The Husband's Secret

Tess and Connor ride on Connor’s motorcycle. Connor promises that he’s a very safe driver and sweetly taps his helmet against hers. Tess feels like she must be too old and too married for this kind of flirting and romance. She tries to remember a week ago—the Thursday before Felicity and Will confessed their feelings. She and Will watched TV while working on their laptops and then went to bed and had sex. She wonders if Will was thinking about or longing for Felicity during their lovemaking and feels a sharp stab of pain. She doesn’t want to feel the pain or to go back to the numbness of normal, married life. She wants “to be right here, soaring along on this bike, her heart thumping, letting her know she was alive” (325).

Cecilia and John-Paul retreat to the cabana by their pool to talk without being overheard by the girls. The pool filter is malfunctioning and making a noise Cecilia describes as “like a baby choking” (325). She asked John-Paul to fix it, but he hasn’t. She thinks about how if she called a repairman without giving him the chance to look at it and then realize he couldn’t fix it, he would be furious.