“Could you do me a favor?” she said, not even waiting for the kids to finish their dinner. “Could you just go out while I’m putting them to bed? For about three or four hours.” He looked at her, nodding in a stunned, dutiful way. “That would really help.”

  When he was gone and the kids were asleep, she sat in the red stuffed chair by the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table and thought about how great it was to be home, to be alone, to be unwatched and untied and unmonitored. She lay on the futon and looked up at the popcorn ceiling and felt the room swell around her. Home. She made herself microwave popcorn and poured a glass of wine and sat at the dining table leafing through a Glamour that had arrived in her absence. Did she love him? Did she love anybody? The phone rang and she let it ring and the machine picked up and she hoped for a hang-up but the voice began, a voice at once distant and familiar to her and she fought the impulse to reach for it and then did.

  “Hello,” she said with an awful taste in her mouth.

  “So how are you?” her father said. “Were you trying to get me to hang up or something? When did you get out?”

  “Today,” she said. She ate popcorn in his ear to show she was still herself.

  “Skull surgery, hunh? Do you feel any smarter?”

  They both laughed thinly. She sipped some wine.

  “Is that a chardonnay I hear?”

  “Doctor’s orders,” she said.

  “I bet.”

  She drank in silence.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. Julie and I just got back.”

  “Did you have a good trip?” she tried to ask brightly.

  “We could hop a flight down there tomorrow morning. No big deal.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Can you explain any of it to me? I mean, do you want to?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Warner left the first message. Your mom—surprise, surprise—left one or two.” He was trying to sound upbeat, and he wasn’t succeeding. “It all sounds pretty screwed up.”

  “Uh-hunh.”

  “Well. All your running off at the mouth and stuff, it’s hard to get a word in. I think I’m going to have to come see you.”

  “Not a good idea,” she said.

  “Should I call back?”

  “I’ll call you.” She felt so tired she didn’t think she could speak. “Soon. I promise.” She hung up.

  So she shouldn’t have answered the phone. So what else was new? He’d be back in two hours, hardly any space at all. Again she cringed at the thought of time. She thought of how in the newspaper they always counted down the days left in the year, as if people couldn’t wait for it to end, how so much of time was spent counting it down, as if people couldn’t wait for it to run out. Sometimes she couldn’t wait to die. What peace that would be, to die. She should have just died. Everything would have been so much simpler for her. To be dead. Nonexistent. Not at rest, she didn’t believe at rest. But just done. Her head seemed to throb with the wine. It wasn’t self-pity. It was everyone’s destiny. Even her mother would die. How soon? How soon.

  She set the wineglass in the sink and finished the dishes, picked up the living room, turned off most of the lights. Upstairs she slipped into Daniel’s room and pried off her clothes, lay on the bed next to the crib. There’d been nights when she’d watched him fall asleep, his eyes shutting in degrees, opening once, shutting down again like phases of the moon, his butt high and then settling. How even his feet slackened, his hands, the fullness of his cheek, his breathing slow and rich, luxurious. It was better, the not knowing. The absolute uncertainty. This much she knew.

  Of course Warner had suspected and he’d asked her and she’d denied it. Of course he still kept it somewhere in his head, perhaps it was one of the things that drove him into what he had become. It had been a mistake. She could deny it as long as he asked. She could keep denying it because maybe it hadn’t happened, maybe she’d only imagined it. Imagined that midnight walk up the stairs of the upside-down house in Somerville, after that last fight during the week of Sophie’s birthday party, how he’d said never no way would he have a second, how desperate she’d felt, how enraged. They’d talked about children before they’d married, talked about how they’d wanted them—not just one, them—and like so many other times it had not held in his mind, and he was saying no, definitely no, absolutely no. In the kitchen she’d poured herself a glass of wine by the light of the open refrigerator, and then sat in the dark on the oatmeal sofa while below he’d slept. She’d wept, perhaps she’d slept, too, and cried in her sleep. She couldn’t quite remember. She didn’t want to. Then it was three or four, and she’d woken to the blurred image of Malcolm, Malcolm the listener who’d come out from the little guest room, patting her shoulder, telling her to wake up, it was only a dream, it would be okay, he and Claire knew how upset she was about the second child, they’d talked about it, they could help. Did she want to talk to Claire? She’d shaken her head. She’d felt still a little unclear from the wine, they’d drunk a lot that night and having that extra glass just a while ago had seemed to trigger it all.

