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My conversation with Claire
leaves me feeling short of breath. I tell myself it’s the cigarettes, but they have nothing to do with it.

Claire.

I feel like I’d recognize her anywhere.

Which is silly, and not what history relates, because when Jeff sent me a picture of her and Seth, early on, when we were trading pictures of our offices, our streets, little snippets of our lives, I didn’t recognize her. Not at first.

But I couldn’t shake her face from my brain. Something about it was haunting me, until it finally came to me one night when thoughts tumbled through my brain like clothes being dried.

We’d met. In fact—and, of course, because when else could it be? — we met at the same time I first met Jeff.

I remember how excited Brian was when I told him we’d been invited to the retreat.

“Mexico! Wow. You’re moving up in the world,” he’d said, ruffling my hair and looking proud.

I smiled back though felt a flutter of unease. Truth be told, my original instinct was to turn the invite down, but the shocked look of a co-worker, a look I knew Brian would repeat, quickly put an end to that fantasy. At least there was a sweet-looking golf course in the brochure. It had been a while since I’d made it out for a real round.

And there was the potential of Brian’s excitement. He’d been giving me “helpful” nudges for a while. Were there any openings above me? Could I move from HR to another area of management? Wasn’t the merger a great thing? A whole new world of opportunities?

Brian’s a great doctor. He’s patient and interested and will deliver your baby at two in the morning in a snowstorm. But, despite the fact that he eschewed a big-city practice, he’s ambitious. For himself, for me. And while I got that about him, he never seemed to understand or believe it when I told him I wasn’t like that. That I was happy to coast. To drift and somersault like a dried-out leaf in the late fall, hoping to avoid the rake, the collecting pile, the compost heap.

And by this time, there was something else too. A growing feeling that I had to
stop
drifting along, although I didn’t know how to. That I’d been letting life act itself out on me when I should have been directing it. I’d wake up in the morning sometimes, disoriented, not sure where I was. When it would come back to me, Springfield, house, Brian, I couldn’t help wondering how it had happened. How I’d ended up in this place, with this man, this life. How?

But how do you say that, really, to your husband? How do you even say that to yourself?

We went to Mexico. And when I returned from the driving range full of indignation about the crudeness of that jerk, John Scott, Brian’s reaction had been to tell me to “calm down.”

“Think about your career,” he said, and, “It’s not that big a deal, is it?”

When he said these things, I couldn’t help but think about the man whose look said he wanted to pound that fat fucker into the ground whether it meant the end of his career or not.

And maybe it was because of him, knowing there was someone close by who I was pretty sure saw things the way I did, that made me tell Brian I didn’t care about my job. It wasn’t a career, and I’d already blown any chance at the careers I ever cared about because I didn’t care enough.

“Don’t you get it, Brian? It doesn’t matter to me. Any of it.”

“What are you saying? Are you only talking about work?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Brian’s voice moved up an octave. “What don’t you know, Tish? What?”

“Don’t push me. You’re always pushing me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re always trying to get me to be something I’m not.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do I really do that? I don’t think I do that.”

He put his head in his hands, and he looked so defeated, I couldn’t continue the fight. Even though I knew there were things that should be said. Even though I knew I might never work up the courage to say them again.

I sat next to him and took his hand in mine. He looked at me and I could see there were tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean … I was so mad at that guy.”

“I’m sorry too. I should’ve offered to beat him up, right?”

“Maybe. Maybe that would’ve been good.”

“I’m not really dressed for that.” He was in a suit, ready for dinner.

“No.”

“Or built for it either.”

“True.”

“Are you … are you unhappy? With our life? With me?”

“No, of course not. I love you.”

“And you know I love you, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Is this because we never had a second child?”

“No, it’s not that. I didn’t … I didn’t want that.”

Brian was never around, particularly when he started his practice, and I felt so overwhelmed in those first few years with Zoey, so sleep deprived and not like myself, that I couldn’t imagine having another child. Brian was an only child, like me, and had never expressed the desire to have a second. But that he thought I did want more than one was a shock. Had he thought that all this time and never said, never asked?

