Chương 2
Not for the question.
For the slap.
She wished she had not done it.
She also wished she could do it again.
Human beings, she thought, were poorly designed for clean emotions.
“You don’t get to be concerned about me right now.”
“I’m still concerned.”
“Stop saying things like that.”
“They’re true.”
“Apparently that’s a flexible category for you.”
He looked toward the valet.
“Can we go somewhere?”
“No.”
“You need to hear the whole thing.”
“I needed to hear it before I married you.”
His jaw tightened.
“Claire, I know.”
“You told me she died.”
“I know.”
“You told me she died, Daniel.”
The valet returned with Claire’s Lexus, and she could have kissed him for the interruption.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
He had no answer ready.
That was almost funny.
Claire opened the driver’s door.
Daniel put one hand on the top of it.
She looked at his fingers until he removed them.
“I’ll come home,” he said.
“No.”
“It’s my house too.”
“Then go somewhere else tonight.”
“You can’t—”
He stopped.
Claire waited.
He rubbed his cheek.
“Fine.”
She got into the car.
Before closing the door, she looked at him.
“Did you ever intend to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after one of you died?”
She shut the door.
She drove three blocks before realizing she was going in the wrong direction.
At a red light she gripped the steering wheel and stared at a pharmacy across the intersection. The sign in the window advertised flu shots and passport photos. A teenage employee was dragging a display of bottled water inside for the night.
Normal things.
Claire wanted to get out of the car and ask someone a normal question.
What aisle is toothpaste in?
Do you carry stamps?
Is the pharmacy still open?
Anything with an answer that did not alter the architecture of her life.
Her phone rang.
Daniel.
She declined it.
It rang again.
Decline.
A third time.
She turned the phone off.
Their house in Bethesda looked exactly as it had when she left two hours earlier.
That offended her.
The porch light glowed.
The hydrangeas needed trimming.
A package sat by the front door, something Daniel had ordered because he ordered nearly everything online and then forgot what it was until he opened it.
Claire carried the package inside.
Habit.
She put it on the kitchen counter.
Habit.
She locked the door behind herself.
That was new.
For several minutes she stood in the kitchen without turning on the lights.
Their refrigerator hummed.
A small blue indicator glowed on the dishwasher.
On the counter sat Daniel’s coffee mug from that morning, because he had forgotten to put it in the machine after rinsing it. Claire had teased him about the uselessness of rinsing a cup and leaving it six inches from the dishwasher.
He had kissed her forehead.
Happy anniversary, he had said.
Seven years.
She opened her purse and removed the receipt.
Rebecca Mercer.
She read the name until it became shapes.
Then she went upstairs.
Their bedroom was neat because Claire had made the bed that morning. Daniel’s navy travel bag rested on the bench near the window. He had returned from Philadelphia two days earlier and had not unpacked fully.
Claire stared at the bag.
She had never searched his things.
The sentence formed in her mind with a defensive dignity she no longer trusted.
I am not the kind of woman who searches her husband’s things.
What kind of woman was she, then?
Apparently the kind who married a man whose dead wife could call restaurants.
She opened the bag.
Shirts.
Socks.
A dopp kit.
Laptop charger.
A folded copy of The Wall Street Journal.
Nothing.
She checked the front pocket.
A parking receipt from Philadelphia.
A business card.
Two peppermint wrappers.
She almost laughed.
She was searching luggage as if a living woman might be hidden behind the socks.
Claire sat on the bench.
Then she remembered the obituary.
Not an official obituary.
A memorial page.
Early in their relationship, Daniel had shown it to her on his phone.
Rebecca Anne Mercer, 1971–2016.
Or had it said Rebecca Anne Hayes?
Claire pressed both hands against her face.
She could see the page in memory but not clearly enough to trust it.
There had been a photograph of a brunette woman standing near water.
A short paragraph.
Beloved wife.
Daughter.
Friend.
Claire had not memorized it because normal people did not memorize proof of death.
She had felt guilty even looking.
Daniel had said a drunk driver crossed the median in North Carolina.
He had said he did not like talking about it.
Claire had respected that.
Respect, she discovered, could be an excellent hiding place.
She turned her phone on.
Twelve missed calls.
Nine from Daniel.
Two from her sister Megan.
One unknown number.
A text arrived almost immediately.
DANIEL: Please don’t talk to anyone until I explain.
Claire read it twice.
Then she laughed.
Not loudly.
It was a small sound and frightened her.
Another text.
DANIEL: There are things you don’t know.
She typed.
CLAIRE: I’m beginning to understand that.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
DANIEL: Rebecca and I have been separated for years.
CLAIRE: Dead and separated are different.
He did not answer.
Claire called her sister.
Megan picked up on the first ring.
“Are you okay?”
“How do you know something happened?”
“Daniel called Tom.”
Of course he had.
Claire closed her eyes.
“What did he say?”
“That you had a fight at dinner and left upset.”
Claire looked toward the bed.
Their anniversary card lay on Daniel’s pillow, unopened. She had written it that afternoon.
“Did he mention his wife?”
A pause.
“You?”
“Not me.”
Another pause.
Megan’s voice changed.
“What are you talking about?”
“Rebecca.”
Claire heard her sister inhale.
The silence that followed was not empty.
It contained calculation too.
Different calculation.
May you like
Megan deciding whether Claire was making sense.
“Rebecca died,” she said.
