Then she heard it.
“No, I mean it. No more.” Anton’s voice, low, and with a specific sort of tense tone she recognized immediately.
She froze, confused, and wondering why he’d be talking to himself that way. When she opened her mouth to call his name, another voice spoke. A female voice.
“Tony, honey, you need to leave her.”
Lindsay ducked between a pair of tall lagering tanks, hand over her mouth. The white noise she recognized now as onrushing, irrational temper was filling her head again.
“Stop it, ’Bella,” her husband said. There was a funny sound, like rustling papers, or fabric. “Isabella, please, don’t.” But his voice was lower now. He hissed, then groaned. Lindsay’s face flamed white hot.
Isabella was the name of the girl who’d hung out at the barns with Anton and Lorenzo. She’d had it bad for Tony, Lindsay knew. While he’d assured her she wasn’t a “bought and paid for whore,” Anton had admitted that Isabella Josefi had been his mother’s choice of spouse for him. A good Italian girl, from a family the Loves knew well in New York. Isabella had popped his cherry, Lindsay also knew, because she’d been unable to let go of the topic … years ago, before Antony was born.
“God damn it,” Anton growled. There was a ripping sound, then a feminine squeal of delight.
Lindsay sneaked out from between the tanks, trying to figure out where they were, but the sound was echoing, deceptive. Except, of course, in its intent. She knew sex when she heard it, especially the sort of sex her husband had. She marched out into the darkened brew area, fists clenched, ready to confront the cheating asshole and his whore.
“Come on baby, do it, harder, I know you wanna fuck me the way you wish you could fuck her … hey! What’s wrong?”
“Get out, ’Bella,” Anton said, his voice breaking. “Go. I don’t want you, and I won’t leave her. Get the fuck out, now.” This last was a hoarse yell.
“C’mon baby,” the slut said. “Let me just do this for you. I know I can make you happy.”
Lindsay sucked in a breath and saw the shadows thrown by her husband and the woman on her knees in front of him, with his penis in her mouth. Isabella’s shadow’s head bobbed up and down. There were wet, sloppy noises. Anton had his hand on her head, moving her faster. The shadows were almost as vivid as watching it live, and Lindsay could not tear her eyes away. Couldn’t square the horrible, ugly things her Anton was saying until finally he gave a loud grunt. Isabella’s shadow rose, sliding against Anton’s, and they kissed.
Lindsay made sure to slam the door extra hard on her way out.
She got home, poured herself a giant splash of cheap bourbon and drank it as she picked up the phone to call her brother. She stopped halfway through the number, realizing that to involve them would entail more explaining than she felt up to at the moment. Instead, she called Tanya Norris, her friend from church whose little boy Paul was Antony’s best friend and partner in crime.
“Tanya, I can’t explain why, but I need to know if I can bring the boys over for a night. Maybe two.” She winced, knowing that subjecting Dominic’s special brand of high-maintenance on anyone was asking for a lot.
“Sure thing, honey. Take as long as you need.” Tanya Norris only had one child and wanted a houseful, but would never get them. She was the sort of mother Lindsay only wished she could be.
“I owe you for this, hon. I can’t really say what it is, but I just need a weekend. I want to visit my friend in Louisville, and Anton keeps putting me off.”
“No need to explain. Just bring diapers for Dom. I’ve got the rest covered.”
She hung up, her mind only allowing herself to take baby steps, to plan a few hours ahead. Her next call was to Kathy.
“I would love to have you for the weekend, Linds! What fun!”
“Great,” Lindsay said, trying not to let on how numb she was at that moment. “I’ll be there tonight. If that’s all right.”
“Oh, well, of course. Is everything okay there? The boys all right?”
“Everything is great. I need a break and, um, my boys are telling me to take one. You know, as far as I can go, all the way to the big city!” She winced at her fake-sounding voice.
“Well, this will be fabulous! I’ll be up and waiting.”
Her next call was to the attorney. She got his answering service and wrangled his home phone out of the girl using a combination of guilt and tears. Once that was sorted, she told him she’d be at a branch of the Stockyards Bank in Louisville first thing in the morning to meet him. A girl couldn’t expect a decent weekend in town without funds, now could she?
Tears stung her eyes. She closed them, but that brought on the shadows she’d witnessed as her husband was being serviced by that Italian bitch. So she got up and went about the gargantuan task of convincing her boys that a weekend with Paul’s mama and daddy was a great plan, even if it meant getting up at ten p.m. on a Thursday night and packing a bag to go there.
On her last trip inside to grab a few books and toys to haul over, she stopped at the kitchen counter when the phone rang. She knew it had to be Anton. She picked it up, and pressed the hook, leaving the cracked receiver on the table. Deciding not to say anything about what she’d seen him doing, and what she now suspected he’d been doing for a while, she left a quick note.
Anton,
I need to get away for a few days. The boys are at the Norrises’. Tanya says they will be fine there all weekend. I’m sure you have plenty to keep you busy at the brewery. I am at Kathy’s. I will be home Monday morning.
Lindsay
Chapter Eighteen
Lindsay already knew damn well why she’d avoided visiting Kathy all these years. And it reared its ugly head right away, as soon as she entered her friend’s tidy little apartment on a top floor of a stately home in Old Louisville.
Jealousy made her face hot, stung her eyes, and prickled her skin, from the second she walked in the door. So she decided to get drunk and stay drunk, hoping nothing of her home truths would come pouring out and ruin everything.
Kathy worked at a law firm as a paralegal. “A glorified secretary,” she claimed. But she had a closet full of sweet little suits and adorable shoes. There were no piles of toys and secondhand books, dirty dishes, or filthy laundry, and her house did not smell of sweat, piss, and shit like the Love household did most days.
Together, they put away a bottle of cheap white wine the first night, which helped Lindsay pass out into a dreamless sleep for an astounding, uninterrupted seven hours.
She woke with a gasp, hearing her boys crying, until she realized it was birds chirping outside the window of Kathy’s living room, where she’d been sleeping on the couch. Acknowledging that she missed them, she tiptoed to the kitchen and dialed the Norrises’ number, twisting the phone cord around her fingers while she waited for someone to pick up.
“Oh honey, we are just great here. You go on and have a great time. You deserve it.” Tanya Norris’s words made her feel like the world’s most selfish human being, unfit to be a mother. But she hung up, found the percolator, and brewed a pot of strong coffee; nearly polishing off the entire thing by the time Kathy made her sleepy-faced appearance at nine a.m.
After Lindsay met the bank attorney and signed the papers giving her direct, unfettered access to more than two hundred thousand dollars, her share of her parents’ estate, she stared down at the crisp twenty dollar bills the friendly teller had counted out for her, two hundred dollars in all. She held them for a few seconds, acknowledging that she had never in her entire life handled that much cash. Kathy touched her shoulder, startling her. Anton’s face rose. She mentally shoved it away.