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Her head snaps to me. “Okay.” She nods as if that totally makes sense. “Why exactly are you spying on Monica?”
The look I give her clearly conveys that I think she’s being stupid. “Because I need to know where she lives.”
“Okay. You say that like it makes complete sense, but I’m still not understanding.”
“She’s visiting Erin and when she leaves, I’m going to follow her.”
“Still not understanding why, babe.”
“I need to know where to drop off Lucas’s stuff.” Her eyes soften, and she stares at me in silence for a couple of beats. I’m expecting her to say I’m being ridiculous, but then she nods.
“Good plan, but I see two problems.”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s a perfect plan.” I scoff.
“No. Firstly, I’m sure she knows your car, so we should swap.” She gestures behind me to where her car is parked. Huh, I can’t believe I didn’t hear her pulling up. “I’m pretty confident she’s never seen mine. Secondly, you’re not really well prepared.” She continues, looking around the car and completely missing my glare. I shake the binoculars I borrowed from Mom under her nose triumphantly.
She’s giving me a look now, as if I’m the stupid one. “What exactly were you planning on doing with that?”
“You never know. They might come in handy.” I shrug.
“Yeah, if you’re trying to scope out the movements of a terrorist cell.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, genius, then what would you suggest?”
“Coffee and donuts. Everyone knows that those are essential ingredients for a successful stakeout.”
“Don’t you ever think without your stomach?”
“Babe, food is one of three necessities in life, the other two being phenomenal sex and a hefty bank balance, and not necessarily in that order.”
“I’ll never understand how you’re not as big as a house.” Lillian’s one of the lucky ones. She can eat whatever she wants seemingly without gaining a pound, whereas I’ve always had to watch what I eat.
“It’s all the phenomenal sex.” She says with an impish grin.
“Where are you going?” I hiss when she opens her door.
“Swapping cars, dummy. Go park behind that tree.” I watch in my rearview mirror and snicker when she jogs to her car, her body almost bent double. Not suspicious at all. I do as she says, pulling out, doing a U-turn, and parking behind a massive oak tree before grabbing my binoculars and jogging to her car, also almost bent double. Slumping in the seat, I debate my poor life choices. I could really do with a donut right about now, but I’ll never admit that to her.
“So, how long are we waiting for?”
“Not long, I think. She never visits for more than an hour or so.” The words are hardly out of my mouth when I see her car rounding a bend in the road.
I slap Lillian a couple of times on her arm, making her jump with a little shriek while simultaneously ducking down. “That’s her. Go, go, go.”
We follow her, and I’m totally amazed at Lillian’s skills. She keeps a good distance behind Monica’s car, always trying to keep a car between us. Before long, we’re turning onto a residential road, and after a couple of turns, we park two houses down from the driveway Monica’s turning in. I watch as she gets out of the car, unlocks the door, and lets herself in. My insides are burning when I take in her house. This is the place that Lucas went to screw her when he was supposed to be home with his family. It’s a nice home, smaller than ours, with a well-manicured front lawn, the entrance flanked by two palm trees. I’m staring at it so hard, as if the house will give me answers as to why, but it’s stupid. It’s not the outside that caught his attention. It’s what’s inside.
“Now what?” Lillian’s voice jolts me from my silent perusal.
“Now we go home, and I’ll come back when she’s not home.” I know Lucas said that he ended things with her, but at this stage, I don’t believe a single word that comes out of his mouth, and there’s no way I want to take the chance of him being here when I toss his things on her lawn. The other day Erin told me that Monica is a hostess at an upscale restaurant downtown and her shifts rotate weekly. I’m guessing that because she’s visiting Erin today, it means she’s working the night shift. The way Erin spoke to me tells me that Monica hasn’t told her about what’s going on, and the only people I’ve told are Lillian and Mom. It took all I had to keep the smile on my face while making casual inquiries, and I felt bad about deceiving Erin, but not bad enough to stop.
Lillian takes my hand and squeezes it tightly. “You sure that’s what you want to do?”
There’s no judgment in her voice, not that I expected any. I was robbed of the denial part of my grief when Monica showed up at my house, and I’m fully entrenched in the anger stage. Having to see his clothes in our cupboard every day is like a stab to my heart, and I want it gone. It’s as if purging every physical trace of him from my life can purge this pain in my heart. I don’t want to see one of his business suits hanging next to mine. I don’t want to accidentally touch one of his t-shirts while riffling through mine. The other morning I picked up the aftershave he left behind and took a big breath of it before I could stop myself. It almost brought me to my knees. It makes me weak, and I can’t afford to be weak. I need to be strong. I want it all gone, and I texted Lucas to tell him to collect his shit. He refused, so now I’m forced to take matters into my own hands, and I know it makes no sense, but then nothing in my life makes sense at the moment.
Lillian starts the car, and we drive home in silence. She drops me off at my car and follows me inside when we get home. I pause in the entry hall, staring at the trash bags I stuffed full of his things last night when I couldn’t sleep, Lillian’s words going around in my head. Lucas did a trash thing. The asshole doesn’t deserve suitcases, so trash bags it is. Can I really do this? Taking his clothes there is me saying, there, you can have him. It’s admitting defeat, and I don’t want to be defeated. The sad truth is, it doesn’t matter what I want. I was already defeated the first time he touched her. He didn’t ask me when he went and did this horrible thing, and now all I have left is having to deal with the consequences.
So at seven that night, after Lillian’s left, I lug the bags into my car and make the trip to a house I never want to see again. The street is quiet, so there’s no one that sees me hauling them out and leaving them at her front door. There’s no one that can see me swipe the tears that won’t stop flowing from my cheeks. The next morning I pick up my phone and make a call I never in a million years thought I’d make, the call that will start the process of ending my already broken marriage.
