Dry as Rain (15 page)

She left me sitting alone at the table and took a seat on the same couch she probably had since the day my father left. I'd long since stopped wondering what the thing looked like without its layers of mismatched afghans.

I stood and turned my chair around. “Forget my father for a moment.”

“Your father?” Hatred flashed in her eyes. “This man—” she pointed at Alfred—“was your father. Ren was nothing but a—”

“Okay, forget Ren, Ma. I've got to go meet one of the guys to pick up Kyra's car.” I turned to Alfred, who was nibbling a flower off the end of the bunch he still held. “Can I help you before I go?”

He waved the bouquet at me. “You go on; I've got this.”

“Mom, we good?” I asked.

“Fine.” She flipped on the small television set she kept on wheels so she could hide it quickly should any of her hemp-loving, anti-boob-tube friends pop in.

I looked around the crowded apartment that smelled of incense, chamomile, and brownies and sighed. If it was this hard explaining the situation to my parents, how would I present it to Benji? He would be home soon, and not only would I be worried about Kyra remembering, I'd be worried about Benji helping her remember. My only hope was to make Kyra so in love with me again that even if her memory returned, she would forgive me.

“You're delusional,” my mother said.

Panic-stricken, I thought maybe I'd spoken my thoughts out loud. When I looked at her, I was relieved to find her bickering with Alfred, not directing the statement at me. Even if she had said it to me, she'd be right. But I could live very happily in the land of denial, so long as Kyra shared the address along with me.

Nineteen

It had been beautiful the day I'd first brought Kyra to Macabee Street. The smell of flowers and mulch scented the warm spring air. Her face lit up when I parked the car, and I suggested we take a walk. Hand in hand we strolled by enormous houses, pristine yards, and couples walking designer dogs along tree-lined sidewalks. As we approached the biggest poodle I'd ever seen, a ball of sculpted fur wagged hello. The animal sniffed Kyra's hand but was quickly distracted by a teacup terrier across the street.

Kyra looked back over her shoulder as the dog's owner led her away by a studded pink leash. “Fancy neighborhood,” she said.

What my wife didn't know was that I'd already been down this sidewalk a dozen times without her, window-shopping and daydreaming about the day I would surprise her with the keys to our dream house.

With my promotion, we were moving up in the world, and I felt our home ought to reflect our success. The old craftsman's cottage we lived in was fine, of course, and Kyra seemed content there, but I'd never been one to be satisfied with status quo. Maybe it wasn't right, but it kind of annoyed me that she settled for so little back then. Like playing Rat Pack songs at Francesca's, when she was good enough to be a concert pianist with the New York Philharmonic.

With Kyra's hand in mine, I stopped in front of a large stone colonial and grinned at her.

Staring up at it, she wrapped her arms around herself as if she were suddenly cold. “What would a family need with so much space? They could spend entire days without so much as bumping into one another.” Her gaze fell on the Sold sign, and a dark look passed over her.

I felt sick to my stomach. I'd spent almost everything we had on the down payment, believing she'd be a little miffed that I hadn't consulted her, but secretly thrilled at my chivalry and provision. Women were always saying they wanted a man to take charge. I was beginning to think that was just in theory. I knew she hated moving from Braddy's Wharf as much as Benji and I did, but we'd both agreed taking the job at Thompson's was necessary if we ever hoped to pay for our son's college education and our retirement.

“Is it a done deal?” Her tone was cold enough to freeze molten lava.

I told her we had thirty days to back out if she really hated it, and I promised not to be mad if she did, but to please, please wait until she did a walk-through to decide. We'd been here ever since.

I sat in my SUV across the street from that dream house chain-chewing sticks of gum.

The sun hit my rolled-up windows in such a way that every speckle of dust and dirt showed up like organisms under a microscope. In dimmer light, it had looked clean as a pin. The more I stared at the smudges and flecks of grime, the more irritated I became. I looked around for something to wipe them off with but found only a box of lotion-infused tissues. I spit my latest piece of Big Red back into its wrapper, added it to the small mound of silver in the ashtray, and looked through the blemished windshield.

Just a few feet ahead, a towering pear tree cast a shadow on the road. With a turn of the ignition and a little bit of gas, I inched into the shade. The car looked clean again and I was happy to pretend it was. After another stick of gum and a long, deep breath, I decided it was now or never.

I felt like an intruder when I turned the knob of my own front door without first knocking. Would things ever feel normal again? At the moment, that possibility seemed like anything but.

Kyra met me in the foyer wearing sweatpants and a frown. “Where have you been?”

“Your car was ready.” I pulled her ring of keys from my pocket and dangled them before her.

She took them from my hand and set them down. “Great.”

You're welcome,
I thought.

“Oh, and I stopped by Mom's.” I dropped my own car keys on the foyer table next to hers.

Her expression softened. “Is she okay?”

“Of course.”

She gave me a funny look.

“I visit with them every other Wednesday, remember?”

Her lips curled into a smirk. “Ironic, isn't it?”

“What's that?” I said.

“That you seem to keep forgetting that my memory's gone bad.”