  Malcolm had gone into the kitchen and returned with a fresh glass of wine for each of them. They drank. She’d always admired him, but she didn’t know him like she knew Claire. Now he talked about how much he liked playing in his jazz band, about the last piece he’d done in ceramics class. Another glass of wine? he asked. She nodded, and he seemed to come back before he’d even gone. I can help, he said, if you want me to. Fucking Warner, she said. Yeah, he agreed, fucking Warner. Claire says he’s an asshole. Maybe he touched her. Do you want to? Is now a good time? Why do you think we’re fighting about it, she nearly laughed. Now is the time. Now? Now. Now he was touching her, now she was touching him, practically clinically, practically medically. I can come fast, he might have said. Good, she could have murmured. Good. If it had happened, if she let herself believe it had happened, it had been fast. Soon she was downstairs again, sleeping. Sleeping till Warner woke her, at five, at five-thirty. Where were you, he said. Upstairs, sipping wine. I fell asleep. I love you, he said. I’m sorry. He’d reached over and begun the certain delicate assured moves that meant what they always meant—to her horror, to her triumph, to her relief. They’d done it. And again, despite his bitterness, the next afternoon while Malcolm and Claire took the kids to the playground for an hour. And then they’d fought, again, about having or not having one, about the money and the cost and the time and the energy and the exhaustion of it, and she swore that that was it, if it hadn’t worked, she was done with it. He’d won. When she called him at the office to tell him otherwise, he said “Fuck!” and nearly hung up. At times, a moment here, a moment there, he’d asked her where the hell she’d been that night. He told her he suspected. Don’t be stupid, she said. But he couldn’t quite believe she’d gotten pregnant when they’d done it only twice.

  When the baby came, he had all her looks, but Sophie’s hair, Warner’s hair. Are you sure, Warner had said. Don’t be so insecure, she’d said. And whenever he brought it up, she offered that they could get a blood test. That would be too ridiculous, he admitted. But still he wondered. He loved that boy, but he couldn’t help wondering. Where had she been that night. Upstairs, sipping wine, dozing. Maybe it hadn’t happened. She couldn’t tell anymore. The way you blurred what you knew to be true with what you wanted to be true, the mercy of denial. She’d never spoken a word of it to Malcolm, and Malcolm as if in the midst of some predesigned agreement or as if he knew the difference between dream and reality had never mentioned anything like it. She understood that sometimes the truths that were most essential to determine were also the truths that were inaccessible. And Warner loved Daniel, sucked him up with love, those cheeks—What cheeks! the doctor had said at delivery, and they hadn’t yet lost their fullness, their roundness—those eyes, those forearms, those hands, those feet, those lips, that tender neck. Oh how he loved him, loved him up, this boy who might not be his.

  Some stuff you just knew not to ask. You didn’t say, Daddy, did you whack her. You didn’t say, Mommy, is it all over now, is it all done. But you heard them talking, and you learned to wait. It was hard. He wanted to move. They’d already moved a lot. They’d have to promise her stuff if they moved. Cats or a dog. A bike. Where would they move? Are we moving, she did ask. Maybe, he’d said, and Mommy shushed him. Maybe wasn’t a good idea with her, wasn’t ever a good idea. She liked to know. Tell me as soon as you know, she told Daddy. Okay, he said. Sure. Absolutely. A word they both liked.

  She was absolutely going to school every day. If they moved, she was absolutely going to get a cat. She would absolutely always have her own room. She was absolutely their little girl, and they absolutely loved her all the time always.

