Chương 2
“I’m not the one who made it worse.”
She walked out.
The front door closed twenty seconds later.
Margaret listened to the silence she left behind.
Then she looked at Walter.
“Separated emotionally?”
“I said things.”
“Yes, apparently.”
“I was trying to explain my situation.”
“To your twenty-five-year-old girlfriend?”
“She’s twenty-seven.”
Margaret stared at him.
Walter’s shoulders sagged.
“That was a stupid thing to say.”
“It may be the stupidest thing you’ve said today, which is impressive.”
He sat again.
Margaret walked to the window because she could not stand near the bed.
From the seventh floor, the parking lot looked oddly neat.
Cars occupied their painted rectangles.
A delivery driver was carrying two paper bags toward the lobby.
A woman pushed a stroller along the sidewalk while talking on her phone.
Nobody down there knew Margaret Ellis’s marriage had ended at approximately four seventeen on an otherwise ordinary Thursday.
Maybe it had ended earlier.
Eight months earlier.
Maybe years earlier.
She pressed her fingertips against the glass.
“Samuel.”
Walter did not respond.
She turned.
“You said you got the key yourself, but Jenna said Samuel was helping you.”
“She misunderstood.”
“How?”
Walter looked toward the hallway.
“Can we please leave his apartment first?”
Margaret almost refused simply because he had asked.
Then she looked around the bedroom.
A framed wedding photograph of Samuel and Chloe stood on the dresser behind the champagne bottle.
Chloe was laughing in it.
Samuel had his eyes closed because sunlight had caught him at the wrong moment, and Margaret had complained when they chose that picture because she thought there were better ones.
She suddenly felt ashamed to be standing there.
Not because of Walter.
Because of herself.
She had copied Chloe’s key six months after the wedding.
She had opened their drawers.
Checked expiration dates in their refrigerator.
Once, she had photographed a receipt for a four-hundred-dollar handbag and spent three days wondering whether Chloe was irresponsible with Samuel’s money.
She had called it concern.
Standing beside a bed Walter had borrowed for adultery, the word sounded uglier.
Margaret placed her duplicate key on the dresser.
“We’re leaving.”
Walter exhaled.
“But you’re not coming home with me.”
“Margaret—”
“Get dressed.”
She walked into the living room.
Walter joined her five minutes later carrying the champagne bottle and glasses.
Margaret stared at them.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning up.”
“You brought a woman into our son’s apartment to cheat on me and you’re worried about recycling?”
“I don’t want Samuel to know.”
There it was.
Margaret stood very still.
“Why?”
Walter set the bottle down.
“Because this has nothing to do with him.”
“You made sure it did.”
“He thinks I come here because I’m checking on the place.”
“Why would Samuel need you to check on his apartment while he and Chloe are living in it?”
Walter’s jaw tightened.
He had never been a gifted liar under pressure.
He preferred preparation.
Margaret had once considered that a reassuring character trait.
“Walter.”
“He gave me access a while ago.”
“For what?”
“I helped him with something.”
“What?”
Walter picked up the bottle again.
“Ask Samuel.”
Margaret stepped between him and the kitchen.
“I’m asking you.”
His expression hardened.
“Then I’m telling you this isn’t the place.”
“What did our son ask you to do?”
“Nothing illegal.”
Margaret’s breath caught.
“I didn’t ask whether it was illegal.”
Walter seemed to hear his mistake.
He put the champagne bottle on the counter with unnecessary care.
“Samuel had some financial trouble.”
Margaret stared at him.
“What financial trouble?”
“It’s handled.”
“Samuel earns more than either of us ever did.”
“That doesn’t mean he can’t make mistakes.”
“What mistakes?”
Walter rubbed his thumb against the edge of the counter.
Margaret knew that habit too.
He did it when discussing numbers he did not want to discuss.
“How much?”
“Margaret.”
“How much money?”
“Not here.”
“How much?”
Walter looked toward the closed front door.
“Eighty-six thousand.”
For a moment Margaret assumed she had heard incorrectly.
Then she pictured Samuel at twelve, saving lawn-mowing money in a blue ceramic bank because he wanted a used dirt bike.
She pictured him at seventeen filling out scholarship applications at their kitchen table.
She pictured him two weeks earlier refusing to let Walter pay for dinner because, as Samuel had said, “You guys covered me long enough.”
“Eighty-six thousand dollars?”
Walter nodded.
“What did he do?”
“It wasn’t exactly him.”
Margaret’s pulse began pounding again.
“Then who?”
Walter said nothing.
The answer arrived before he gave it.
Margaret turned slowly toward the bedroom, toward the photograph of the laughing bride on the dresser.
“No.”
Walter looked at the floor.
“No, Walter.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You said Samuel had financial trouble.”
“He does.”
“Because of Chloe?”
Walter picked up his jacket.
“I told you to ask him.”
Margaret grabbed his sleeve.
“What did she do?”
He pulled away, not violently, but hard enough to make her hand fall.
“Samuel asked me not to tell you.”
The sentence landed differently from everything else.
Margaret stared at him.
“Samuel talked to you about this?”
“Yes.”
“And not me.”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
Walter hesitated.
“About nine months.”
Nine months.
Jenna had said eight.
Margaret looked at the champagne bottle again.
The arithmetic was simple enough to make her nauseous.
Samuel had trusted his father with a secret.
Walter had discovered a reason to possess a key to Samuel’s apartment.
A month later, Walter had begun an affair.
Then, at some point, those facts had become useful to each other.
Margaret covered her mouth.
“You used him.”
Walter’s face changed.
“That’s not fair.”
“You used whatever problem Samuel had to get access to this apartment.”
“No.”
“You used our son’s trust so you could bring your girlfriend here.”
“It didn’t start like that.”
“How did it start?”
Walter said nothing.
Margaret nodded slowly.
“Exactly.”
Her phone vibrated inside her purse.
She ignored it.
It vibrated again.
Walter glanced toward the purse.
May you like
Margaret pulled the phone out.
Samuel’s name was on the screen.
