“Get out of here,” Raoul said. “Get your car out of my way.”

Val started to cry again. “We were just trying to protect her. I can’t believe she’d do this when we were only trying to protect her from the truth.”

“Val!” Raoul shouted. “Aw, fuck it.” Raoul started the truck and he, too, drove into the brush to get around the BMW. Once he was on the road, he felt better. But God, what to do with this news, where to go? Jacob having sex with Kayla, his wife? The mother of his children? Of course it was a lie, a hysterical, dramatic accusation dreamed up by that lunatic woman. As Raoul drove toward home, he tried to remember what Kayla had been like the night before. Crying, insisting that her life was over, the strap of her dress torn, the distinctive scent of marijuana. And Jacob, quitting, leaving the island today without even his last paycheck, running like a fugitive from the law.

Raoul screeched into the driveway. When he stormed into the kitchen he found Kayla, showered and dressed and smelling of perfume, cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

“Where are the kids?” he said.

“Theo’s still in his room. Jennifer’s getting ready to go to the beach. Cass and Luke are outside. The phone has been ringing like crazy.”

Raoul watched Kayla rinse the last sticky plate and put it in the dishwasher. She pulled off her rubber gloves. Raoul was trembling.

“We’re going for a ride,” he said.

She turned and looked at him. Saw his face and knew. Knew that he knew, after nineteen years of marriage, and without a word. It was true.

Raoul took the keys to the Trooper and the Jeep- he didn’t want Theo going anywhere-and he led Kayla out to the truck, tears blurring his eyes. Jacob inside his wife. It disgusted him. Kayla had let Jacob touch her. Raoul couldn’t believe it. Not Kayla. They had been married nineteen years, some years better than others, but never once had Raoul questioned Kayla’s fidelity. It had always been the other way around. Kayla was sensitive about Raoul and other women; she had some loony idea that Raoul was one of these contractors who seduced his female clients. But Raoul had played it straight his entire marriage. There was one woman in “Sconset, Pamela Ely, who pursued him, maybe. She used to lie on her deck in a bikini, straps untied, while Raoul and his crew worked around her. When Raoul was nearby, she would lift her head and her shoulders so that he would see her bare breasts; she did this all the time, and Raoul’s crew couldn’t stop talking about it. She wants you, man, that woman wants you. One night, Pamela kept Raoul hanging around after his crew went home, saying she needed an estimate on one more project-in her bedroom. She gave Raoul a cold Beck’s and preceded him up the stairs with her bikini bottoms riding up her cheeks. He’d had every opportunity to screw her. It was just the two of them in the bedroom looking at a hole in the plaster (her ex-husband had punched the wall, she said). But what did Raoul do? He gave her a fair estimate for the plasterwork; then he guzzled the rest of his beer and left the house immediately. Because as appealing as Pam Ely might have been, what was more appealing was what waited for him at home: a strong marriage, good kids. The real thing.

Kayla was silent as they drove. Raoul took dirt roads until they popped out onto a deserted section of beach between Nobadeer and Madequecham. Raoul didn’t know if Kayla would remember, but this was where they used to make love the summer they started dating. Raoul had met Kayla at the Chicken Box. She was very thin back then, and she wore pedal pushers without any underwear. She had Farrah Fawcett hair, she listened to Earth, Wind & Fire. Their first date was a picnic of American cheese sandwiches and Fritos that she brought to him on the job site. She liked it when Raoul tossed tiny pieces of bread to the seagulls. During those first few weeks Raoul didn’t call her often and occasionally, when he told her he would meet her out at a bar, he stayed home instead. But then the unexplainable happened. She cut the legs out from under him, and he fell. In love with Kayla. He brought her to this very beach and peeled off her pedal pushers and made love to her on a skimpy towel that was no match for the two of them. They jumped into the waves afterward and washed sand out of the uncomfortable places.

It sounded idyllic, too good to be true, and that was how Raoul remembered it. The summer ended, Kayla decided to stay, and they moved in together for the winter. They lived in an old, rickety cottage out in “Sconset where the only source of heat was the fire place. Kayla chopped wood every afternoon, and they ate, slept, made love, and watched TV in front of the fireplace. Occasionally they ventured into town, once to the Gaslight Theatre to seeStripes, and it was so cold in the theater that they could see their breath every time they laughed. Kayla bought three rounds of hot toddies, and by the time the film was over they were silly drunk. To this day, it was the funniest movie Raoul had ever seen. Living with Kayla that winter had been living with love day in and day out; it was that simple, that clear cut. When the first daffodils bloomed in the “Sconset Rotary on the second of April, Raoul asked her to marry him.

Then things moved quickly-a June wedding and Theo born ten months later. Reality, yes, they’d had nothing but reality since then: diapers, mortgage, incorporation, school conferences, chicken pox, big jobs falling through, big jobs not falling through. And then this weekend.

Raoul shut off the engine. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need the truth. I need to hear the truth from your mouth. Did you-?” Raoul wasn’t sure he’d be able to speak the words. “Did you have sex with Jacob last night?”

“I need to explain-”

“No,” Raoul said. “No. I don’t want you to explain. I want an answer. Yes or no. Did you sleep with Jacob?”

Silence.

