“but you don’t-”

“What, you think you’re the only one with bombshells, you’re the only one with secrets? Well, I have a secret for you. I haven’t exactly been faithful either.

There, how does that feel? Does it feel good, or does it hurt?”

He stared at her, waiting to see her reaction, but she didn’t have one. She thought he was lying, just to get a response from her.

“Please,” she said, “you don’t have to say things just to get even. If you’d just let me expl-”

“It was with Sharon.” His smile was gleeful, almost demented. “That’s right, your friend Sharon. We did it in my office, right on my therapy couch.” Dana didn’t believe him. “Oh, stop it,” she said.

“What? You think I’m making it up?” Adam said. “I swear on my father’s grave, I swear on my life, I swear on Marissa’s life that I am not making this up.

I fucked your best friend. I fucked the hell out of her.”

“What’s going on here?”

Dana looked over and saw that Marissa had entered the kitchen. She had no idea how long she’d been there.

“Nothing, just leave us alone for a few minutes,” Dana said.

“Oh my God, Dad, what happened to your face?”

Adam was still smiling in that strange way at Dana, looking like a mental patient.

“Just go upstairs,” Dana said.

“Why?” Adam said. “It’s all out in the open now, she’ll find out eventually.

Why not just tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Marissa asked. “And what the hell happened to you?” “It turns out your mother’s been cheating on me with Tony,” Adam said,

“the trainer at New York Sports Club.”

“I have not been cheating,” Dana said.

“Why can’t you just have the decency to fucking admit it?” Adam said. “God, can you guys just stop it?” Marissa said. “What’s wrong with you two?” Now Dana was starting to wonder. Was he serious? Would he be taking it this far if he wasn’t serious? She remembered that period- when was it?- about five years ago when she’d had a falling- out with Sharon. Sharon became distant, didn’t want to get together as much, and Dana had never known why. “Nothing happened with you and Sharon,” Dana said.

“Why would I make it up?” Adam said. “Just to get even?”

“Wait,” Marissa said to Adam. “You and Sharon Wasserman were having an affair?”

Dana was thinking about that New Year’s Eve party, when she had walked into the kitchen and seen Adam with his arm around Sharon’s waist, holding her close, and that time when she and Adam went to the movies with Sharon and Michael, and she had seen Sharon and Adam turn to look at each other a few times. It was all coming into focus, adding up, but she still didn’t want to believe it.

“Sharon wouldn’t do that to me,” Dana said. “That’s impossible.” “You don’t believe me? Go ask her for yourself, but I don’t see what difference it makes now.”

He wasn’t lying; they’d really done it. Suddenly Dana felt dizzy, nauseous. “Oh my God,” Marissa said, covering her mouth.

Dana had to get outside, get some air. Maybe a few seconds later, she realized she was walking, then running along the driveway, toward the sidewalk.

At first she just wanted to get away, breathe, but then she had a destination. She went across the street, then around the corner. She rang Sharon’s doorbell a few times and then started banging on the door as hard as she could. Sharon’s husband, Mike, answered, looking confused and concerned, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Where the hell’s that slut? Where is she?”

“Excuse me?” Mike said as Dana pushed past him and went into the house, saying, “Where is she? Where the hell’s that lying little bitch?”

Dana went toward the kitchen, didn’t see Sharon there, and came back, knocking into Michael, who was saying, “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” “Dana?”

There she was, upstairs.

Dana ran up, screaming, “You fucking slut! You fucking whore!” Dana saw it in Sharon’s expression- it was true, everything was true. When Dana was a few steps away, Sharon turned and started to run down the hallway toward her bedroom, but Dana was coming too fast. She grabbed the cheating bitch from behind and tackled her.

Sharon was screaming, “Stop! Please, please stop it!”

Dana was punching Sharon, beating her on the back of her head and her neck. Then she put her hands around her throat.

Mike was behind Dana, trying to pull her off of his wife, but Dana was squeezing harder, digging her nails in, refusing to let go.

seventeen

Adam had played his best round of golf in years. He’d gotten off to a slow start on the front nine, blowing an easy putt on the third hole and needing three shots to get out of the sand trap on six, but on the back nine he really hit his stride. He got two birdies, including one on fifteen, where he used a three- iron from the rough and hit a two- hundred- yard drive and got a great- okay, lucky- bounce and wound up about five feet from the cup and then nailed the putt. He ended up with a ninety- two, only three strokes off his all- time best, which he’d gotten five or six years ago on a much easier course in Fort Lauderdale.

After a couple of beers in the club house with his friend Jeff and a few other club members, he drove back to Queens. He was still feeling upbeat, reliving that big shot on the fifteenth hole again and again. He really nailed that sucker, and the club tournament was coming up in a few weeks. He hadn’t been planning to enter, but if he could hit shots like that…

When he arrived back at the house, he noticed that the SUV wasn’t in the driveway, so he figured that Dana was still at Costco. He was going to call her to tell her about his great round but decided he’d wait till she got home. Besides, she wasn’t interested in golf, and he doubted she’d really care. Instead, as he parked his Merc in the driveway, he called his friend Stu, whom he’d gone to college with but who lived in L.A. now. Stu was a big golfer and would appreciate the story.

When Stu picked up, Adam said, “Wait till you hear this,” and proceeded to describe the entire round. He entered the house through the back door and was heading toward the front of the house, saying, “So then on fifteen my second shot slices right into the rough,” when he saw the piece of paper near the front door. He went over and picked it up, not really thinking, saying mindlessly to Stu, “And then I go for the three- iron.” Stu asked him why he didn’t use a two from that far out, and he said, “I was doing well with the three all day,” but he was getting distracted now as he read:

Adam was still half lost in telling the story to Stu and wasn’t really pro cessing what he was reading, but as he said, “I knew it was heading right toward the pin,” it occurred to him that this note was on the same paper as the note that had threatened his life, and it was written in the same block letters and looked like the same handwriting. Stu was saying something, Adam had no idea what- the dog next door was suddenly barking like crazy, making it even harder to focus- and then Adam said, “I gotta call you back” and shut the phone and read the note again, still trying to comprehend its meaning.

For years, Adam’s patients had been describing to him the shock of finding out about their cheating spouses. They described initially feeling shocked and betrayed and then experiencing a tremendous rush of anger. Just a few months ago, Richard, a patient who had a history of alcohol abuse, suspected his wife was having an affair and said if he found out who the guy was he would kill him. Adam believed that Richard was just acting out, trying to empower himself. Using standard cognitive- behavioral techniques, Adam questioned Richard’s reasoning for wanting to confront his wife’s lover and helped him understand that a confrontation leading to violence wouldn’t accomplish anything other than causing even more pain for everyone involved, especially himself.