Part I

Each spring, an osprey couple returns to the same nest on our
property on Martha’s Vineyard. The nest is on the edge of a lake that
leads into the Vineyard Sound, facing west. In lucky years, eggs
appear in the nest in May, chicks in June. In July, the juvenile

ospreys learn to fly. By September, the family is gone, headed to the
Caribbean or South America for the winter.
When we bought our house in 2005, my husband, James,
became obsessed with the osprey couple, with the magic of their
annual return to the same location. He was always anxious, waiting
to see if they would appear, if they would produce eggs, if the eggs
would survive raccoons and crows, our local predators. Every year,
he celebrated when the juveniles flew for the first time.
He drew me and our three young children into the drama of the
ospreys, pointing them out as they soared above us, leading us in
yelling “Hi, Ossey!” and waving at the sky. He took us into the woods
to see their nest wedged high in a tree. He befriended two local
osprey experts, older men who invited us to watch them tag an
osprey at dawn. They attached a device that would track the bird’s
movements during the winter. The kids, still in their pajamas, were
awestruck by the creature that looked so much larger on the ground
than it did in the sky. The experts named the tagged osprey after me
and sent us updates on Belle’s progress throughout the winter. We
worried for her and toasted her return.

After raccoons ravaged the ospreys’ eggs two years in a row, the
experts installed a pole in the same area as the original nest,
designed to deter climbing animals. The tree stayed empty for a few
years and then, to our astonishment, a small nest appeared. The
nest grew steadily, becoming more majestic every summer, a
landmark visible to swimmers and boaters across the lake. After a
decade, it measured more than four feet wide and three feet tall,
one of the biggest nests on the island.

When we arrived on the Vineyard in March of 2020, the nest was
empty. The birds were still warming themselves in the southern
hemisphere, perhaps beginning their pilgrimage back to the island,
making their way over the Caribbean Sea and Florida, continuing
north, hugging the coastline, as a virus, first found in China, made
its own explosive journey through the United States. My husband
and I walked around the pole in our wool hats and parkas, our boots
sinking in the marsh. The nest was intact, unchanged from the
previous fall. Even in the bitter air, even with sharp sticks poking out
of every side, it looked strong and stable. Welcoming. We smiled at
each other and talked about the couple’s return. Would we be here
to see it?
—
After the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered New York City, where we
lived most of the year, we decided to quarantine on Martha’s
Vineyard with our two youngest children, then fifteen and twelve. It
made sense to move to the Vineyard; our house there was isolated
and it was our favorite place in the world. The hedge fund where
James worked had gone remote, and my legal work could be done
from anywhere.

