! We were mostly just friends. She was someone to talk to. It’s been fairly recent that we—”

  “It’s been years! And obviously we can’t stay married. Or let me put this more succinctly—I can’t be married to someone who lies to me and has another woman on the side. For YEARS.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m not suggesting, Scott. I’m not going to stay married to you. You’re unfaithful and you’re a liar, but most of all you’ve been screwing her while we went to marriage counseling! I can’t stay with you because you have no interest in saving our marriage! You need to leave, and we have to tell the kids.”

  “Where am I supposed to go? I have no place to go!”

  “Why don’t you see if they’ll set up a cot in the kayak shack.”

  “Funny,” he said.

  But Justine wasn’t joking.

  “We really don’t have to change anything, you know,” Scott said.

  “Oh, are you suggesting we invite your mistress into the family?” Justine asked frostily. “Because yes, we do have to change a few things.”

  “Of course I’m not suggesting any such thing. And she’s not my mistress.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Would you prefer girlfriend? Side chick? Whore?”

  “You know, take your potshots at me if you want to, but she’s a very good person. A good Christian woman.”

  “In her third marriage,” Justine said. “Three marriages, two bankruptcies, no arrests that I know of, thank God.”

  “How do you know that?” he demanded.

  “Scott. It’s public record. I’m an attorney. And a smart woman. I looked it up. She sounds like a predator.”

  “Stop that!”

  “Fine. We’re getting a divorce because you have a girlfriend. We’ll separate and settle our property. We can get it done cheaply or we can each get our own lawyer and spend a hundred grand and a year of our lives we’ll never get back.”

  “Justine, where do you think I’m going to go?”

  “What did you think was going to happen when I found out? You’ll think of something.”

  “Why can’t we live here together as roommates?”

  She was stunned. Something about the look on his face said he was serious. “No! I’m having a hard enough time getting used to the idea you’ve been unfaithful. I’m not continuing to live with you as your wife. We’ll tell the girls this weekend.”

  Justine took a couple of additional days off ahead of the weekend. She worked on her laptop, and Scott probably assumed she was doing legal work from home. In fact, she was doing something she should have done a long time ago. She was diving into their financial records—tax returns, online bill paying, credit cards. She needed to find out if Scott had any additional credit cards, bank accounts, cell phones, email addresses and so on. She put in a call to Logan.

  “I’ve been wondering about you,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m going through our financial records, but it would be helpful to have a little more information if only to see how deep and far back the lying goes. Scott is a fun, attractive man but still, given this woman’s background, I wonder if he’s being had.”

  “That could require surveillance,” Logan said. “Would I be out of line to give a little advice?”

  “Knock yourself out,” she said. “I’m not feeling all that smart right now anyway.”

  “I’ll be glad to do whatever I can to help you gather information, but the laws are clear. If you can negotiate half of your holdings and property and a reasonable support payment, you’ve done good. You can probably file the papers yourself. If you get the lawyers involved, they’re going to get most of the money.”

  “I know,” she said. “Let me know what you find. And if it’s beyond your reach, please just tell me.”

  “Absolutely.”

  * * *

  The conversation with their girls was not easy, but it was very similar to their discussion with each other. Scott started it off.

  “As you know, Mom and I have been in marriage counseling because we weren’t completely happy and we’ve grown apart...”

  “I was completely happy, and I know nothing about this growing apart,” Justine said.

  Scott scowled at her. “There was something missing in the marriage for me. I wasn’t happy and—”

  Justine put her elbows on her knees and leaned toward them. “Look, this may be a bit hard for you to understand. While your dad was feeling whatever that growing apart business was, I was working. Often ten-hour days. I might be guilty of not paying close enough attention to him, missing something, but nevertheless, he found himself involved with another woman...”

  “Dad?” Amber asked, her spine stiffening in shock.

  Olivia was eerily quiet.

  “It’s true,” he said. “I strayed.”

  That word again.

  “I never have before and I can’t believe I did, but there it is. I’m the guilty party. That’s what your mother wants me to say, that I’m the guilty one.”

  “But are you sorry?” Amber asked.

  “Of course!”

  “And so she’s gone now, right? The woman?”

  “Not exactly,” Justine said. “Your father is still involved with her. I believe he loves her.”

  “Do you, Dad? Love her?”

