“Sasha, are you all right? I mean, I know you have to be very upset and all, but—”
“Thanks for calling,” I said, and hung up.
On Wednesday, as she had promised, Jordan sent Alberto to pick up my work at the end of the school day. It didn’t occur to me until sometime that afternoon that Donald had still not returned from his trip, wherever that was and whatever it was for. I recalled that he had left on Friday because we weren’t going out to eat, and that would enable him to come home sooner. It had been nearly a week. What did he mean by ‘sooner’?
Although she didn’t say anything about it, I could see that Jordan was disturbed by that or perhaps something even more serious. She wasn’t making her usual daily attempts to cheer me up or get me to avoid thinking about Ryder Garfield. In fact, to me, she looked even more withdrawn than I had been. I saw the way her eyes drifted, realized the long silences between things she said, and watched her move through the house almost like someone who was sleepwalking. I also saw my concern echoed in both Mrs. Duval’s and Mrs. Caro’s faces after they had looked at her or heard her speak. If she was doing any of this to get me to think about something else, I thought, she was succeeding.
“I might not be home for dinner tonight,” she told me later that afternoon. She stopped by the sitting room near the front entrance. I had been wandering about like a lost soul myself all day. My schoolwork was little or no challenge. I had finished it all quickly, but unlike what I usually did, I didn’t read ahead in any textbook. I think I had ended up in the sitting room because it was a room in the house besides my own in which Ryder had been. I recalled how he had run the palm of his hand over the piano, his face full of appreciation. I sat there staring at the piano, envisioning him and smiling to myself.
“I hate leaving you to eat by yourself,” Jordan added, “but it’s unavoidable.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. I thought it was time I did. She was wearing a conservative beige business suit, but her makeup was quite understated for her.
At first, she didn’t look as if she would say anything. She shook her head and started to turn away, but then she stopped, and her shoulders shook.
She’s crying, I realized, and leaped up to go to her.
“What is it, Jordan?” I wanted to add, Whatever it is, it can’t be so terrible. I was thinking only of Ryder. What could be more terrible? “What’s happened to upset you? Did something happen to Donald? Is that why he’s still away?”
She turned slowly, tears hanging off her lower lids as if they had been caught trying to escape. “No, nothing has happened to him yet.”
“Yet?”
“I’m meeting with my attorney. She’s a high-powered divorce attorney.”
“You’re getting a divorce?”
She nodded and took a step toward me. “When I had that conversation with you at the lake, I already knew there were very serious problems between Donald and me. I wasn’t completely honest. We had been with our marriage counselor for a while, but that didn’t help us. Donald always found an excuse to cancel. Besides, he wasn’t being forthcoming at those sessions, anyway. Half the time, he was manipulating both me and the therapist, but I wasn’t completely stupid. I wasn’t meeting friends for lunch all those times he thought I was. I was meeting with a private detective.”
“Why?”
“A few times, I had caught Donald lying to me about his trips. I didn’t make a big deal of it. I realize now that I should have. Once, his office actually called here looking for him, and his office manager, Charlie Daniels, had to admit that Donald wasn’t on any business for the firm. He didn’t tell me where he was. He didn’t have to. I suppose I always knew this day would come,” she said. “I was in denial.”
She looked as if she was struggling to breathe. I stepped back as she went to sit in the nearest chair. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and pulled up her shoulders like someone who had just been insulted. I stood there waiting.
“However, I assure you I’m not going to be like most of my divorced girlfriends and pretend that my getting half of his assets wipes away the pain and suffering he has caused me. I’ll find the money he’s hidden overseas, too. I won’t be civilized about any of it.”
“Donald is definitely having an affair, then?”
“No, not an affair. Affairs,” she said, looking up at me. “Although my friends will think it, I’m not some poor, naive woman taken by surprise. I suspected that his being around all those pretty very young women was too tempting for him to resist.”
She sucked in her breath and looked at me again.
“I tried to keep all of this from you right now, pretending nothing was seriously wrong. Children are al
ways the ones who suffer the most when this sort of thing occurs, and with what you’re going through, Sasha, you don’t need any more grief, especially someone else’s.” She reached for my hand. “I know you’re very fragile at the moment. You have your own deep psychological and emotional pain. I’m sorry now that I brought you into all this, but I have never regretted having you here. In fact, you’ve been my joy and salvation.”
“How long has Donald known that you’re moving forward with a divorce?”
“He doesn’t know it yet. That’s why I’m meeting with my attorney today and tonight for dinner. She’ll have the papers ready to file. I’m thinking of bringing them home and leaving them on his desk in his office here. It’s a cold way for him to find out, but he’ll know I’m not the fool he thinks I am,” she said, standing.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t worry about any of this.” She smiled. “My attorney has been working simultaneously on the paperwork I need to legally adopt you. It’s better that I do the divorce procedure first, since we’d need Donald’s agreement on everything, and I want him separated from it all first.”
“Have you told Kiera any of this yet?” If she had, I thought, Kiera was certainly very good at hiding it.
The light in her eyes dimmed as her face tightened. “No. I don’t trust her,” she said, and started out again.