"I said shut up,” Howie snaps. “I’m trying to do my job—"
"Oh,nowyou're going to do your job?" Risa's voice has gone shrill. "When my son's wife is sitting there inDiorshe could only have afforded by sleeping with—"
“Mrs. Pettyfer, dammit!”
Howie has now closed his eyes, the pen still tapping against his lower lip, breathing through his nose like a man asking a higher power for patience. Delia, in the meantime, is still staring at my shirt while Sandy seems...preoccupied?
Honestly, I should've just looked away. But all I can do at that moment is just stare at the four of them and think to myself,This...
This is how the rest of my life could be.
This is what I almost said yes to twenty years ago and again every year after.
And unfortunately, it's when I realize this that Sandy happens to look my way.
Oh no.
"What are you looking so smug for?" he asks nastily.
He always does this. Every time something goes wrong, he somehow finds a way to lash out and pin the blame on me.
"I asked for this meeting because I was feeling a little bad that you'd get nothing."
It's a struggle to understand what he's saying when all I can see is flashback after flashback of our marriage, and Sandy making me feel like I’m always to blame.
"I wanted to offer you some kind of help—" Sandy actually surges to his feet in his rage, which comes out of nowhere. "But now that you're acting high and mighty like that?"
I can already feel my body going still.
"Who do you think you are?"
I know what he’s about to do.
No, no, no.
And yet—
SLAP.
It’s just like before. I don't know if it's shock, or if my reflexes are too slow. Or maybe I've become so traumatized that I can't even move.
His hand strikes my cheek so, so hard that it has me swaying, and the whole place falls silent.
Everyone is staring at Sandy in shock. His own mother included. Because his entire life, Sandy has always been the charming, good-looking, easygoing guy.
Howie has finally stopped tapping his pen. His mouth is open. His eyes have gone wide.
Risa has lifted one hand and pressed it flat against her own chest, and her face has gone the kind of white that takes a moment to set in.
Delia, alone among them, is not looking at Sandy.
Delia is still looking at me.
And I...
I never tried to change anyone's opinion about him.
No matter what he did, no matter what he said, I always told myself it was a fluke.