Bird in Hand (25 page)

He chose an eclectic mix of blue irises, yellow roses, white snapdragons, and purple tulips. “Gorgeous, perfect!” Zoë declared when he explained that Claire was coming home from her book tour. She wrapped the cut ends in a damp organic paper towel and then folded the flowers into a paper cone, as neatly as a midwife swaddling a baby. “
Voilà
,” she said, handing it to him with a flourish. “No woman would be able to resist.”

It was a sunny day, the first of the season warm enough for people to be out in shirtsleeves. And out they were, breathing in the spring air—parents with baby strollers, joggers in spandex, dogs. Leaving the flower shop Ben took off his jacket and slung it over one arm. He headed down Columbus Avenue, working his way toward Fairway at Seventy-fourth by zigzagging degrees—west on Eightieth to Amsterdam, south on Amsterdam to Seventy-ninth, west over to Broadway. At the entrance to the grocery store he grabbed a basket—carts were impossible on a Saturday; it’d take hours to get through—and roamed up and down the aisles in a sensory fugue. Kumquats, papaya, figs, arugula, kale, skate and salmon and whitefish salad, dark-roasted coffee beans … He put milk and fresh orange juice and whole grain bread and coffee into the basket. Yes, they’d go out to dinner, he decided; otherwise, with the flowers, there’d be too much to carry. The decision was a relief. He’d had a momentary flutter of anxiety imagining himself fussing over a salad and sea bass filets while Claire stood back with a glass of wine, watching him. Assessing.

But no—that wasn’t going to happen. Only a moment ago he’d been filled with giddy anticipation. He deftly made his way to the shortest line—cash only, mostly baskets—and paid up, adding a Swiss candy bar to his purchase at the last minute. As he left Fairway with his mesh bag, he glanced at his watch: eleven-forty-five. Her plane would land at two. There was plenty of time to tidy up the apartment and send a few e-mails for work. Beyond that, the weekend stretched ahead lazily, full of expectation and promise. Claire was coming home.

IN HIS DRESSER drawer, as he was putting away his clothes, Ben came across two pairs of Claire’s underwear folded inadvertently in a stack of his T-shirts. White with blue flowers. Little girl underwear. She always wore cotton bras and socks and underwear, cotton T-shirts to bed. Once, early on, he had given her a short silk nightgown, pale blue. She wore it a couple of times, and then she tucked it away. Looking around, he found it now in a pile of clothes on a high shelf in the bedroom closet, along with a bulky wool sweater she’d bought with him on a trip to Scotland, two of his old button-downs she used to wear around the house on weekends, the Barbour jacket he’d gotten her in London. She had been self-conscious about wearing it at first; it was brand-new, and they’re supposed to look lived in. Ben took it down and fingered the thick oilskin. It was perfect now, just the way you’d want it. He put it back on the shelf and closed the closet door.

BEN WAS STILL at his laptop, answering one final e-mail, when he heard Claire’s key in the lock. According to the tiny clock on his monitor it was 2:51—just about the time he’d figured it would be, given the cab ride from the airport. Quickly he pressed send later and stood up.

He had arranged the flowers in a Simon Pearce vase on the coffee table in the living room. He’d deliberated over whether to unwrap them—would it be nicer for her to open the package herself? In the end he decided it would be better to come upon them lush and blooming, a visual expression of domestic tranquility.

Claire stepped into the apartment, jangling her keys, balancing a bag on each shoulder and trailing a roller suitcase.

“She’s home!” Ben said, leaping to the door to help her, holding it open as she rolled across the threshold. “Is there anything else?” He peered into the hall.

“This is it,” she said, setting the keys on the side table and letting the bags drop to the floor. “God I’m glad to be here.”

Ben stepped forward and put his arms around her, leaning in to kiss her. She stiffened slightly, and then, as if realizing she was being impolite, relaxed into his embrace.

“I missed you, babe,” he said.

“Me, too,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

“You must be exhausted.”

“I am. I could sleep for days.”

Turning away, she bent down to gather her bags. For a moment they argued over who would carry them into the bedroom—“Stop, let me do that”; “Don’t be silly, I’m fine.” Then she gave up and let him, following him through the apartment to the back, passing the flowers on the coffee table without comment.

“I got those at Fleur,” he said in the wake of her silence, then immediately regretted it. He felt like an awkward teenage boy on a first date, trying too hard to impress.

“What?”

“Oh—nothing.”

She stopped and looked around, her gaze eventually resting on the flowers. She went over and touched an open yellow rose with the tip of a finger, then crouched down to smell it. “These are lovely,” she said, looking up at him. “For me?”

“Of course.”

“That’s sweet,” she murmured. Something about her tone made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. She was talking to him the way you might talk to a sick child or a very old person, with a mixture of condescension and something else—pity?

“I thought they’d brighten up the place,” he said briskly, depositing the bags in a heap on the bedroom floor.

“Umm,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. She went to the window and looked out.

There it was again—that awkwardness. He didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t seem particularly concerned about filling the silence.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Well, maybe some water,” she said, still facing the window.

He went into the kitchen, got down two glasses, took a liter of Poland Spring out of the fridge, considered slicing a lemon: no. Too fussy. He filled the glasses, splashing water across the counter and onto the floor. Christ. His hands were shaking. What the fuck? He mopped up the mess, wiped the bottoms of the glasses, and brought them out to the living room, offering her one. She took a long sip.

