The Half Life by Jennifer Weiner

 
    ALSO BY JENNIFER WEINER
    Good in Bed
    In Her Shoes
    Little Earthquakes
    Goodnight Nobody
    The Guy Not Taken
    Certain Girls
    Best Friends Forever
    Fly Away Home

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    WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
    A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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    New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Weiner, Inc.
    Grateful acknowledgment is made to
Redbook
magazine, a publication of Hearst Communications, Inc., where “The Half Life” first appeared.
    All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
    First Washington Square Press edition December 2010
    WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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    Manufactured in the United States of America
    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
    ISBN 978-1-4516-4062-5
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    Contents
    The Half Life
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    The Half Life
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    â€œCan you believe this?” the man in front of Piper grumbled. The line, which they’d finally crested, had snaked through a half-dozen switchbacks and extended down the glass-lined corridor of the Philadelphia International Airport, past the white-painted rocking chairs and the flat-screen board listing DEPARTURES and ARRIVALS . Piper gave him a tight smile.
    â€œI get here two hours early for a domestic flight—domestic!” said the man, undeterred by Piper’s silence. “And still. Look at this.” He jerked his chin at the line, barely bothering to glance at her face and almost certainly not seeing her, not really, because if he did, he’d see a woman on the verge—if not of a nervous breakdown, then definitely of tears. Piper had tried hard with her makeup kit in the fifteen-minute cab ride from her row house in Center City to the airport, but concealer could do only so much to cover up the dark circles under her eyes. Liner and mascara couldn’t disguise the threads of red in the whites of her eyes; lipstick could brighten her mouth but couldn’t change the way it turned down in a trembling bow. When you come home from work and your husband meets you at the door, his bags neatly packed at his side, and says, “I won’t be here when you come back,” what do you do with that information? What do you do when you’ve got a four-year-old, when you’re the only one in the house with a full-time job, when you’ve spent the last two years trying to jolly him out of the black cloud that’s enveloped him since he lost his teaching position, when you’ve been paying all the bills, trying to keep everyone happy and clothed and fed? What do you do when he tells you that the night before you’re leaving on a business trip to Paris?
    It turns out that what you do is hiss the words “Not now” and attempt to step over his suitcase, and you almost succeed until you feel his firm grip on your elbow.
    â€œI’ve been trying to tell you,” Tosh said, having the good manners to look pained. Piper supposed that this was true. “We need to talk,” he’d said one rainy night back in September . . . so she’d filled the kitchen with cheery chatter, directed mostly at their daughter. “Piper, I’m not happy,” he’d said on New Year’s Eve . . . so she’d fetched him a dish of ice cream, handed him the remote, and slipped out of the den