“You can't do that,” she said, with tears in her eyes, begging for mercy.

“Yes, I can, and I'm going to. Go do your story.”

“Right now that's not important.”

“Yes, it is. You were willing to fuck up our marriage for that, India, now go get it. It's what you wanted.”

“It shouldn't have been a choice. I could have done both.”

“Not married to me, you couldn't.”

But suddenly, being married to him wasn't an option she wanted. Just looking at him, staring at her angrily, she knew he didn't love her. And as painful as it was to realize, she knew it was something she had to face now. And as she saw it in his eyes, all the fight went out of her, and she turned and left him standing alone with their laundry.

She grabbed her coat and went outside, and took a deep breath of the cold air, feeling it sear her lungs. She felt as though her heart were breaking, and yet at the same time she knew that, as terrifying as it was to her, she had to be free now. She couldn't live with his threats anymore, or her terror that he would abandon her, she couldn't live with the mantle of guilt he tried to make her wear, or the constant accusations. She just couldn't do it. She had to let him take it all from her, and leave her to stand alone naked. She had nothing but her children now, her camera, her life, her freedom. And the marriage she had cherished for so long, clung to and hung on to, and tried to fight for, was dead and gone. It was as dead as Serena. And as she had told Paul about his own life, all she had to do now was hang on, be strong, and live through it.





Chapter 19

INDIA TURNED down the story in Montana after all, and instead she and Doug told the children they were separating. It was the worst day in her life, and one she hated herself for. This was something she had never wanted to do to them, just as she had never wanted to lose her father. She knew it would change their lives, as it would hers, and yet at the same time, she knew that, because she loved them, they would survive it.

“You mean you and Dad are divorcing}” Sam asked with a look of horror, and she wanted to rip her heart out. But Doug had done it for her.

“Yeah, stupid, what do you think they've just been saying?', Aimee said, choking on a sob, looking daggers at her parents. She hated them both for destroying the perfect life she'd had. They had destroyed all her illusions in a single instant.

Jason said nothing at all, but ran to his room and slammed the door, and when they saw him again, with red, swollen eyes, he pretended nothing had happened.

But at the end of their explanations to them, Jessica turned on her mother. “I hate you,” she said viciously. “This is all your fault, with your stupid magazines and stupid pictures. I heard you fighting with Daddy about it. Why did you have to do that?” She was sobbing and childlike, and had lost all her grown-up airs in an instant.

“Because it's important to me, it's part of who I am, Jess, and I need to do it,” India tried to explain. “It's not as important to me as you are, or Dad, but it meant a lot to me and I hoped that Daddy would understand it.”

“I think you're stupid, both of you!” she shouted, and then ran upstairs to her own room, to lie on her bed and sob, while India wished she could explain it to her. But how did you tell a fourteen-year-old that you no longer loved her father? That he had broken your heart, and destroyed something inside you? She wasn't sure she even understood it.

And then Sam came to sit in her lap and sobbed. He cried for hours, shaking piteously as she held him.

“Will we still see Dad?” he asked, sounding heartbroken.

“Of course you will,” she said, the tears on her own cheeks flowing like rivers. She would have liked to take it all back, to tell them it wasn't true, to make it never have happened. But it had. There was no turning back. Now they all had to face it.

No one wanted to eat after that, but she made them all chicken soup for dinner. And while she was cleaning up, Sam wandered back into the kitchen, looking stricken.

“Dad says you have a boyfriend. Is that true?” India looked horrified as she turned to face him.

“Of course not.”

“He said it was Paul. Is that true, Mom?” He needed to know, and she understood that. It had been a vicious thing for Doug to do. But nothing surprised her.

“No, it's not true, sweetheart.”

“Then why did Daddy say that?” He wanted to believe her.

“Because he's angry, and hurt. We both are. Grownups say stupid things. Sometimes when they're upset. I haven't seen Paul since you did last summer.” She didn't tell him she had talked to him. He didn't need to know that. And in any case, he wasn't her boyfriend. He was never going to be an issue in Sam's life, except as a friend, and fellow sailor. “I'm sorry Daddy said that to you. Don't worry about it.”