“The place looks good.”

“Maria came yesterday. She said she wanted it to look extra nice for you, ‘
mi bella señora
,’” he said, imitating Maria’s melodious voice.

Claire smiled. “How sweet.” That word again! “Any mail worth bothering with?”

“I put a pile on your desk. Some invitations. A letter from some southern writers’ conference, asking you to be on a panel. I threw out the junk. Paid the bills.”

“Kept the engine running.”

“I guess. Luckily it’s not a very big engine.”

“Well. Thank you.”

He nodded, shrugged. What else would he have done?

“How’s the Boston project?”

“It’s going pretty well. Of course there are a million complications.”

“Of course.”

Small talk, chatter chatter. Why did it feel like such an effort? Claire stood at the window with her water glass, tapping the side with a finger. Tap tap tap.
Tap tap tap
. Ben could feel the tapping on his spine, hear it inside his head. TAP TAP TAP. He thought he might go crazy with the tapping.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. “Tell me what’s going on,” he said suddenly.

She turned around. He could see that she wasn’t sure she’d heard what she thought she’d heard—what he had implied. That something was going on, and he knew enough about it—
how much?
—to ask. A range of responses flickered across her features. “What do you mean?” she said.

“You seem uncomfortable.”

She smiled. He could see the veins in her neck, visible from the effort. “I’m just really tired. I need a good long rest. Then I’ll be right as rain.”

It was tempting to let it go. That was all she needed: a good long rest, and she’d be right as rain. (What did that mean, anyway, “right as rain”? It wasn’t like her to invoke a cliché. If nothing else, it was an indication of the falseness of the sentiment.) All he wanted was for things to be the way they were—two well-meaning and rational adults living their lives together, devoted to each other. She did love him; he was sure of it. She’d written dozens of cards and letters and e-mails over the years attesting to the depth of her feeling. (Here he was, he thought ruefully, invoking those long-ago letters, as if they proved something!)

He didn’t want his fears confirmed. He didn’t want to know. But he couldn’t live this way (or could he? he wondered in a late, desperate negotiation with himself;
maybe he could
). It would be better, as with a loose tooth, to yank it out quickly, rather than endure the torture of slow detachment. Right?

“Claire—”

“Not now, Ben,” she said, as if sensing what he was thinking. “I’m so tired. Can we do this later?”

“Do what?”

“This. This—” She moved her hands in an angry flurry in the air.

Stirring things up, Ben understood. Agitating. Opening Pandora’s box, allowing the Furies to escape. Once they were out, they could never be put back. Did he want that? Did he really want to do this now?

“Are you sleeping with Charlie?” he asked abruptly.

“What?” she said, her voice rising in a strangled laugh. Her eyes grew bright.

He waited.

“Why do you … what do you … What makes you think that?”

“Don’t do this, Claire.”

“I’m sorry, Ben,” she said, “I don’t think this is the time to. … ”

“To what?”

“Look,” she said, as if she were about to level with him.

He waited.

She bit her bottom lip.

“Look at what,” he said finally.

To his surprise, she started to cry. He watched dispassionately as tears welled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her mouth quavered; she let her wavy auburn hair fall across her face. She covered her eyes with her hands and stood there in front of him, her shoulders heaving and legs shaking, muffled cries rising out of her until she was flat out sobbing in a way he’d never seen before.

So this was it, the moment he’d been dreading. Yes. Claire was sleeping with Charlie. It would stand to reason that she was in love with Charlie. She would probably leave him for Charlie. Ben felt as if he were experiencing all this from a great distance, from the ceiling, perhaps, or maybe even farther away. He felt as if it wasn’t actually his life that was disintegrating but someone else’s, someone he didn’t know. He felt sorry for the guy, in a general kind of way—the way you feel sorry for people in earthquakes or other disasters, fire and flood and warfare and car accidents. It would suck to be him, to be that guy whose wife was having an affair with her best friend’s husband. But he didn’t actually feel sorry for himself. Not yet, anyway. What he felt instead, he realized with dawning comprehension, was relief. Relief that it was out in the open, that he wasn’t going crazy, that his instincts had been right. And something else. He didn’t know how to define it, exactly; he wasn’t sure what it was. But it felt like a larger kind of liberation, an unburdening. He felt free, for the first time since he could remember. He might never have chosen this freedom, but here it was, for the taking.

Watching Claire as she stood in front of him, crying still, Ben felt a rush of tenderness for her, and he went over and took her in his arms. He hated that she felt terrible. He wished there were something he could do. Of course she was in love with Charlie; he understood completely. Hadn’t both of them been in love with Charlie, on some level, for all these years?

Later he would feel other things—bitterness, rage, loneliness, loss. He would make mad promises that he would change, that things would be different, that somehow he would become the person Claire had decided she loved more than him. He would become Charlie. But he didn’t know the first thing about becoming Charlie. He couldn’t have done it if he’d wanted to.

Chapter Six

November 1997

“Ah, hello,” said the tall, thin, dark-haired man who answered the door. “Careful, we’re missing a step. The stone dislodged itself last week and I don’t know how the devil to replace it.”