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“Oh, my God,” she whispered, blinking hard, trying to sober up. Did they say her book had gone viral, basically, racking up thousands of purchases? Thousands and thousands?
“Brian,” she called, forgetting for a moment how upset and hurt she was with him. “Brian! Brian!”
“What?” he demanded, slamming out of the office and stalking to where she leaned against the aperture to the den. She needed the support, but she didn’t want him to know that.
“Did you see this . . . this news?” She pointed to the screen with the remote, but she’d stopped the recording. Now she tried to start it and fumbled around, dropping the remote to the wood floor, where its plastic back flew off.
“How much did you drink?” he demanded, bending to rescue the remote.
“But . . . Delta’s book . . . she’s making money . . . lots of money . . .”
Brian snapped the remote’s plastic cover back in place and reversed the picture. The whirling images made Zora’s head hurt. She really had drunk too much.
And then Brian played it again.
“Thousands and thousands,” Zora murmured.
“People think it’s a road map to killing Tanner.”
“Uh huh. She killed him, and now she’s making a killing.”
She hadn’t meant to be funny, but that was kind of funny. She giggled and then remembered how sad she was. “You don’t love me anymore.”
“I don’t think Delta killed him.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, realizing he was looking kind of . . . weird. “What?” she asked.
“When you sober up, we’ll talk.”
“Talk to me now.”
“You won’t remember it.”
“Yes, I will.” She sat down on the couch and folded her hands in her lap, looked at him and concentrated.
Well, she did have some trouble concentrating; that was true.
But what she heard was that he’d been secretly seeing Judy, her therapist, who was “helping him understand the issues in their relationship”! Was that even okay? Them sharing the same therapist? Zora thought she could probably sue the old hag. It was Judy who’d helped him realize he never really wanted children. Judy who had helped Brian go over his youth and all the years in between. Judy who had reminded him that he’d had a crush on Miss Billings and had suggested he get in touch with both Clarice and Anne Reade and “explore what might have been.”
“You’re having an affair!?” Zora really, really wished she were sober.
“No.” His face darkened.
“Does she want you to sleep with them? Maybe a ménage à trois? Did she say that was okay?” Her nose felt hot. She was close to tears.
“I knew you’d do this. You’re taking this the wrong way, like always.” He tightened his lips. This was Brian’s seriously angry face. “This is about my journey on the path to happiness.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Zora leaned her head back against the cushions.
As he was wont to do, Brian’s anger, such as it was, dissipated as if it had never been. He sat down beside her on the couch.
“Listen to me,” he said. “We only get one chance to go around in this life. I’ve been fooling myself, and so have you. And I want to go back to teaching, and I don’t need children, but you do.”
Her heart clutched. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we need a break, Zora.”
“I don’t want a divorce!”