  Spring came. It came in the winter, sometime in February, or very early March, and the crape myrtle bloomed Mommy said to the point of tackiness and the grass was green, almost a bright green as if it had been painted, and they went on weekends to the one big park with the duck-turd-pocked walkways around the big pond and bought feed from the quarter machines and she and Daniel fed the ducks till the quarters ran out. During the week Daddy sent letters to every place that Mommy could stand to think of living in, and Mommy sent letters too because one job was not enough. As she understood it one job was absolutely not enough. Some weeks Daddy flew off for two or three days and returned tired and grumpy. Some weeks Mommy flew. When she came back, she was always happier. She said it refreshed her to be away. Daddy said that being away taught him to love them more, but it wore him out, although he really didn’t work during the week otherwise. He cooked all the dinners—always noodles—and he made sure they didn’t spend any money that they didn’t have to.

  One week both Mommy and Daddy had to go away together and this could really be the start of something new they said and Grandpa came down with Julie and they went to all the parks and playgrounds and Carowinds and did all the rides that she was by the rules allowed to go on and Daniel squawked and squawked because he couldn’t go at all and her head spun and she didn’t get sick even though Grandpa and Julie thought she would. But she ate and ate whatever she wanted and by the time Mommy and Daddy came back she hadn’t pooped in a long time and they looked at her and they knew it.

  “Dad,” Mommy told Grandpa.

  “Hey,” Grandpa said, “you can’t force her to eat what she won’t eat. But we had fun, didn’t we?”

  Grandpa and Julie left and for a long two days or three Mommy and Daddy made her take milk of magnesia and the food tasted different and the day she finally went was the day she learned that in three months they were moving to Pennsylvania.

  “We’re moving home,” Daddy said.

  “I thought we were home,” she said.

  “You’ll get a cat,” he said.

  “I will!” she clapped.

  “She will?” Mommy said.

  He nodded. “I promised.”

  “You’re really going?” Milicent looked both annoyed and confused as she tried to look at Megan as neutrally as possible. “I mean, honey, Pennsylvania has the second-worst economy in the country and North Carolina has the second best. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “We can get a house there for half the price.” Megan recrossed her legs and sipped her coffee as they sat cozily in the back office of the new gallery.

  “I guess I just can’t believe you’re going with him.” Again Milicent tried not to look sour, but Megan could see it.

  “It’s a good move,” she said. “He’d never get a job down here.”

  “I understand that.”

  The door gonged, and Megan stood. “It’s him.” She picked up her purse. “We’re going to lunch.”

  “Well.” Milicent lit a cigarette and stayed where she was. “Have a good one, dear.”

  He was waiting out in the atrium, looking natty and nervous in a summer sport coat.

  “Ready?” he said.

  They walked through the glass and marble quickly, the bankers due to descend in about three minutes for their lunches. At Carpe Diem they were given the odd table up in the window with their backs to the arriving crowd. She wondered how he felt being on a kind of display like this. She didn’t care either way. Soon they were leaving, and she was thrilled. They both ordered fish and a glass of wine. He always used to make them order a whole bottle. She never drank at lunch. She couldn’t help smiling at these minor changes. The wine came immediately, and she could see he was struggling to nurse it. That was all right. Behind her she could feel all the money, and it made her shiver.

  “Nine more weeks,” he said.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “I got a dozen more used boxes today. And two of those wardrobe things.”

  She smiled gratefully but didn’t say a word. She preferred not to talk about the actual mechanics of anything. He was all mechanics, but lately he seemed to be learning at least not to talk about it.

  “So,” he said.

  “So.”

  The salads arrived, and he concentrated on how much pepper the waitress was applying. He was being irritating today. She supposed he couldn’t help it. Can’t you help it? she wanted to say. She was no longer hungry, and the wine wasn’t helping. What are we doing? she wanted to say. She made herself eat her salad. They hadn’t been out alone together since November.

  “It’s been a long time between dates,” she said.

  “Yes.” He drank more water, his third or fourth glass.

  “You’re nervous.”

  “Everything is so weird,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I just want it to stop.”

  “Ahhh,” she said.

