Aftertaste by Meredith Mileti Page B

and needy and for being ready to resign Chloe to a father who doesn’t want her.
    Up until now I haven’t verbalized any of this. I’ve told no one about Jake’s visit. I can feel the tightness behind my eyes, and I know that I’m going to cry. Richard knows it, too, because he leans across the table and covers my folded hands with both of his and squeezes, hard.
    â€œCome on now. Enough about Jake.” Kind of him to say so when we really hadn’t been talking about Jake. “It’s definitely over and better for Chloe, if you ask me, that she doesn’t see him.” He leans in conspiratorially. “Now, what I really want are the gory details. Spare nothing!” he whispers, his voice husky with anticipation. “Did you really claw her eyes out?” This is Richard’s modus operandi. When the going gets tough, distract them. Make ’em laugh. It’s a pretty good strategy.
    â€œNo, of course not,” I say, my sniffling turning quickly into a giggle. “It was her hair. I pulled some out.” It is still a satisfying memory. Richard lifts the corner of his mouth in a half smile, but doesn’t say anything.
    â€œI know, I know,” I tell him. “I went nuts.”
    â€œNo, you didn’t,” he finally says, waving his hand dismissively and walking back over to the stove for more coffee. “You did what any sane jilted wife with an infant daughter would have done. He’s the nut. An asshole, really. Never liked him. And her, the worst kind of slut.”
    I know Richard is not just saying this to make me feel good. He’d never liked Jake, and the feeling had been quite mutual. In the early days of our marriage, Richard had come to New York fairly frequently to visit us, me really. Although Richard was always perfectly pleasant, he’d made Jake uncomfortable. After the first couple of visits, Jake usually found some excuse to make himself scarce when Richard was here.
    By the time the last of the biscotti are out of the oven, we have established that just about every single base impulse I’ve acted upon over the last several months has been completely justified, including the debacle at the anger-management class, that particular anecdote nearly causing Richard to choke on his espresso.
    Richard is still asleep on the pullout couch in the living room when the doorbell rings early the next morning. It’s Hope, bearing a large Tupperware container and a plastic plate covered with a paper napkin decorated with a cartoon turkey.
    â€œGood morning!” she chirps. She’s wearing a festive green velvet robe with puffed sleeves and, for once, isn’t sporting large Velcro rollers in her hair.
    â€œNow, Mira, I thought I’d bring over the ambrosia. Oh, and I went ahead and baked up a tin of those nice crescent rolls. I thought that your friend—Richard, is it?—might enjoy some for breakfast. And I know how busy you are this morning.” She smiles in the direction of the sleeping Richard, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I hope I haven’t woken him.” Of course, what she has really come to do is spy on Richard, who I suspect is awake, because his snoring has suddenly stopped.
    My suspicions are confirmed when Richard gets up mere seconds after Hope’s departure. “Did I hear someone say there are warm crescent rolls?” he says, rolling over and clicking on the TV. I pour us steaming bowls of caffè latte, load up a tray with the rolls and some biscotti, and bring it into the living room, where Richard is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from the sofa bed. Now that he’s awake, I give Chloe her busy box to play with. I climb across Richard and sit on the foot of the bed where I can keep an eye on Chloe who, intermittently, is distracted by the large floats on TV, as is Richard. Nonetheless, I decide the time is right for me to begin my interrogation. Besides,