  “We’re good friends, that’s how I can best explain it. If you knew her, you’d understand—”

  “Oh, you did not...” Justine said. “She is the reason our marriage is falling apart and our family is torn, and you’re going to argue that she’s just too nice to resist?”

  “But you can stop being friends with her, right? Because you can’t still want to be friends now, right?” Amber’s voice was pleading.

  “Scott, please be honest with Amber. You and that woman are much more than friends. And you’ve made no suggestion that you’ll stop seeing her.”

  There was a heavy silence in the room. Finally it was Olivia’s very quiet voice that broke through. “Daddy, don’t you love M
om anymore?”

  “I will always love your mother, but I don’t think I love her in the way I did when we were younger. We’ve grown apart. We don’t spend time together. We don’t have much in common. Your mother’s work takes up a lot of time and is her priority. I don’t blame her, I blame myself. But things have changed and sometimes that happens. Your mother and I are talking about a separation. Not immediately, but soon. We need some time apart.”

  “Are you getting divorced?” Amber asked.

  “Honey, we love you very much, but—” Scott started to respond.

  “Yes,” Justine said. “This is not your fault, either of you. But yes, we’re going to divorce. Because our marriage contract has been broken and can’t be mended. If your father wanted to save our marriage, we might have a fighting chance. But he doesn’t.”

  “But you’re in counseling!” Amber cried.

  “And the whole while, he’s been seeing another woman. I’m afraid I can’t fight that.”

  “Dad!” Amber said. “Don’t you want to be married to Mom?”

  He was quiet for a long moment before he said, “I don’t know.”

  Amber’s breath went out in a huff. Olivia stood quietly and walked out of the room.

  * * *

  April arrived, rainy much of the time and Justine’s girls were crying a lot. If Justine thought her own heart was breaking, all she had to do was look at her daughters to see just how much Scott’s affair was hurting the whole family.

  Justine called the high school counselor to alert her that the girls had just been informed of their parents’ pending divorce. Scott did not try to talk her out of it, but he did put a lot of energy into trying to negotiate some kind of living arrangement that did not leave him trying to find a hotel.

  “I don’t know why I can’t just stay here,” he said. “I’m the one who’s been in charge of the house and the kids.”

  “Two reasons,” she said. “One—you’re not one hundred percent in charge. They get themselves up, drive themselves to school and half the time get their own dinner. I do their laundry, spend most evenings with them, help with homework and studying. And two—you’re the one who strayed. You broke the marriage contract.”

  “And you don’t even seem that upset,” he said accusingly. “I haven’t seen you shed a tear! I think maybe you’re secretly glad to have a way out.”

  “But I’m not,” she said. “Plus there is no other way out now.”

  It was true; she still hadn’t cried. She felt like she was locked in a tight box with an iron band wound around her middle and her chest. She even asked herself a few times if it was possible she was having a heart attack. She considered going to see her doctor, who she thought of as a friend. If you met your doctor for drinks or a light dinner now and then, didn’t it make you friends? She thought about asking her doctor if she was abnormal.

  She did throw up frequently. She couldn’t eat. Food didn’t appeal, and when she did force something down, it stuck in her throat. She stocked up on yogurt and ice cream and went home from work early so she could be there for the girls when they got home from school. They talked endlessly, trying to get a fix on what their lives might be like going forward. Every single afternoon and evening was consumed with talking. She made them soup or pizza or sloppy joes or anything they had a yen for; the poor things didn’t feel like eating either. She tried to reassure them they would still have both of their parents whenever they wanted them, but she did think it was a good idea that only one of them lived in the family home.

  Justine had long heard about that rule of never saying negative things about the departing spouse and that was damned hard, given he was a jerk and a liar. But as it turned out, she didn’t have to say anything at all. Scott was on another planet, free to be with his mistress. He didn’t show up on time, didn’t keep tabs on the girls, didn’t talk to them about what their lives would be like, didn’t try to explain. Didn’t apologize. Instead of begging for forgiveness he merely said, “I haven’t been happy. Don’t you want me to be happy?”

  Apparently, it was all about Scott’s happiness.

  It was also true there was no other way out, even if she forgave Scott, though he hadn’t asked her to. How did you continue a partnership when one of the partners was capable of a long, insidious, remorseless betrayal?

  But Scott just wouldn’t leave. They didn’t fight, though they did grind out a few terse words here and there. He had been banished to the guest room at night, and it felt like he was settling in too comfortably. He had stopped telling her or the girls where he was going, just dropping short sentences as he walked out the door like, “I’ll be home by ten,” or “I’ll be out for a few hours.”

