“How’s your moo goo, Lucy Goosie?” David asked, smiling at his daughter.
“I’m Fairy Princess Lucy now, Daddy! Detective Sam said so.”
“Detective Sam?” He looked at Carey.
“He was at the courthouse, Daddy,” Lucy went on. “He was my pretend giant, and he carried me all the way to the car. Isn’t that nice?”
“Yes, very,” David said. “Why was he at the courthouse?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said with a big shrug, going back to her dinner.
“I’m his case,” Carey said. “He was keeping tabs on me.”
“You should have stayed in the hospital,” David said for the tenth time.
“So I could not eat there?” she said too sharply. “So they could force-feed me Jell-O?”
“I like Jell-O,” Lucy piped up. “I like green Jell-O best. My friend Kelly’s mom puts pieces of carrots in her green Jell-O. Isn’t that weird?”
Carey smiled at her daughter.
“I like pineapple in mine,” Lucy said. “It’s pretty.”
“You look ready to collapse, Carey,” David said. “And you’re out running around like you think you’re fine. You’ve exhausted yourself.”
He actually looked concerned for her, and she wondered if any of that look was genuine. A part of her hoped so, even though her practical side told her no. If David cared about her, he wouldn’t have been doing what he’d been doing. The more likely explanation was that he wanted her out of his hair so he could do whatever he wanted to do over the weekend. What had Kovac said her name was? Ginnie.
“Did you get your paperwork?” he asked. “I didn’t see you bring anything in from the car.”
“I forgot it was in my briefcase, which was stolen.”
“So you went down there for nothing.”
“Do I need to pay you back for the gas I used?” Carey asked with a fine edge of sarcasm.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
He went to say something more but stopped himself, held up his hands in surrender, and pushed back from the table. “Excuse me, ladies. I have work to do. I’m applying for a grant for the film.”
Carey didn’t comment. Before this day, she would have encouraged him, tried to be supportive, even though she had long since tired of that game. The time for being David’s cheerleader had passed. The time to move on had arrived.
The evening was passed with Lucy, painting toenails and reading stories. After she had tucked her daughter in bed and sat with her until she’d gone to sleep, Carey showered and dressed in a loose pair of jeans and an oversized black button-down shirt. It was one of her father’s old shirts. Wrapping herself in it was like wrapping herself in the memory of her father’s strength.
It was important to her to feel as strong and secure as she could. Confronting David in pajamas wouldn’t do that.
Lucy had been in bed nearly an hour. Once she was sound asleep, it was rare for her to wake up before morning. The sleep of the innocent, Carey thought. She envied her daughter that.
David sat at his desk, staring at the computer screen and nursing a drink.
Carey stood outside the den, watching him for a moment before he looked up.
“I thought you went to bed.”
She took a deep breath and walked into the room. “We need to talk.”
The four most ominous words with which to open a conversation.
David just sat there for a moment, then clicked his mouse to make his screen go dark. The top-secret grant application. My ass, Carey thought. He was probably having virtual sex with one of his prostitute friends. He didn’t get up, keeping the solid mass of the desk like a shield between them.
“I want a divorce,” she said bluntly.
“What?” He looked more nervous than surprised. “Why?”
“Don’t pretend to be shocked, David. You don’t want to be married to me. I don’t want to be married to you. I don’t even know who you are anymore. But I do know all about your extracurricular activities with the prostitutes.”
He was actually stupid enough to try to correct her. “Escorts.”
“They’re women you pay for sex,” she snapped. “A whore is a whore, David. No euphemism is going to put a pretty face on that.
“How could you?” she asked. “How dare you.”
He rubbed a hand over his face and got up from the desk.
“It was just… business,” he said. “A transaction for a service. When was the last time you and I had sex, Carey?”
“When was the last time you were an equal partner in this marriage?”
He laughed without humor and shook his head. “And you’re wondering why I would go outside our marriage for attention.”
“Oh, poor, poor David,” she said bitterly. “You’re the victim. You’ve spent the last how many years contributing not one goddamn thing to this relationship-”
“So it’s about my failure to make money,” he said, moving a step closer to her. “Is that it?”
“Don’t try to make this about money. You haven’t been plugged in emotionally for years, you don’t care about anyone’s needs but your own-”
“I’m selfish?”
“Yes.”
“And how many years were you working eighty-hour weeks, Carey, never home, always too tired-”
“We were supposed to be partners,” Carey said. “Yes, I had a career. You had one too, once upon a time. And you can’t tell me I haven’t been supportive of that. I’ve been your biggest cheerleader. Even in the last few years, when you couldn’t get arrested, let alone get a film made, have I even once tried to discourage you?”
He looked away.
“Do you have any idea how exhausting that’s been, David? To have to carry your fragile ego around like the world on my shoulders?”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m so sorry to have been such a burden on you!”
Carey looked away from him and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to argue with you, David. There’s no point in it. We’re done. It’s over.”
“Oh, Her Honor the Judge has spoken and passed sentence,” he said sarcastically. “I don’t even get to mount a defense.”
“How could you possibly defend what you’ve done?” Carey said, incredulous. “Fucking prostitutes every time I turn my back. How do you defend that? Paying out thousands of dollars a month for sex, for flowers and gifts, for four-star hotel rooms and an apartment I don’t even want to know what for, or who for. What can you say that could make any of that okay?”
He looked at her with narrow-eyed suspicion. “How do you know all of that?”
“I looked it up. For God’s sake, David, I’m surprised you didn’t dedicate a file folder just to your deviant secret life.”
“You went in my file drawers?”
“To look at our financial records. Am I supposed to have to get a warrant for that? You didn’t even bother to try to hide any of it. Your list of favorite escort agencies was in the drawer where we keep checkbooks and stamps. You had to know I would go into that drawer. You probably wanted it to happen, wanted me to find you out, because you obviously don’t have the balls to tell me yourself.”
He held his hands up in front of himself. “I don’t need this. I don’t need to be lectured by you, Ms. Perfect. Perfect daughter, perfect mother, perfect lawyer, perfect everything. What a fucking hypocrite! You think I don’t know you slept with someone else too?”
Carey took a step back as if he’d slapped her.
“Yeah,” David said with malicious glee. “You’re not so perfect after all. So don’t stand there and look down your nose at me.”
“Once,” she said. “Once. Because I was overworked, overstressed, and all I was getting from you was a shitload of whining that I wasn’t here to serve your every need.”
“Right. It’s my fault when you’re unfaithful, but it’s not your fault when I am?”