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goes cold-mad. I’m talking punishing, withering scorn. The bitterest medicine for a sensitive person like Adam. He must have felt about three inches tall by the time Jonathan got done with him. In spite of myself, I felt a flicker of sympathy.
    Jonathan pulled his hair loose from its bun and rolled his head back and forth against the back of the couch. “No, I do not believe that he did.” He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then swung his head to me again. “What are you going to do?”
    “I’m going to ignore him. I think I’m probably going to keep that up for a while.”
    “You’re gonna have to talk to him eventually.”
    “I’m aware of that,” I snapped. “But I will when I’m damn well ready.”
    “Care,” Jonathan said slowly, “I just have to ask.” (Though I knew what he was about to ask, and really, he didn’t have to.) “It’s so out of the blue…Patrick. Did you have
any
idea?”
    “You know I didn’t.”
    “No, I mean…not that he was cheating, that he was…attracted to guys.”
    “Should I have? Some secret signal I missed?”
    “No. I’m sorry. Just trying to make sense of it.”
    “
You
are? Ha.” I stabbed my fork at another meatball with such force that a fragment of meat sailed out of the carton and landed with a soft
whap
noise on Adam’s letter. I felt a dizzying tug of curiosity toward the letter, but I clenched my jaw until it subsided. I would not give Adam what he wanted. And besides, if his voicemails were any indication, it was probably just a bunch of beautifully worded but pointless self-flagellation.
    “But no,” I said. “I had absolutely no idea. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. I still can’t even believe I’m having this conversation with you right now. This is somebody else’s life. Other people’s husbands have sleazy affairs, not…” My words trailed off as I realized how arrogant it sounded.
Not mine.
As if I was better than everybody else…as if my marriage were perfect.
    Jonathan squeezed my shoulder. “Listen, you guys are gonna be fine. What he did was horrible, but you know he loves you more than anything. If anyone can pull through this, it’s you two. You guys are lifers, everybody knows that.”
    For a long time, both of us were silent. Then he sighed.
    “Christ, Patrick fucking Rubinowitz. I’m gonna have to deal with that mess at some point.”
    “What mess do
you
have?”
    He rubbed at his bearded cheek with one palm, making the skin pucker around his eye. “Alicia.”
    And all of a sudden, I felt something bubbling inside me like shaken soda, something I’d usually clamped down on before: the need to be honest, when it wasn’t explicitly called for. It might not be welcome, but it could do some good; and good was better than silence as far as I was concerned. “Listen, I have to tell you something, because this seems like a good night for truth—that girl, she is godawful.”
    Jonathan’s wing-shaped eyebrows flew up his forehead, but I barreled onward. “She is, she’s terrible. She’s hot, and I’m sure she’s fun in bed, but she’s vapid and boring and shallow.
Please
dump her.”
    He laughed, a little uncertainly. “Well, alrighty then. Tell me how you really feel.”
    Which was exactly the wrong thing to say to me in my present state of mind. “Honestly? Most of the girls you’ve dated since Rebecca in college have been
so awful.
Yes, including Mariah.”
    “I was with her for two years!”
    “Yeah, and I hated her for both of them.”
    He narrowed his eyes at me. “Okaaaaay. I guess it’s a truth party in here.”
    “It’s been driving me insane for ages. You’re too old to keep dating hot bimbos. You’ve got to at least
try
to find a good one.”
    He was working up a good head of righteous outrage, I could see it. And I deserved it. But after a few seconds of staring at me while his mind churned for a rebuttal, he abruptly surrendered to laughter, dropping his forehead into his