Chapter 6

It was three weeks after Andy's play that Alex had called, hysterical. Lily understood immediately.

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“I told Mike, Lily. I had to. He pulled it out of me and couldn’t lie. I told him yes, I loved you too. I told him. I hoped we could figure it out but he exploded, Lily. He threw the oriental lamp against the wall and stormed out. I won’t say what he called me. I didn’t dare call you, it was so violent. I was scared. He came back three hours later and he told me, then and there, I’d better choose. He said he would file for divorce the next day if I ever saw you again”.
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Alex was crying. Lily was stunned. She was not surprised— after all, who could blame her?-- this decent woman, a wedding band, a mother with these precious children-- her sexuality and passion and love and loyalty all misfiring at the same time? And yet, she could not believe Alex did not talk to her before she did this—didn’t she know hell would break loose?

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“I told him I had to see you in person, Lily, I insisted on that”.

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“Why?” Lily had asked. She could barely speak. She could barely breathe.

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“I owe you that much”. Alex paused. It was a long pause, the kind when you wonder if the world might end then and there. “I will miss you”. she said.
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The last four words, spoken like slow-motion animation, tipped it and turned it over and upside down, an emotional frying pan spattering hot oil everywhere. Lily was devastated. Four words, “I will miss you”. The dye was cast, the deal was done—she had no part in a decision already made and an acceptance already firmly rooted deep within her—a worse-case burden that she knew even years ago she would carry for the rest of her life.

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“Let’s say goodbye now, Alex”, Lily had said.

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There was a pause. Probably more words were spoken, Lily thought, but they were meaningless. She remembered only the last sentence,

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“You can call me at work, Lily, anytime, you know”.

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There should have been so much to say. So much had been said already. So many times they had tried to make sense of what was improbably and impossibly true. But not this time.

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Lily held the phone to her chest until the shrill beep beep beep finally stopped. She placed the receiver, still off the hook, on the coffee table, stood up, and shut the living room blinds. She lay on the couch buried under a green chenille blanket until 18 hours later, when she forced herself to stand, walk down the hall into the bathroom, and scrub and shower clean as a glorious future encased in a present past violently swirled down the drain.