  “I hope you’re thinking about a property settlement,” Justine said. “The more we can work out amicably, the better for the girls. They won’t be involved in our negotiations. If we’re smart, we can get through this without doing them any more harm.”

  “If you’re going to keep acting like this is my fault, there will be harm,” Scott said.

  “I’ll do my best, but this is your fault. You took a lover. I did not.”

  And why not? she asked herself. She’d been lonely, too. Scott was busy with his activities all the time and didn’t seem to need her. They spent a couple of afternoons a month as a family doing some activity, and they had dinner together once or twice a week. She was just starting to realize that it’d been a lonely way to live.

  She hadn’t taken a lover because there’d never been a temptation. Nor an opportunity! The fact that Scott complained that she’d been working all the time and that she wasn’t interested in his life only added insult to injury because he’d had plenty of time to take a lover. Maybe if he’d been working, worrying about retirement and college tuition and paying the bills, he might not have had the time!

  She spent a couple of hours with a friend who was an attorney who did a lot of divorces. The advice was familiar to her and exactly what she’d told a dozen friends and Scott—if they could agree on the division of property without lawyers, it would be cheaper and less likely to be contentious. Her friend warned her, “Your biggest problem will be alimony since you’ve supported him for so long.”

  “But he could have worked!” Justine said. “He loved not working and having all that time off! I asked him a hundred times if there wasn’t something he wanted to do, even as a volunteer, and he said he’d put in enough hours of volunteer work as a dad!”

  “It is assumed that every such decision is made in joint partnership, just as net worth is jointly shared.”

  She’d never thought about it because she couldn’t imagine this happening to her, to them. There had been the rare time she’d said to Scott, “Have you heard about Char and Dennis getting divorced after thirty years of marriage? How does that happen? Please tell me that can’t happen to us!”

  “Us? The most married couple in the county? Impossible!” he’d said.

  And she would let it go. After all, they talked or texted all day, every day. They were constantly in touch; constantly joined at the hip.

  She told Adele they would be separating soon, filing for divorce. Despite the fact that Scott had a lover, apparently he had nowhere to go and was living down the hall.

  Adele began to cry on the phone. “You guys were one of the only reasons I had faith in marriage.”

  “You can’t imagine how sorry I am that this is another shattered image,” Justine said.

  So, staring terror in the face, she went to see the CEO of her company. She told him that her marriage was over and explained that none of the options she’d been offered in the restructured company were appealing to her and she wanted to offer her resignation.

  “If you resign, there won’t be an exit package,” Wayne Holloway explained. “That’s an expensive decision. Do you have another position lined up?”

 
She shook her head. “I suppose I’ll talk to a headhunter,” she said. “For years I had fantasies about striking out on my own, starting a private practice or joining one, maybe consulting, something that would be less stressful and give me more time to enjoy my kids before they’re gone. But the demands of the bills were bigger than I was.”

  “You’re right not to wait too long, Justine. Otherwise, you might end up spending your whole life trying to hold this company together.”

  “What was your fantasy, Wayne?” she asked.

  He leaned back in his chair and said, “I’d like to play the piano in a jazz band. Seriously.”

  He was not known as a musical talent. “That’s amazing. I never would have—”

  “Can I give you some advice?” he asked. “As a man divorced twice?”

  “I’d welcome it,” she said.

  “Be generous, don’t try to punish him even if he deserves it, but know what your priorities are and set fair boundaries that are nonnegotiable. You’ll be better off in the end if you can settle.”

  “He doesn’t inspire my sense of generosity,” she said. “He makes me want to fight for everything.”

  “I know. I get it. I’ve been the betrayer and the betrayed. Either way, just keep safe what means the most to you.”

  “That’s easy—my girls.”

  “Be practical, Justine. Can you be a full-time caretaker and provider?”

  “Women do it all the time.”

  “It isn’t easy,” he said. “And you wouldn’t be happy without work, so balance the scales. Take some time to think about it. Walk on the beach. Talk to friends. Maybe get a little counseling or find a group for support. Or try church, if that’s your bent. Come up with a plan.”

  “I have a little vacation...”

  “Justine, take time off, forget vacation. We’ll hold your decision about your future job until you’ve at least reached a preliminary settlement with your soon-to-be ex. Then let’s talk again.”