Chương 4
“Is that him?”
“Yes.”
“You going to answer?”
“No.”
The phone stopped, then started again.
Cal chewed his crust. “That would drive me insane.”
“It is driving me insane.”
“Turn it off.”
“I did on the plane.”
“Do it again.”
Mara reached into her bag. Evan’s name filled the screen.
She answered.
Cal sat back.
“What?” Mara said.
Evan exhaled. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t gratitude. It was a question.”
“Are you at your dad’s house?”
“You know I am.”
“I need to explain.”
“You had three hours.”
“I couldn’t do this by text.”
“You were doing other things by text, apparently.”
Silence.
Cal stood, gathered the pizza box, and carried it into the kitchen. He did not leave the room.
Evan said, “Tessa and I have been seeing each other for a few months.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You know exactly.”
“Since June.”
Mara looked at the sliding glass door. Beyond it, the yard had gone yellow and brittle under early autumn sun. Her father’s aluminum lawn chair remained beneath the cottonwood tree.
“In June,” she said, “we were in Maine.”
“I know.”
“We renewed our vows.”
“It wasn’t a renewal. It was dinner.”
“We repeated them because you said it would be funny.”
“I remember.”
“Was it funny?”
“Mara, please.”
She tightened her fingers around the phone. “Did you sleep with her before Maine?”
“No.”
“During?”
“No.”
“After?”
A pause.
“After.”
Cal stopped folding the pizza box.
Mara said, “Did she know we went away?”
“I told her it was for your father’s birthday.”
“My father was dead by then.”
“I know that.”
“You told your girlfriend you took your wife to Maine for my dead father’s birthday?”
“I said the trip was planned before he died.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I was trying to keep things from becoming more complicated.”
Mara closed her eyes.
There it was: his talent for turning lies into weather. Complications gathered. Situations became difficult. No one made them.
“What did you tell her about us?”
“That we were living separately.”
“In the same house?”
“I said I was in the guest room.”
“You sleep in our bed.”
“Not always.”
“Twice when you had the flu.”
“This is why I didn’t want to do this on the phone.”
“Where were you going today?”
Another pause.
“Savannah.”
Mara laughed once. It sounded brittle in the empty dining room.
“For business?”
“No.”
“How long?”
“Until Monday.”
“Our anniversary is Saturday.”
“I know.”
“You booked a trip with her over our anniversary.”
“I was going to tell you before then.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“You didn’t.”
“You were dealing with the house.”
“I have been dealing with this house for eight months.”
“I didn’t know how to add another thing.”
“Another thing.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Mara watched Cal crush the pizza box harder than necessary.
“Did she know Saturday was our anniversary?”
“No.”
“Did she know you still wore your ring?”
“I told her it mattered to my clients.”
“You sell office leases, Evan. You’re not running for governor.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“You keep saying that as though the sound is the problem.”
His breathing changed. She pictured him somewhere in the terminal, shoulders hunched, one hand pressed against his forehead. For years, that image would have activated concern before anything else. She would have softened her voice. She would have asked whether he had eaten.
Instead, she said, “Where is Tessa?”
“She left.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were traveling together.”
“She said she needed to think.”
“Good.”
“Mara, I ended it.”
“When?”
“After you got on the plane.”
“That isn’t ending it. That’s getting caught.”
He said nothing.
Mara looked at the dark screen of her work phone lying beside her plate.
“Do not come here,” she said.
“I can get a flight tonight.”
“No.”
“I don’t think you should be alone.”
“I’m not.”
Cal raised his beer in silent confirmation.
Evan’s voice sharpened. “Is Cal there?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he already hated me.”
“He didn’t hate you.”
“He’s wanted you to leave me since your father got sick.”
“Cal wanted you to visit my father without checking your watch.”
“I had work.”
“You always had work.”
“And you always had a crisis.”
The words landed quietly.
Evan tried to take them back at once. “I’m sorry. That was cruel.”
Mara stared at the empty chair across from her.
Her father had spent his last months calling at strange hours because the pain medication confused him. Once, at two in the morning, he had asked Mara to come fix the porch light. She had reminded him she lived sixteen hundred miles away. He had laughed, then cried because he had forgotten.
Evan had been patient at first. He bought plane tickets, arranged dog care, and cooked dinners Mara reheated after late calls with doctors. Then he became tired of competing with a dying man.
Mara had been tired too.
“You said what you meant,” she told him.
“No. I said something because I’m scared.”
“You’re scared now.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t scared at Gate Forty-Two.”
“I was pretending.”
“So was I.”
The line went quiet.
Cal placed the flattened pizza box beside the trash. He avoided Mara’s eyes.
Evan said, “What are you going to do with the video?”
The question was so nakedly selfish that Mara almost admired it.
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t send it around.”
“I haven’t.”
“Tessa has a son.”
“You knew that?”
“Yes.”
“And you were worried about her son while you were taking her on a trip?”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” Mara said. “It isn’t.”
She ended the call.
Cal stayed in the kitchen, hands braced on the counter. “He blamed Dad.”
“He blamed me.”
“He blamed both of you. Dad just can’t answer.”
Mara stood so quickly the chair legs scraped the floor. “I don’t need you making this bigger.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You always do.”
Cal’s face tightened. “Right. I’m the problem.”
May you like
“I didn’t say that.”
“You never have to.”
