The Breakup Read Online Free

aren’t properly supervised.” I bit my lip
     and waited. “Did you know, for instance, that they played with matches in your backyard last week?”
    “What? No! Of course I didn’t know! Are you sure?” I knew she was sure. Lynette Kohl-Chase was always sure.
    “Apparently they were trying to build a campfire.” She paused. “And did you know they tried to carve boats out of Ivory soap
     using steak knives?” I suddenly remembered seeing scraps of soap on the kitchen floor. I hadn’t given it a second thought—
     just another piece of crap on my floor, what else was new? Now I felt like disemboweling myself. Pete goes to her house, and
     they build gingerbread houses. Hunter comes here, and they play with steak knives and matches. What could I say? I was a horrible,
     neglectful, pitiful excuse for a mother and we both knew it.
    “No offense,” Lynette went on, “but I think it’s best if Hunter stays home today.” She paused. “Of course, Pete is always
     welcome here. In fact, we’re building an igloo on the deck if he’s interested.”
    I wanted to say, Oh shut the hell up, Mrs. Perfect-Mother-and-Homemaker-Who-Makes-Me-Want-to-Hurl-My-Guts-Out.Instead I told her Pete would rather stay here. “We’re making double-chocolate brownies,” I lied. “From scratch. Pete’s favorite.”
    “Oh, that’s lovely,” Lynette chirped. “Maybe some other time.” I’m sure she knew I was lying. I’m sure of it.
    ’Til next time,
    V
January 13
    I woke up this morning with a rash around my mouth. It looks like I have a mustache of red pimples. It itches, and it’s hideous,
     and I feel like crying. I guess my new lip plumper worked, though tumescent is probably a better word to describe what has
     happened to the lower part of my face.
    As I sit here with hydrocortizone cream slathered all over my face, I’m thinking about what it will be like to be single and
     alone again, and I’m afraid. The trauma of Roger’s infidelity has left me feeling battered and shaky. I feel so unsure of
     myself, my worth, my looks. I don’t know if I have the stamina to put myself “on the market.” Years without love have made
     me feel unlovable. While I cognitively understand that Roger is a sick bastard, at the visceral level, I can’t help but believe
     I deserved him. I am plagued by the fear that I’m literally incapable of choosing a good man, or that no good man wouldwant me. In darker moments, I convince myself that no normal man would want a woman my age whose body has born a child, whose
     belly is striped with faded stretch marks, and whose breasts sag like water balloons. It’s like the real estate market in
     the suburbs. Why would anyone want to buy one of the 1960s bi-levels when they can get a shiny, new house in a shiny, new
     subdivision? The old houses sit on the market like relics from another age.
    There’s Eddie, I guess. But he’s not exactly the marrying kind, and not just because he’s already married. Eddie is my first
     affair, my secret sin, my coconspirator. One day he will be my former lover, but he can never be my future second husband.
    ’Til next time,
    V
January 14
    It’s 5 A . M . and I’m sitting here wondering how I missed the clues. Why hadn’t I paid attention? Why hadn’t I picked up on the signs?
     Before Roger and I got married, I struggled with a cancerous jealousy. But I desperately wanted to be a trusting wife. In
     therapy, I learned to view my suspicions as infantile impulses, irrational longings that had more to do with childhood wounds
     than my fiancé’s wandering eye. Instead of stiffening when Roger mentioned awoman’s name, I eventually learned to relax. I welcomed many of those women into my home, served them dinner, laughed with
     them, trusted them.
I was such a sucker!
    I suppose that Roger’s sudden interest in expensive clothes was one sign, though I didn’t realize it at the time. And the
     introduction of new sexual positions. Then there was