We arrived on March 15. The island was still firmly in winter, with
temperatures in the thirties, the trees barren, and the light flat. An
icy wind whipped around us as we unloaded the car, unpacking
sweaters and boots, the girls’ textbooks and cellos, one larger than
the other. James set up his home office on a card table in the living
room, rising at 4 a.m. to worry over the markets. He cut three
different kinds of wood and built gorgeous fires in the late
afternoon. He made me whiskey sours as the sun set (we believed
reports that whiskey would kill the virus) and locked every door of
the house at night, even though the island’s population was sparse
and, like New York, in lockdown. He seemed proud of his role as
father and husband, nurturing us, protecting us.
I
went for walks, tried to keep up with house cleaning and
laundry, and watched the news throughout the day. There were
images of overflowing emergency rooms, hospital tents in Central
Park, refrigerated trucks filled with corpses. More than 20,000
people had died in New York City. There was no vaccine, and no
timeline for one. Even in our isolation, even with our privilege, I was
afraid.
I often sought out James in the woods. Out of our daughters’
earshot, we would talk about the latest pandemic news, whether we
should wear masks or gloves to the grocery store, if we needed to
isolate grocery bags and packages before we unpacked them. James
would kiss the top of my head as I hugged him, gripping the back of
his sweater.
Our younger daughter, Carrie, discovered Fortnite and played
remote games with her friends in our guest bedroom, her small body
dwarfed by a giant armchair. Our older daughter, Evie, wanted to
learn to make fresh pasta. She started with gnocchi and served it for
dinner on March 21, the first night of spring. James made a roast
chicken to accompany Evie’s dish, using our outdoor grill as an oven,
standing on our deck in the dark, adjusting the knobs, making sure
the temperature stayed at four hundred degrees. It came out
perfectly: moist and golden brown.
We ate at our rectangular wooden table in the kitchen. I wore
pajamas with a thick wool sweater and socks, my hair still wet from
the shower, piled into a bun on the top of my head. The wind
howled as we ate. James seemed distracted and kept eating the
gnocchi directly from the bowl rather than serving himself, a pet
peeve of mine. He removed the oyster from the chicken, the piece
he’d taught the kids to covet, and gave it to Carrie.
I FaceTimed our son, Finn, who was staying with his friend’s
family on Long Island, joining a group of teenagers. At seventeen,
we knew he would be happier with his friends, and we thought his
time away from us would be limited, a couple of weeks at most. I
held up my phone so we could all see his face. We told him we
missed him.
After we finished eating, James left the kitchen to make a work
call. The girls went to the living room to watch television. Alone, I
soaked the pans, loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the table. As I
was filling a bucket with water and white vinegar to mop the floor,
my cell phone rang, glowing and vibrating on the kitchen island. I
didn’t recognize the number, so I let it go to voicemail. When my
phone pinged to register the message, I put down the bucket and
pressed play. It was a man’s voice. He sounded young and nervous.
He said, “I’m trying to reach Belle.” He paused. “I’m sorry to tell
you this, but your husband is having an affair with my wife.” He gave
his name and number.
I froze, feeling dizzy. The words didn’t make sense. I gripped my
phone and pressed the play arrow again, listening to the man’s soft
voice for the second time. I thought, This can’t be true. This must be
a mistake. James will explain this.
I
leaned the mop against the island and went to find him,
descending our stairs just as he ascended them. He was coming to
find me. He looked anxious, worried.
He put his hand on the small of my back and guided me into the
guest bedroom, the room set up with Fortnite, with empty packets
of Cheddar Bunnies on the rug. He sat down on the couch. I sat in a
chair to his right. There was a long pause, as if he was collecting his
thoughts, searching for the right words to make this go away. I
thought he would do that—he would make it go away. I waited.
He took both my hands, leaned forward, and looked me straight
in the eye. He said, “I promise you, this meant nothing. It’s over. I
love you and only you. I’m so sorry. I’m so embarrassed.”
I asked, “How long has it been going on?”
He answered, “Only a few weeks.”
I looked down at his hands, at my body, and felt ashamed of my
matronly pajamas and my socks, an oil stain from dinner on the thin
cotton of my pajama pants.
His platinum wedding band, on his ring finger, looked scuffed
from years of wear. My fingers, underneath his, were bare. I had
taken off my rings, including my diamond wedding band, the day
before. A friend had told me that the virus could hide under rings,
evading Purell and soap, so I had pulled them off, dropping them in
a jar of jewelry cleaner. For a split second I thought, Did taking off
my wedding ring cause this? Did I shake something loose in the
universe?
“What is her name?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“I’m going to call her husband back, so you might as well tell
me.”
He said the name. It was generic and, like my maiden name,
alliterative; it sounded sweet.
“Where did you meet her?” I asked.
He said she was a banker. They’d met through work. He said,
“We had this attraction.”
He pulled his hands from mine and held them up to demonstrate
the force pulling them together, his hands cupped, fingers spread,
like he was holding a basketball. “But, I swear, it didn’t mean
anything.”
“Does she have children?” I asked.
He nodded and said, “She has two kids.”
“How old are they?”
He paused and said, “They are little. How old are kids when they
go to nursery school?”
“Two or three.”
He nodded again. “That’s how old they are.”
I thought, How does a woman with a big job and two toddlers
have the time, the energy, for an affair?
Carrie called for me, “Mommy? Can you make us turnovers?”
I
jumped, hearing her high, sweet voice reorienting me. The
girls. We would need to pretend everything was fine, that a bomb
had not just exploded.
I called back, “Okay.”
I left James in the guest room and returned to the kitchen. I
turned on the oven and set two frozen Pepperidge Farm raspberry
turnovers on a baking sheet. My kids had loved them since they
were little. I had too, as a child. I put the sheet in the oven.
No longer able to contain what felt like a rising explosion, I
walked to our bathroom, stepped into our shower, and closed the
glass door to muffle my gasps, my wails. I sat down on the shower
bench, between the shampoos and soaps, and texted the man who
had called me, “Can you tell me how long this has been going on?”
It felt like the most important thing in that moment—to know
when the affair started, to know if James had told me the truth.
He responded, “I think a month. But I can’t text because my wife
has tried to kill herself. She’s in an ambulance.”