Oh Jon, don’t think about this. Don’t. Take a sleeping pill. Lose yourself in sleep, sweetheart, please.
She crawled as far beneath the covers as she could get, but no matter how closely she wrapped the blanket around herself, she could still feel the cool air of the room against her skin.
IN THE MORNING, SHE found a container of egg substitute in Randy’s refrigerator, along with green and red peppers and an onion, and while he showered, she made him an omelette. His heart wouldn’t suffer at her hands.
She was pouring a bowl of cereal for herself when he walked into the kitchen. He was wearing the blue terry-cloth robe he’d had on the night before and carrying the Washington Post in its plastic bag. Wet from a shower, his brown hair looked very dark, and he had combed it back from his face. She was struck by his handsomeness.
“Good morning.” She smiled. “I’ve made you a fantastic breakfast.”
He glanced at the frying pan. “Looks good.” Sitting down at the small oak table in the corner, he rested the paper on the broad window ledge. There was a quiet restraint to him, something she couldn’t quite read.
She transferred the omelette to a plate and set it on the table in front of him, wincing as he automatically reached for the pepper without even tasting the eggs first.
“I was thinking about your living situation,” he said, looking up at her. “The guest room is yours whenever you want it, except when Cary’s here. And he’s coming this afternoon, I’m afraid. It’s my weekend to have him, and I don’t want him to meet you. Not yet, anyhow. It would confuse him.”
She sat down across from him with her bowl of cereal. “You could just introduce me as a friend,” she suggested.
Randy shook his head. “No.” He set down his fork and reached across the table for her hand. “Listen to me, please. I’m very”—he looked away from her, struggling to find a word—”very uptight about all of this. I feel like I’m the cause of you and Jon splitting up.”
“You’re not the cause. I am.”
“And I feel like I’m taking a big risk with you. Letting myself care about you, get close to you, when I don’t know that you’ll ever want the same sort of relationship with me that I want with you. Whether you do or not, I’m willing to take that risk for myself, but I’m not willing to put Cary in that position. All right?”
She was touched by his concern for his son. “All right.” She picked at her cereal. “Will I ever get to meet him?” she asked.
He cut into the omelette with the side of his fork. “I hope so. Once I feel as though I can explain your existence to him clearly.”
“Kids are more resilient than you think.” She smiled at him. “He’ll be fine. Does he like museums? Maybe someday we could—”
Randy suddenly grabbed her wrist, and she dropped her spoon into the bowl.
“You’re not listening to me,” he said, his voice more gentle than his actions would suggest. “I’m upset, Claire. Please stop talking as though there’s nothing wrong. Please don’t wear your fake smile when you’re with me. Everything is not fine. Things are screwed up, and that’s just the way life is sometimes and you have to deal with it. If you pretend things are fine, nothing ever gets fixed.”
She drew her hand away from him and lowered it to her lap. A cold fear swept over her like a blanket of snow, and she knew she had wanted something from Randy she had no right to ask for. She wanted to be taken care of, to take care of him, to move into a new life without concern for the old. She was good at turning a messy situation into one that sparkled with possibilities. It was, perhaps, her one real skill.
“This is the only way I know how to be.” She felt the tremor in her lower lip and struggled to still it. She wouldn’t be needy with him. She wouldn’t be pathetic. “If you take away my optimism, I won’t have anything left. I’ll just be a scared, crazy woman with a bunch of scary, crazy memories.”
“That’s crap. You’re courageous as hell.”
“No, I—”
“Hey, Claire.” He cut her off, his fingers touching her hand again. “Remember the woman who went out on the bridge with my sister? She was a real chickenshit, wasn’t she?”
She smiled, shrugging. Then she straightened her spine with determination. “Okay,” she said. “So how do I find a place to live?”
Randy pulled the newspaper from its plastic bag and handed her the classified section. She felt teary again as she opened the paper to Rentals, and the print blurred on the page. She read him the ads, and by the time they were through with breakfast, she had circled several—small apartments in private homes, mostly, where she wouldn’t have to sign a year’s lease.
Randy had commented on the ads as she read them—”good part of town,” “too far from me,” “a lot of traffic noise”—but it was apparent that, with Cary’s imminent visit, he wouldn’t be able to accompany her when she went to look at the apartments.
“What are you doing?” he asked, wearing a half-smile, half-frown as he pointed to the paper.
She looked down. She had covered the margins of the paper with that strange, reverse-S doodle she’d been drawing for weeks. Every blank piece of paper on or around her desk at the foundation had been graced by it.
She shrugged. “It’s a new compulsion,” she said as she shifted her eyes back to the ads, where the tiny print taunted her with enticing descriptions of things she didn’t want. She watched Randy as he stood up and began loading the dishwasher. His back was broad. She wouldn’t recognize him from this angle on the street. What was she doing here?
It would all fall into place, she told herself, folding the newspaper carefully in half. Everything would fall, neatly and comfortably, into place.
30
VIENNA
CLAIRE SAT ON THE lumpy sofa in the small efficiency apartment, eyeing her surroundings. She’d been sitting there for thirty minutes, possibly an hour, although the entire contents of the apartment could have been memorized in a few seconds’ time.