Raoul was angry enough to hit her, but instead he slammed his hands against the steering wheel, inadvertently hitting the horn, which sent a flurry of seagulls into the air around them. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

Raoul extracted his keys from the ignition and tucked them into his jeans pocket. He climbed out of the car, removed his shoes, and sprinted down the beach in his bare feet. He ran as fast as he could, keeping just above the shoreline. He ran over stones and shards of clam shell, he pumped his arms and forced himself to go even faster. When he started to tire, he slowed to a jog, but he kept going. He wanted to go as far as he could; he wanted to be miles away. And then, when he was completely exhausted, he stopped. He was alone on a stretch of beach on his island; the truck was just a red dot in the distance. It was hot, and Raoul was thirsty. His headache was back. He wanted to have a life like Jacob’s that he could run away from, that he could leave with only a day’s notice. But for Raoul, there was too much at stake: his kids, his house, his company, his work. Raoul trudged through the sand toward his truck. And his wife.

To his surprise, she wasn’t crying. She was sitting in the truck bed with her head propped up against the cab, eyes closed. She looked peaceful, although Raoul doubted she was actually asleep. He fought off the urge to slap her. He grabbed her arm.

She started, banged her head. When she saw him, her eyes filled. “How did you find out?”

Raoul watched the waves pummel the shore. He was parched. “Val told me.”

“Val?”

“Jacob told her last night, I guess, and she came to the job site this morning and informed me.”

“So Val knows.”

“Yes. Are you going to explain what happened?”

And so, Kayla told him the story. About John Gluckstern and Antoinette’s daughter, Lindsey. About Val turning the tables to get herself out of trouble, giving the police Kayla’s pills. About how Kayla confronted Val at her house and yes, Val admitted to steering the police in Kayla’s direction because Kayla was a housewife and therefore it didn’t matter if Kayla took the blame.

‘I was so furious with her last night, Raoul, I could have killed her. And you. Because you knew about Theo and Antoinette. You knew and you kept it from me. I was so mad, and Jacob was just there. He was revenge on two fronts. But I regretted it as soon as it happened.” Kayla’s eyes without makeup looked very small and sad. “I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t something you can apologize for. You let Jacob fuck you.” The words were so offensive, Raoul had to lower his head and suck in some air. He needed water. “You broke your marriage vows.”

“Huh!” she said. “As if you haven’t broken them yourself.”

“I haven’t,” he said. “And believe me, there is nothing I would like better than to tell you right now that I did screw Pam Ely, but I didn’t. Because I am a married man. I believe in marriage, Kayla. At least I did until right now.”

She sat with that awhile. He could see every nuance that crossed her face. You didn’t sleep with Pamela Ely? Suspicion, then relief, even happiness. Then guilt, her defenses resurfacing. “You lied to me, Raoul. You lied about Theo.”

He remembered sitting across from her at Company of the Cauldron, sweating with the secret. It was an instance when he understood his two choices and he chose the easy solution over the right one. “I was trying to protect you.”

“Well, look where we are now. Theo had an affair with Antoinette and got her pregnant. He ransacked her house. Antoinette might be dead and somehow I am a murder suspect. Do you think that upsets me?”

“No one will believe it, Kayla.”

“Everyone will believe it!” she said. “I heard the messages people were leaving on the machine at home. I know there was an article in the paper.”

“The police have no evidence.”

“They have all they need: the pills, the champagne glasses, the belated phone calls. I should have called 911 right away.”

“I told you that,” Raoul said. “And there’s something else you should know. Theo destroyed the living room of the Tings’ house with an axe.”

“There was an axe in the Jeep,” Kayla said.

They were both quiet for a while, watching the violent waves.

“Where is Antoinette?” Raoul said.

“I wish I knew,” Kayla said. Her voice softened. “She was carrying our grandchild, Raoul.”

Raoul stared at the beach. He could picture the freckles across Kayla’s nose that first summer, the white straps of her bikini crossing her back in an X. Suddenly, his stomach didn’t feel so good.

“I can’t deal with this thing about Jacob,” Raoul said. “Maybe I’m being macho, maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but I can’t have Jacob hanging around in our marriage. The idea of Jacob, I mean. I’m thinking… about separation.” Raoul couldn’t bring himself to say the word divorce. Divorce, as far as Raoul understood it, was something that happened to other people-people who thought it was okay to give up, walk out, try their luck elsewhere. It didn’t happen to Raoul and Kayla.

“How can I blame you?” Kayla said. She buried her face in her hands. “I ruined everything.” She sniffled. “These last two days have been awful. And now I’ve contributed to the mess. I wanted to contribute! I wanted to be as bad, as lawless, as everybody else.”

“You succeeded,” he said.“I’m going to need some time and space to think about this, Kayla. Time alone.”

“So you want me to move out?” Kayla said.

“No,” Raoul said. “Yes. Maybe. A vacation, maybe. You could go on vacation.”

“I don’t deserve a vacation,” Kayla said. “You should go on vacation.”

“I have work,” Raoul said.

“I don’t want to go on vacation,” Kayla said.

“We don’t have to decide right now,” Raoul said. “Let’s just go home.” He had to believe that dealing with this would be easier under his roof, within the walls that he himself had constructed. “Let’s go home and help our son.”

At home, Kayla went upstairs to check on Theo. Raoul poured himself a tall glass of water and found Luke and Cassidy in the living room, parked in front of the TV. A show about hot-air ballooning.

“Where’s Jennifer?” Raoul asked.

“Beach,” Luke said.

“Did anyone call?” Raoul asked.

“The phone rang,” Cassidy B. said. “But we didn’t answer.”

“Thank you. You two can go outside and play.”

“Do we have to?” Luke said.

“Yes.”

Reluctantly, they picked themselves up off the floor. Raoul shut off the TV.

Kayla yelled down from upstairs. “Kids, where’s Theo?”

Luke and Cassidy B. were quiet. Luke scratched a mosquito bite. Raoul checked the driveway-all the cars were there.