“What do you mean?” Peter cupped his hand over his chest. He looked adorable, which was something Ada hated and loved at the same time.
Ada twisted around, burrowing her head in the pillow that she’d picked out herself at that beautiful home store on the mainland. “I mean, I’m surprised you didn’t go see her. After the kids went to bed.” She swallowed, studying his face. “You must sneak out a lot these days, now that I’m down the hall. Now that I know.”
Peter didn’t say anything. Ada decided that meant he often sneaked out.
“Where do you go together?” she asked, feeling brave.
Peter groaned and put his arms over his eyes, as though he couldn’t possibly face what he’d done. But through his forearms, he murmured, “We go to bars. We go to restaurants.” He paused. “We hang out at her place.”
Ada was quiet for a moment, trying to visualize her husband with Katrina, laughing and drinking wine. Feeling like she was dangling over an abyss, she asked, “What do you like about her?”
Peter forced his arms away from his face, perhaps recognizing that he was a child. “She goes after stuff,” he saidfinally. “Like, when she wants to do something, she tries it out. It’s infectious.”
Ada was taken aback. Throughout all their sessions, Katrina hadn’t talked about “going after” anything except friends and her husband. “What kind of stuff?”
“She’s been writing a book all summer,” he said. “It’s about the history of Nantucket, but it’s also about so many other things. About who we all are as people, about why our ancestors came to the island, and why we continue to stay.”
Ada sat up, intrigued. During all their sessions, she’d thought of Katrina like a pathetic woman who needed a man desperately. However, in fact, Katrina was both a thinker and a doer.
“That sounds really interesting,” Ada said finally.
“It is.” Peter rubbed his temples and still couldn’t look Ada in the eye.
“Do you love her?” Ada asked.
Peter raised his shoulders, unable to say.
“Do you tell her that you love her?” Ada asked.
Peter looked sick to his stomach. His cheeks were turning green. But to his credit, he didn’t get out of bed. It was like he knew he couldn’t run away anymore.
Ada would remember this night for the rest of her life.
“Can I ask you something else?” Ada asked, her voice small.
Peter nodded. He was in over his head.
“Why did you do it? In the beginning,” Ada asked.
“I don’t know if I can remember,” Peter said. “It just happened, you know.”
But Ada ordered, “Try.”
Peter turned in bed so that his chest was facing hers, so that his nose was a few inches from her nose. If this had been any other year, they might have begun kissing. They might have slept together. But Peter was with someone else. Ada’s husband was with someone else.
Peter closed his eyes, but opened them again, as though he knew Ada needed him to face her when he said it. “I haven’t felt like myself in a really long time.”
Ada’s face crumpled. She’d heard this excuse from many of her patients: that their husbands hadn’t felt like themselves and they’d cheated; that they hadn’t felt like themselves and then cheated. Like you could find “yourself” in another person.
But then Peter added, “And I haven’t really felt like you and I have connected. Not in a really long time. I’ve felt like you’re a stranger. Like somebody I don’t know very well who lives in my house.” His voice broke, and tears drained from his eyes. But here it was, the truth.
Ada decided not to make a big deal of it, not openly. Inside, she was breaking apart. But soon, she would be out of this and on a road to a different life. Maybe this was the first step.
“What do you mean?” she asked, because she needed to know.
“I don’t know,” Peter said finally. “You were so magnetic when we met.”
“I was an opera star,” Ada reminded him, trying not to be mean. “Of course, I was magnetic. It was part of the job.”
