“I’d like to talk about that, yes, but that’s not what this is about. I think I probably should say I’m sorry or something...”

A huff of laughter came out of her. “Ya think?” she said.

“Let’s get a beer or something. Please.”

Justine dreaded whatever was to come. She noticed the fine white scar along his hairline and frowned.

“You’re not planning to clear the air, are you, Scott? Because I really don’t need another long list of reasons how I somehow drove you to another woman.”

“Nothing like that, I promise.”

“All right,” she said, taking off down the street at a brisk pace. “Just a glass of wine. That’s all. I have plans for dinner.”

“Oh? That guy? Logan?” he asked.

“No, my sister and daughters. I’m making a rotini pesto tonight. And salad. And bread. Logan is working, and I have some work to do later.”

“That sounds really good,” he said, struggling to keep up.

“Thank you. You’re not invited.”

It took them only minutes to reach Tony’s. The place was crowded for happy hour, but most of the patrons were gathered around the bar. Justine found a table in the back near the kitchen door, and she sat down. She put her briefcase on the chair beside her and quickly texted her daughters that she was stopping for a glass of wine and wouldn’t be long. She ordered a chardonnay and waited in silence until it arrived. She didn’t ask “How you doin’?” or make small talk. When her wine arrived, she took a sip and said, “What is it, Scott?”

“Boy, you don’t make it easy,” he said.

“If anyone on earth hasn’t earned easy, it’s you. What did you want to talk about?”

“Well, I don’t know how to say this, Justine.” He stopped and looked down into his beer. Then he looked up with the soulful eyes she had once loved. “I made a mistake. I was wrong about everything.”

“Is that so,” Justine said. “And what has that got to do with me? Or Christmas?”

“It has nothing to do with Christmas!” he said angrily. “It has everything to do with you. Didn’t you hear me? I was wrong! I regret leaving the marriage. I regret having an affair. I was manipulated and fool enough to fall for it.”

“She beat you up again? Or just leave you?”

“She never beat me up!” he insisted. “We had a disagreement. It happens. Justine, I never stopped loving you. You’re the mother of my children, of course I always loved you. I thought... I don’t know what I thought. I made a mistake. I should never have strayed, should never have...”

“Strayed?” she asked, drawing out the word. “Scott, you engaged in a complicated and destructive series of lies for months if not years and destroyed our family! You betrayed us all. So you made a mistake. I guess you’ll have to live with that.”

“Be reasonable, Justine. I’m sorry. I recognize where I went wrong and I’ve learned. I learned way more than I wanted to. We can put it back together.”

“No,” she said. “We can’t.”

“I realize it could take time...”

“It would take a miracle,” she said. “You said you didn’t love me anymore. After my heart stopped ripping apart, I stopped loving you. You took what you wanted and rented a fancy house to live in with a woman who hadn’t given you years, sacrificed for your marriage, helped raise your children, trusted you and—” She paused and sipped her wine. “Let me ask you something. You want your marriage back?”

“If humanly possible.”

“Why?”

“Because I can see now that I was confused! Wrong! Misled and used! You were right and I was crazy! Call it a midlife crisis, but in a way it illuminated all the things I took for granted. We deserve a second chance. We had a good marriage.”

“Everything you took in that settlement,” she said. “Are you prepared to return it to our joint retirement and savings accounts?”

He dropped his chin and looked down into his beer. “Just give me a chance and I’ll make it up to you,” he said. And he said it quietly.

“She got it, didn’t she?” Justine said. “How’d she get it?”

“She didn’t exactly get it,” he said.

“Yet you don’t have it,” Justine said. “She tricked you.”

“She misled me. We were going to be partners. Now I have no money and a failing business. I thought we were going to be partners. I thought I was going to save the business for her, help her out. I thought she’d be grateful, but—” He cleared his throat. “She was very convincing.”

“Until she coldcocked you,” Justine said.

He didn’t respond. He did wince, and she thought the scar on his forehead got whiter.

“I told you that was going to happen,” she said.

“Because I’m so completely undesirable? Because who, besides you, could possibly want me? Because I’m nothing?”