A few months ago, I would have bantered with her, but I guess I'd left my sense of playfulness on Danielle's pillow. I walked to the window and looked out at Bram Harrington, who was helping his wife into the Volvo I'd leased him twenty-four months ago—or maybe it was thirty-six. I needed to check on that tomorrow. It might be time to put him in a new one.

She walked behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I didn't deserve her, but I needed her. Her warmth. Her love. Her vanilla-almond smell. “Marnie's leaving,” she said. Her warm breath tickled my ear.

I turned and gave her a questioning look.

“Her boss asked her to fly to Milan. Another buyer had an emergency and had to cancel.”

“She didn't mention anything to me about it.”

“It was last-minute.”

Pressed into my back, I felt her chest rise and fall as she sighed. “I wonder what it would be like to just run off to Europe,” she said, “or Asia, or Africa, any old time you wanted.”

And then the perfect idea hit me—an opportunity to make me a hero in my wife's eyes instead of the villain I felt like. “You should go with her.”

She scrunched her nose. “What?”

“Yeah, I mean you've always wanted to go with her on one of those boondoggles. I've been pretty busy at work. Benji said it would be at least a week or two before he gets to come home. Go. Have fun. Get your mind off things for a while.”

“Milan?” she whispered. “Really?”

“Sure, why not?”

A shadow crossed her face. “I had my appointment with Dr. Hershing this morning.”

I didn't know she had an appointment. My heart quickened, but I reassured myself that she must not have had any major memory breakthroughs or she wouldn't be still standing here. I pulled her hands gently from my waist and turned around. “Feel like going out for dinner?”

The sun streamed in through the window igniting her hair in golden red. Love overwhelmed me. “That's your question?”

“We've got to eat sometime.”

“I'm thawing chicken.” The look on her face told me that I'd asked the wrong question. Seemed I'd been doing that all my life.

“How'd the appointment go?”

She sighed. “Weird. I keep feeling like that movie where the guy thinks he's living a normal life but he's really the star of a TV program, and everyone knows it but him.”

“
The Truman Show
,” I said. “Jim Carrey. We watched it together the night Benji took that little brunette who used to live down the street to dinner. We were trying to pretend we weren't waiting up for him, remember?”

A sparkle lit her eyes. “I can't believe you remember that.”

“Her name was Doris Lipscomb,” I said, pleased to have done something right, “and he wouldn't ask her out again because he said she gave him a heart-shaped balloon.”

Kyra gave me a sheepish grin. “I remember you did your infamous yawn and stretch move on me that night.”

I couldn't help but laugh. “I did that on our second date, not a decade and a half into our marriage. Your memories are jumbled.”

“You did it that night too.” She sounded so sure.

“I did not.”

When she raised an eyebrow at me, she looked just like her late mother. “You most certainly did.”

“You're my wife; I don't have to do the yawn and stretch.”

She crossed her arms. “Is that right? Once the ring's on the finger, it's all in the bag, huh?”

I shrugged.

“So, you think you could have me any old time you want me?” Her tone had become playful, sexy.

“Woman, I've got you wrapped so tight around my finger, it's turning purple.”

She laughed. “You're awfully cocky.”

“And awfully lucky.” I pulled her against me, wondering how long that luck would hold out.

Twenty

Being locked overnight with a bunch of teenagers and holy-roller types was the worst possible way to spend an evening I could have imagined, but Larry was convinced that I was a danger to myself if left unattended while Kyra was out of the country. So he'd corralled me into helping him chaperone the youth group lock-in on Friday night.

The last time I was in church had been with Kyra. Sitting beside me, she tried to hold my hand, but I kept my fingers flaccid so that hers slid right out. When hurt flashed in her eyes, I felt the ache too. Causing her to suffer was the last thing I'd wanted, but how else could I make her understand how she'd made me feel? My mother would say I was being passive-aggressive; to me it was just trying my best to show her what I couldn't seem to say.

She rejected my advances again that night, and the next, until I became like a lab rat shocked every time it reached for the piece of cheese. After enough electrical burns, I finally concluded that starvation was the less painful option.

That Sunday at Faith International had been the final occasion I'd made it to church that year. When I'd accepted the promotion at Thompson's, even though I bemoaned having to work Sundays to Kyra, I secretly considered it a fringe benefit of the job. Having to work that day was the perfect, unarguable excuse not to go. I hadn't wanted to be in church then any more than I wanted to be here now.

Still, by eleven or so, I found myself resigned to my fate and even laughed once or twice at Larry's stupid jokes.

The kids got along remarkably well, playing board games and stuffing themselves with pizza and junk food. Only the occasional disagreement surfaced and was quickly buried again by the chaperones. For that, I and my blood pressure were grateful. By midnight, the girls split off to perform makeovers on each other in the bathroom, while the boys gathered around the two TV sets for a video game marathon.

The carpeted sanctuary had been emptied of most of its chairs and was now lined with sleeping bags that would probably not be slept in. I leaned against a wall beside the snack cart. I'd just wolfed down several handfuls of chips and was pouring myself something to wash them down when I noticed a teenage boy sitting by himself on the edge of the stage.