Part 10
Daniel pulled out a chair but remained standing behind it.
“What do you want to happen now?”
“I want you to tell the hotel we disagree about what we saw.”
“We do disagree.”
“Then say that.”
“I said what I saw.”
“You said what would hurt me most.”
“No.”
“You could have left out the conversation.”
“Then they would have two contradictory accounts without knowing you tried to influence mine.”
Maren laughed softly.
“You make betrayal sound administrative.”
Daniel sat.
She looked tired enough that anger could no longer keep her upright.
“I lost the Cypress contract,” she said.
“I know.”
“The referral group put two pending events on hold.”
Daniel had not known that.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I am.”
“You think consequences are the same as justice.”
“No.”
“You wanted this.”
“I wanted you to tell the truth.”
“And if telling the truth destroys everything?”
“Then the lie was holding too much up.”
Maren’s lips pressed together. For a moment, Daniel thought she might throw the papers. Instead, she aligned one corner with the table.
“My mother lied constantly,” she said.
Daniel waited.
“About rent. About bills. About whether we were moving. She would say we were going on an adventure, and then I’d find our things in trash bags.”
The refrigerator started humming.
“I decided I would never live like that,” she continued. “No surprises. No dependence. No strangers deciding whether I got to stay in a room.”
Daniel looked at the hotel documents.
“And yesterday you became the stranger deciding who could stay.”
Maren’s eyes closed.
He had not meant the sentence as a performance. It came out before he could soften it.
When she opened her eyes again, they were wet.
“You were waiting to say that.”
“No.”
“You’re pleased with it.”
“I’m not pleased with any of this.”
“You should be. You won.”
Daniel leaned back.
“What did I win?”
“The moral version of the story.”
“There isn’t one version.”
“There will be when people hear.”
“Who have you told?”
“No one.”
“Neither have I.”
“You told the hotel.”
“They were there.”
“You told Noah.”
“Noah was there.”
“You told Elias.”
“He was wearing the soup.”
Maren looked away.
The sentence had been too sharp. Daniel felt the old shame that followed any moment he sounded like her.
He stood and walked to the kitchen.
The coffee in the pot had gone cold. He poured it down the sink, rinsed the glass carafe, and wiped the ring from the counter.
Behind him, papers rustled.
“You’re cleaning,” Maren said.
“Yes.”
“You always clean when you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“That’s worse.”
Daniel folded the dish towel over the oven handle.
“I came for clothes and work files.”
“So take them.”
“I will.”
Maren followed him upstairs.
In the bedroom, two empty laundry baskets sat on the floor. Daniel began placing shirts into one.
“You’re taking a basket?”
“I’ll bring it back.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you staying?”
“A motel.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are we telling people?”
“Nothing yet.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“It is for a few days.”
“My business partners will ask.”
“Tell them we’re separated.”
Maren gripped the doorframe.
The word changed the room.
“Are we?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t decide that alone.”
“Living together requires both of us. Living apart doesn’t.”
She stared at him.
“Have you spoken to a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt them both.
Maren sat on the edge of the bed.
Daniel opened the dresser and stopped. Her jewelry box rested on top, lid slightly raised. Inside, several pairs of earrings lay tangled around a watch he had given her on their fifth anniversary.
He moved to another drawer.
“I didn’t know you hated me,” she said.
“I don’t.”
“You should. It would make more sense.”
“I don’t.”
“Then stay.”
Daniel folded a sweater.
“I can love you and not stay.”
“That sounds like something printed on a therapist’s wall.”
“It probably is.”
Despite herself, Maren let out a small laugh.
The sound startled them.
Daniel sat on the floor beside the laundry basket.
For half a minute, they looked at each other with the exhausted familiarity of two people who had shared bathrooms, funerals, flu seasons, tax returns, and thousands of unremarkable meals.
Maren wiped beneath one eye.
“Do you remember the motel in Bakersfield?” she asked.
“The one with the green pool?”
“It wasn’t green. The lights were green.”
“The water was green.”
“You still swam.”
“You dared me.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Daniel remembered emerging with his skin smelling so strongly of chlorine that they had driven home with the windows open. Maren had laughed until she cried.
“I remember,” he said.
“I don’t understand how we get from that to this.”
Daniel looked at the shirts in the basket.
“We didn’t get here all at once.”
“Apparently you’ve known that longer than I have.”
“Apparently.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I hate when you agree with me.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
Daniel nodded.
They sat quietly.
A dog barked two houses away. A delivery truck braked on the avenue. Ordinary Saturday noises moved through the open window.
Maren looked at his bare hand.
“What did Elias do after you gave him the food?”
“He gave most of it to Lena.”
“The woman by the alley.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She was hungry.”
“So was he.”
“Yes.”
Maren absorbed this.
Daniel did not turn it into a lesson. The lesson, if there was one, would only become another instrument between them.
“Did she ask him?” Maren said.
“No.”
“Then how did he know?”
“He looked.”
Maren’s face tightened.
Daniel stood and returned to packing.
After several minutes, she said, “I saw her before.”
He turned.
“On the terrace?”
“Near the service gate. Before the man came over.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Maren.”
“She looked at me.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
He waited.
Maren rubbed her palms over her sweatpants.
May you like
“I thought she was judging me.”
“For what?”