“No! Because she played to your ego and won! You weren’t nothing. You were everything to your wife and daughters! But you walked away from the real thing—loyalty and love and commitment—for a chance to be a big shot! She played you! What made her finally leave? Did you run out of money?”

“No. I told her I would never marry again!”

She leaned away from him, actually surprised that he said that. She thought he was a goner, that he’d fall for anything. She wanted to know how much she’d gotten out of him for that kayak shack, but on the other hand, she’d rather not know. Besides, she could find out. Anything that involved a sale and a filed document could be traced.

“What about you, Justine? Are you into this Logan all the way? Serious?”

“Oh, I’m serious about Logan. I’m not seeing anyone else. We don’t have any plans. It’s new.”

“Then there’s still hope for me,” he said, his face brightening just the smallest bit.

Here she was, about nine months since catching Scott in an affair. She knew women who caught their husbands’ cheating more than once, yet kept their marriage intact and even seemed content. Justine couldn’t do that. As she looked at Scott now, after what he’d done, she wondered why she’d loved him at all. He’d always wanted as much as he could get with as little effort as possible.

And then he blamed her for working such long hours. Blamed the failure of their marriage on her not being perpetually available to stroke his ego.

All this talk of second chances and regrets—Justine was much too cynical for that. He’d probably be back with his other woman by the end of the week.

“No, Scott. I’m not at all open to the idea of reconciling. Not remotely. In fact, I’m not sure we’ll even be friends.”

“How can you say that? After thirty years together?”

She shook her head, and remarkably, she felt the sting of tears. She’d felt for a long time if she could only break down and give out a big, sobbing cry it would release some pressure. “That’s the thing,” she said quietly. “After that many years, after all that love and trust, what you did to me was unconscionable. I doubt any other human being could have wounded me so deeply.”

She pushed back her wineglass, then her chair. She picked up her briefcase and walked out of the bar.

The night was cold and dark, but for the twinkling of the Christmas lights. She was aware that the betrayal was not over for her yet. In fact, his desire to come back to her seemed only to make it worse. She had no idea she could hurt so much.

But then she had a vision of Scott with nothing left after taking everything he could from her. Scott, homeless and bereft. It was a very sad vision. Then the tears coursed down her cheeks.

* * *

Adele hadn’t seen much of Jake since that last big talk they’d had. It was almost a showdown. She’d given things a lot of thought and decided she would find a way to convince him they should get back on track, spend as much time together as possible and let their relationship evolve naturally. She felt they had missed a step in the development of their relationship.

She had to make Jake understand that after being friends for so long, it was awkward to her to change love to in love when she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant in the grand scheme of things. She cared for him, cared deeply. If she were to make a list of all the attributes she thought were important in someone she could be devoted to, Jake had them all. Tenderness, strength, integrity, honesty, kindness, wisdom...oh, the list was long and impressive. All that was lacking was that zing of passion she recalled from years ago when she fell hard for the useless professor.

She had come to learn that feeling wasn’t worth much without all the other things, but that wasn’t helping her right now.

She had tried explaining that to Ross who said, “Sounds to me like you’re taking him completely for granted.”

But of course she didn’t think she was doing that. She thought it was more probable he was trying to motivate her with his frequent trips to Jeannie’s house to look at her remodel plans or her tile choices. She had tile choices and remodel plans he could look at!

With that in mind, she fluffed and buffed, fixing her hair and makeup, and took off from her house to the market. If she found that Jake was once again heading to Jeannie’s, she just might scream. Justine and the girls were going to San Jose to a high school choir concert tonight, and Adele decided it was the right time to give Jake a piece of her mind. He was clearly avoiding her and trying to make her jealous. That was no way to lay the groundwork for a romantic relationship.

She had rehearsed what she’d say many times and did so again as she walked through the cold, foggy night to the market. Jake, I’ve had so many changes this year, my new job that will lead to a new career, my sister and nieces moving in, not to mention that I lost forty pounds and have a completely new lifestyle...and now I feel that I’m losing you! This isn’t the time to put restrictions or demands on our—