But what she said to Doug that night was a great deal stronger. She accused him of using their children to hurt her, and told him that if he ever did it again, he'd regret it.

“It's the truth, isn't it?”

“No, it's not, and you know it. It's too easy to blame this on someone else. This is our doing, we screwed this up, no one helped us. You can't blame a man I talked to on the phone, no matter how often I talked to him, or didn't. If you want to know who's responsible for this, go look in the mirror.”

Doug left the house with his bags packed the next morning. He said he was going to find an apartment in the city. And he told her that once he got settled, he wanted to see the kids on the weekends. And suddenly she realized how many things they'd have to work out, how often he saw the kids, and when and where, if she got to keep the house, what he was going to pay her for child support. Suddenly she realized how totally all their lives would be affected.

She stayed home and cried for five days after he left, mourning what she had had with him, and what she had lost. And sensing the distress she was in, Paul kept a discreet distance, and didn't call her.

She finally called him a week after Doug had left, and talked to him for a long time about the children. They were still upset, and Jessica was still furious with her, but the others seemed to be adjusting. Sam was sad, but Doug had come out to visit them, and took them out for lunch and a movie on Sunday. She had asked him if he wanted to come in when he dropped them off, just to talk, but he had looked at her as though she were a stranger.

“I have nothing to say to you, India. Do you have a lawyer yet?” She had told him she hadn't. She hadn't felt ready to face that. But from everything Doug said to her, she knew it was over. Part of her wanted it to be, wanted to get away from the constant agony of it, and part of her still mourned the good years they had had together. She knew it would take her a long time to get over it, just as it was taking Paul time to get over Serena. And he understood that.

He was back in the south of France by then, in Cap d'Antibes, and he started calling every day again. And little by little through the weeks of January, she started to feel better. And Gail gave her the name of a divorce attorney. She still couldn't believe what had happened to them.

“What do you think did it?” Gail asked her one morning in early February over cappuccino.

“Everything,” India said honestly. “Time. Doug wanting me not to go back to work. His refusing to hear what I was feeling. My refusing to do what he wanted. Looking back at it now, I'm surprised we lasted this long.”

“I always figured you two were a sure thing forever.”

“So did I,” India said, smiling wistfully at her. “But those are the ones you have to watch out for. The perfect marriages we all believe in just aren't. It only worked as long as I played by his rules. As soon as I rocked the boat a little bit, and tried to add some of mine, it was all over.”

“Are you sorry? Sorry that you rocked the boat, I mean?”

“Sometimes. It would have been easier not to do it, but after a while, I couldn't. I needed more than he was willing to give me. I see that now. And this is pretty scary.” The kids were her responsibility now. There was no one to be there for her, to come home to her at night, to care if she got sick, or broke a leg, or died. She had no parents, no siblings, no family, other than her children. But listening to her put Gail's own marriage into question. It hadn't been good for years, but she had never seriously thought about leaving her husband, even if she liked complaining about him. The weird part was that for India, everything had seemed fine, and then all of a sudden it wasn't. And it was over.

“What are you going to do now? Will you sell the house?” Gail looked worried for her.

“Doug says I don't have to. He can afford to let me stay here. I can stay in it until the kids grow up, or go to college, and then we can sell it. Or before that, if I get married,” she grinned at Gail ruefully. “I don't think that's likely, unless Dan Lewison asks me out.” There wasn't a soul in Westport she wanted to go out with. And all of the men Gail was seeing on the sly were married.

“You've got a lot of courage,” Gail said with admiration. “I've bitched about Jeff for years, and I'm not even sure I like him. But I don't think I could do this.”

“Yes, you could, if you had to. If you knew you had more to lose if you didn't. That's what happened to me. You probably love Jeff more than you think, you just don't want to admit it.”

“Listening to you talk about the kids, the house, alimony, vacations, I may go home tonight and kiss him,” Gail said, with a look of terror. And India smiled at her.