The apartment was charmless, although it was attached to a lovely old, noble white colonial on a quiet street no more than a mile from her own house in Vienna. The woman who owned the colonial had been surprised that Claire wanted to move into the apartment that very day, that very minute. She’d eyed her with such suspicion that Claire went to the bank in order to give the woman the first month’s rent in cash. Money was not a problem; she had access to all the accounts she shared with Jon. There was a part of her, though, that felt as if she were playing a game when she turned the rent over to her new landlady. A month? In these two little rooms? Who was she trying to kid?
The rooms were furnished, barely. Besides the sofa, there was a small wrought-iron, glass-topped table and three matching chairs, which looked as if they’d been purloined from an ice cream parlor. Folding doors opened to reveal a stove, microwave, refrigerator, and sink. The second room, separated from the first by louvered doors, held a double bed with an ancient but pretty rattan headboard and a matching rattan dresser. The closet was surprisingly large, but the
bathroom had barely enough room in which to turn around. Everything was spotlessly clean, though. That’s what sold her on the apartment. No sign of previous tenants. She didn’t feel as though she was following in the footsteps of a string of miserable, displaced people who had no more than these two lifeless rooms to call their own.
She thought of Randy and Cary at the town house together, and she felt a loneliness unlike any she’d ever experienced before. She had never been alone. Never in her life. How did people tolerate this feeling? And she had no phone. Getting one, though, would imply a commitment to living in the apartment for more than a few days. She shuddered.
She wished she could talk to Amelia. How would she ever make Amelia understand what she had done? What Jon had done for her? Amelia would be horrified. Claire Harte-Mathias leaving her husband, her home, her job? Unbelievable.
She drove to the store and bought groceries and paper goods, dropping things int
o her cart without appetite or interest. She brought her purchases back to the apartment and put them into the empty cupboards and the refrigerator. Then she drove to Amelia’s, but her knock was unanswered, and Amelia’s car was not in the garage. She left a note on the back door. I’ve moved. My new address is 507 Chesterwood. No phone. Please visit. The note would blow Amelia’s mind.
Then, finally, she did what she knew she had to do, what she’d been both dreading and looking forward to all day. She drove to her house.
Jon had burned himself the night before in the tub. A truly stupid mistake, one he hadn’t made since he was a teenager. It was a testimony to how distracted he was. Claire had long ago etched a mark into the metal around the faucet control knob to prevent him from accidentally using water hot enough to burn. He’d filled the tub, carefully turning the knob only as far as the mark. He had even tested the water in the tub before getting in. But apparently he bumped the knob at some point, and a trickle of hot water had been left on, falling over his left foot while he soaked in the tub. He’d felt nothing, of course, and only when he got out of the tub did he see the angry red welt that had formed on the top of his foot. His heart rate had escalated. How bad was it? The last thing he felt like doing was spending the night, alone, in the emergency room. He held ice to the burn most of the evening, but while he slept, it rose into a long, crescent-shaped blister. Today he was leaving it open to the air, wheeling around with one shoe and sock on, the other foot bare.
It was Friday night, and the house seemed to vibrate with emptiness. Every sound he made—pushing in a dresser drawer, opening the refrigerator—echoed in the air around him. What a wimp he was. You’ve been alone before, he told himself. Just pretend she’s gone shopping or over to Amelia’s. He tried to immerse himself in the schedule for the retreat, but his mind seemed capable of concentration for only a fraction of a second before reality crept in again.
She was with Randy.
She had slept with Randy.
Perhaps she was even in love with Randy. And he had set the whole damn thing up.
Dusk was falling outside the study window that evening when he heard her car pull into the driveway. He looked up from his work on the desk. He hadn’t expected to see her. Oh, eventually she would have to come home for more of her clothes or whatever, but he figured she wouldn’t even be thinking about home for the duration of this weekend.
He hated her to see him working on a Friday night. He didn’t want to remind her that he was obsessed with work. Or worse, to see him looking so alone without her, a lost soul in his own house. He quickly wheeled out of the study into the family room and then remembered his exposed left foot. At least in the study it would have been hidden behind the desk. He transferred himself to the sofa, his foot hidden partly behind the coffee table, and turned the TV to the movie channel.
He heard her come in the back door and walk through the kitchen to the family room.
“Hi,” she said from the doorway. “I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by. I need to pick up some things.” She looked wan and tired and drawn, but he could take no pleasure in her haggard appearance.
“Go ahead.” He felt stiff. Awkward. He didn’t know what to do with his hands.
She glanced toward the TV. “What am I interrupting?”
“Nothing.” He hit the power switch on the remote control and set it next to him on the sofa. He tried to look at her but couldn’t. For the first time in his life, he felt embarrassed near her, embarrassed by his disability. She had almost certainly made love to a walking, feeling, and—most likely—sexually whole man last night.
She sat down on the edge of the rocker. “I want to give you the address where I’m staying.”
“He lives in those town homes off Dolley Madison, right?”
“Yes, but I’m not staying there.”