  He gulped his water. “You think we should see somebody?”

  She looked at him; she knew what he meant, and she’d seen enough people. She shook her head. “If you want,” she said.

  “Well, anyway.” He shrugged, looking oddly relieved. “We’re still together.”

  She ate her fish feeling the victory of that. They were still together. At least that was undeniable. At least they had that. Her mother didn’t. Her father didn’t—or he did, but it was the fourth time around for him. Everybody might think she was sick or stupid, but she knew better. She knew exactly what she had.

  “Do you think we’re staying together just for the sake of staying together?”

  He would ask that. Sometimes he was so much like his mother, so literal and relentless, that it amazed her that she’d missed seeing these qualities in the first place.

  “Maybe,” she said. “What would I know about why people stay together?”

  “Oh,” he said.

  She forced a smile. “This is some first date,” she said.

  Years ago, when his brother was getting anxious about his own impending wedding, Warner took a train to New York to try to help him. The wedding was in just six days, and they sat in the kitchen of the apartment his brother shared with his fiancée. I just think of all those women out there, his brother said. Is she really the one? Do I have to make this choice now? Maybe I should wait. It was all such a cliché that Warner practically yawned in his face. He was newly married himself, just one year before, and on their wedding day he’d been so scared that Megan had joked that he looked ready to jump. Marriage isn’t about shutting yourself down, he told his brother, it’s about opening yourself up. It’s a great big wide huge field on which you can grow anything you want. His brother got married anyway.

  These weeks Warner packed boxes and argued with movers and began to close on a house that Megan had flown up to find and picked out on her own. It was a luxury to be alone all day working with his hands and dickering on the phone. In the late afternoon he’d hunt down the children at their daycare and pre-school and drive in to pick up Megan. They tried not to talk too much. She was excited about the house. He’d seen pictures—it was redbrick and boxlike, with a mansard roof and an attached garage on a wraparound corner lot. They’d have to buy a lawn mower. The town was small, historic, fifteen miles above the Mason-Dixon line, and there weren’t many choices. There were no private schools or magnet schools or special schools. There were no good, expensive restaurants and no gourmet food stores and no malls and no clothing stores and no bookstores. There were no cafés, no private tennis clubs, no imported car dealerships. There were jobs for both of them that paid as much as they had been making in January, before everything, and there was very little to spend it on and their house was so cheap that the monthly mortgage was going to be less than the rent at Crape Myrtle Hill. His board president was a man in his late fifties who slurred his words and trembled, and Megan’s boss was a woman in her early fifties with perfect enunciation but still a hint of a tremor. Everybody they’d met during their interviews shook a little bit or stuttered in their speech. People said it was the copper in the plumbing or the river valley air or whatever might be drifting down from Three Mile Island. Sometimes Warner felt they were going to Pennsylvania to die. Each day he wrote out lists of all the things he was supposed to accomplish, and it made him happy just to draw a line through each one.

  By mid-May the weather grew hot and cloying, and he ran the air-conditioning all the time. The children came back to him sweaty and red-faced, and Megan complained about having to move in the heat. Each morning he packed five or six boxes and when the pre-school term finished he had completed the kitchen and all the breakables in the living-dining-bed room and study-nursery. He pulled Daniel from daycare. In the mornings before the weather became unbearable he took the children to the pool across from the playground. Sophie paddled around in her swim ring. Daniel jumped from the edge, arms out, into him as he waited. Sometimes the boy intently ducked himself underwater, his whole round head submerged, and Warner would hoist him instantly up and Daniel gurgled the chlorine taste as if it were juice. They were crazy about the water. He took them again in the late afternoon. After picking up Megan in the evening he allowed himself a gin and tonic—what a real summer drink that felt like—while she noodled them through dinner and into bedtime. He found himself wishing that he never had to work again. He liked packing, doing dishes. He loved the sunburned, sunwashed feeling of nine o’clock, the children asleep, him in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, Megan marveling at the great job that he was doing getting them ready for the move. He didn’t want to move anymore—he just wanted to pack.

 

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