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"How long have you known?"
It's been late, later than they usually went to sleep when Hawk came up to their bedroom. Lucy had a fleeting thought to pretend she was sleeping.
"Almost from the beginning," she answered to the wall, not turning over, because she couldn't bear to look at him at the moment. She heard Hawk exhaling sharply.
"How..." He started, but couldn't finish the question.
She turned on her back and lit a cigarette, still not looking at her husband.
"That man," she couldn't bring herself to say his name, "he wrote you a letter."
Lucy took a few drags of her cigarette before she found energy to continue. She felt Hawk's eyes on her even without seeing it.
"When you've given up your old apartment, I was there alone, packing stuff. He slipped it under your door." Another drag. He was frozen by the door, not even breathing. She couldn't hear a sound except burning of her cigarette and her own exhale ."I made a biggest mistake of my life reading that letter. I've never read any of yours since, because I didn't think I would be able to do through it again."
Finally she lifted her eyes to Hawk. He looked back, pained expression in his face, and for the second time that day he was truly scared. No, Lucy thought, not scared. Ashamed.
"I know you want to ask," she said after a couple of minutes, when silence became unbearable.
Hawk finally remembered how to move, took a few steps towards the bed and got his shirt off. He sat on the bed, his back to Lucy.
"What was in that letter?" Hawk's voice was small and conflicted.
"I don't remember," she said. I still love you. Oh, how badly she wished to forget those five lines. "I burned it."
It was cruel, she knew, looking at his shoulders, as he shifted them like he was uncomfortable in his own skin.
All those years she knew he had affairs but he always was careful. She would never think about nature of those affairs if it wasn't for Tim Laughlin showing up that day at Hawk's door. He was different, she knew, by the way Hawk slipped more than one time this weekend, by the way his lie was too obvious, by the way he put at risk everything in his life for that man even so many years later, even without knowledge of that damn letter.
"Do you love him?" She asked, knowing the answer all along, knowing she wasn't prepared for it anyway.
"No," Hawk said steady after a long pause, like he's been rehearsing the answer to this particular question for years.
Not for the first time in their married life Lucy was grateful for the lie. She released a breath not even noticing she's been holding it. He wasn't lying to her, she suddenly realized, he was lying to himself.
"Lucy, I will do anything for our family to stay together," Hawk turned on the bed to face her. "Please, tell me what to do."
"I don't think there is something you can do, Hawk", she said softly, suddenly feeling exhausted. She only now realized how much truth her words held. She couldn't ask him to love her as much as she wanted him to, and she couldn't ask him to stop seeing other people, knowing very well he won't be able to do it. "One thing, though."
"Anything."
"Tim Laughlin," she said and Hawk's expression shattered for a second before turning into something pleading. The name was bitter on her tongue. "I want him out of our lives until the rest of my days."
Before he nodded and turned off the light, she saw on his face exactly what she wanted to. It was the same pain she felt every day, knowing she will never be enough.