Jon stole a surprised glance at her. “Where else would—?”
She waved a hand through the air. “I might use his guest room sometime, but it’s not what you think with Randy and me. I don’t know how to make you believe that.”
“Your actions lately make it pretty hard to believe.”
She looked at him for a moment, a deep frown on her forehead. Then she pulled a scrap of paper from her purse and jotted down the address. Resting the paper on the coffee table, she looked up at him, green eyes wide. “I’m very scared,” she said.
He nodded solemnly. “Me too.” He wished she would leave. He didn’t want her looking at him any longer.
She pressed her hands together, her fingers white, and he saw the subtle trembling in her lower lip. She seemed to compose herself quickly, though. “I love you, Jon,” she said, “but I need Randy right now. I don’t quite understand it. It’s a very strong feeling. A very powerful need. I can’t explain it.”
Jon didn’t look at her. He idly pressed the buttons on the remote control. “You know, Claire,” he said, “I really don’t want to hear about you and Randy. Do you mind?”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was a whisper.
Neither of them spoke for a moment, the only sound the soft clicking of the keys on the remote.
“So, where are you staying?” He glanced at the piece of paper on the table but couldn’t make out the address from where he sat.
“I found a little apartment in a private house on Chesterwood. It’s really tiny, but I don’t need much space. There’s no phone, though. I don’t know about getting one.”
It was impossible to picture. He could see other people living that way, but not someone like Claire, accustomed to a house like this one and a life of relative ease.
“Oh, Claire, I don’t want you living like that,” he said, his resolve instantly gone. “You can live here. Take one of the other bedrooms, but—”
“No.” She was shaking her head, and he was surprised by the strength in her response. “That won’t work.”
Of course it wouldn’t work. Randy would pick her up, or she’d stay out all night, and he’d live through the pain of last night all over again whenever she was gone.
“I’m going to pack some things,” she said. “Would you mind very much if I took the toaster? You never use it.” She stood up, and he saw her gaze drop to his feet. “What did you do to your—you burned your foot!”
Immediately, she was on her knees next to him, lifting his foot, holding it into the light. “How did you do this?” she asked.
He wished he had the ability to pull his leg away from her. “Hot water dripping in the tub. I must have bumped the knob.”
“Oh, Jon. God. This isn’t good. Let me take you to the emergency room.”
He leaned forward to bat her away from him. “It’s fine. It’s nothing major.”
She lowered his foot and sat back on her heels, but her eyes were still on the burn, her forehead furrowed. She spoke quietly. “Please let me take you,” she said. “It really should be looked at.”
He shook his head, and she sighed like a tired mother dealing with a stubborn child.
She stood up again. “I’d like to stop in from time to time,” she said, “just to check on you. Unless—”
Jon threw the remote onto the table, making her jump. “Goddamn it, Claire!” he said. “I’m a grown man. Stop treating me like I’m something less than that.”
She took a step backward. “I’m sorry,” she said. She rubbed her forehead with shaky fingers. “I need to talk to you about…Can I take some work home from the foundation? My not being there will leave a lot of projects up in the air, and I—”
“Forget work.”
She turned her head toward the window and stared out into the darkness for a moment before speaking again. “All right,” she said. “I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”
He watched her walk into the hallway and listened to the sound of her packing, straining to hear her. As bad as it was to hear the zipper being pulled closed on the suitcase, it was better than the silence that would follow once she had left the house again
, once she was back with Randy.
31
SEATTLE
DARCY WAS ON THE phone when Vanessa walked into her office late that Monday afternoon. She motioned toward a chair in the corner, and Vanessa sat down and tightened the laces on her running shoes, her wedding band catching the glow of the overhead light. She and Brian had gotten married on Saturday, quietly, in the office of a justice of the peace, and spent the night at an inn near Vancouver. She had told Darcy and a few of her coworkers, and throughout the day people had been stopping by her office with surprised congratulations that made her beam and blush uncharacteristically.
She hadn’t told a soul before the wedding, though, still unable to believe it would actually take place. And it almost hadn’t. A few hours before she and Brian were to leave for the courthouse, Jordan Wiley’s lung collapsed again, and she came into the hospital to see him receive his third chest tube. The tube helped; he was breathing more easily. But this two-month hospitalization was clearly wearing Jordy down. He’d looked exhausted when she saw him in his room that morning. Subdued and withdrawn. She’d been checking the placement of the torturous third tube when he asked her, “Do you believe in God, Dr. Gray?” She’d lied and told him that she did.
At rounds tomorrow, she would make certain that she and her young colleagues talked about death, about the fairness of letting Jordy know what lay ahead of him so he could say his good-byes if he wanted to. Yet, she was sure that Jordy knew better than any of them that this miserable hospitalization was probably his last.
Darcy hung up the phone and grinned at her. “You look so different,” she said. “You look so married.”
“Right.” Vanessa brushed away the comment. “Put on your shoes.”
“Can’t go.” Darcy stood up and started transferring a stack of books from her desk to the bookcase, one by one. “The nausea’s finally gone, but now I have to pee every thirty seconds.”