Ah, I thought. I said, “Not in a while.”

“Why not? What’s happening with the divorce?”

“I really don’t know.” I realized I was slightly drunk. “Maybe you can get one of your New York spies to find out.” I smiled at him wryly.

“I find it strange that you don’t hear from him. That things aren’t moving forward.”

“Really?” I said. “I don’t.”

“But he must know that it’s over between you. It’s been months.”

“It has been close to four months and he knows no such thing. Let me explain my husband to you. Better yet, let me be my husband.” I prepared to drop my voice an octave and to soak the words in privilege. “Well, you know Christina, she’s fiery,” I said, in an imitation that had Chet known my husband, he would have found spot-on. “It’s going to take her a while to admit she wants to come home. She’s hiding out in the Philippines and who can blame her? Collin’s back with Magda, and a lot of us are feeling betrayed. But this time apart? It’s good for us. It’s what we need.” Chet watched me, impressed but also uneasy. “Christina was just trying to get back at me for Blaire, which was a mistake.” I realized, as I said this, that there had likely been other mistakes. “So now she thinks she’s even and she’s just licking her wounds. We’re taking some time apart because that’s what we need to do.” I paused and took a sip of my drink. “Of course Christina’s not staying in the Philippines. Seriously? The Philippines? That backwater? Good God. We’re fixing things and she’ll be here by the holidays. Go easy on her. Don’t ask her about it. I mean, hasn’t she been through enough?”

Chet leaned back in his chair. “You sound like you hate him.”

“No. I actually don’t . . . hate him. And no matter what you think, he does love me. This is just how he’s justifying that weakness.” It was true. I was probably the only person he’d ever felt that way about, and regardless of my feelings for him, being the object of such devotion left one indentured, because few people ever felt the full force of such a thing. On some level, I thought I should be grateful.

“He’s forgiven you for the affair,” said Chet.

“He would say he’s being a feminist.” Because my husband would say something like that, something false to diminish the betrayal. Affairs were never forgiven. The most one could hope for was that the transgression was logged and then ignored. But despite the talk of us now being even, we weren’t. He might have thrown some punches in the course of our marriage, but my blow had landed in his kidneys.