“You and Zoey are the most important things in the world to me,” Brian said. “If I thought …” His voice shook. “If I thought I was failing you …”

But the thing was, I never brought it up either. I let my silence decide for us, like I’d been doing all my life.

“No, Brian, no. I’m the one.”

“The one what?”

“I don’t know.”

I rested my head on his shoulder. His arm circled me, holding me close.

“You don’t have to work at that company if you don’t want to. Or if you want to write, or go back to school, or whatever you want to do, you can do it.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

He turned towards me, searching my face. “Are we good?”

“We’re good.”

He held me to him tightly, and his familiar scent, as familiar to me as my own, drove my anger away.

“You should—” he said.

“Take a shower? Yes.”

I kissed him quickly and untangled myself. I closed the door behind me in the bathroom, turned on the taps, and slipped under the spray. And then the tears started to flow, hard and fast, dropping as fast as the water. I shoved my fist into my mouth to keep the sounds of my weeping contained. All I could think the whole time was
Why am I crying? What is wrong with me? What?

When I regained control, I dressed quickly and we walked to the cocktail party. I was relieved to see that we were seated with a couple of people from our Springfield, people I knew well enough to skip over the usual intro chat. I stifled the rising feeling of panic with too many glasses of wine, and when I went through the food line, there he was again, being all awkward and fan-like. I didn’t feel like myself and I didn’t act like myself. I flirted, we flirted, but I left it at that. I didn’t even tell him my name. I never expected to see him again.

Later that night I ran into John Scott again, red-faced and reeking of liquor. He made a pass at me, and I slipped out
a side door and sat on a retaining wall near some bushes I thought would hide me from view. The tears came again, less intense this time, but still inexplicable to me.

And then, after a few short minutes of inconsequential talk, I found myself telling some semblance of the truth to Claire, who I didn’t know, who I also thought I’d never see again. It felt good to tell someone something, and her words comforted me. They stayed with me, like her face did. They worked their way through my brain until they became one all-encompassing thought.

I could change my life if I wanted to.

I had permission.

I gave it to myself.

I watch Claire run, and when I see what’s in the police officer’s hand, I want to run too. But I stay put, letting him pass me by, walk up the steps, knock on the door.

Only once he’s inside do I force myself to walk towards the house. I have a condolence card signed by the office with me. I will find the pile of them and add my card to the stack. I will do my duty and then I will leave. I will go back to my life, my family, my friends, like I’d already decided to do before any of this happened. I will try to put all of this behind me.

A woman with short greying hair wearing a black dress opens the front door. Claire’s sister, if my guess at the funeral was correct.

She looks distracted and angry. Over her shoulder I can see Claire leading the police officer into the den and closing the door behind them, but not quite completely.

“Fuck,” Claire’s sister mutters.

“Pardon?”

She shifts her attention to me. “Apologies. Were you trying to come in?”

No, no, no.

“Yes, I … wanted to leave a card.”

She takes a step back, leaving enough room for me to pass. We brush shoulders as I do, releasing the faint smell of gardenias. When it dissipates, the real smell of the place filters in. It’s not familiar, as I feared it might be, just the smell of too many bodies packed together, too much food. Sweat and cumin. Red wine and sausage. A store full of flowers.

“Were you … who are you?” she asks.

“I’m Tish. I work … worked with Jeff. The company sent me.”

“I’m Beth. Claire’s sister.” She closes the door and gives me a speck of her attention. “Your lot, they’re all in there.”

She motions to the living room to the left of the door, where I recognize a few faces. John Scott, of course, with an unhappy-looking woman at his side who must be his wife. The CEO and his very young wife. Others I’ve only seen in photographs. I feel light-headed at the prospect of going into that room, talking to those people, wondering if some rumour has reached them about me, if my presence there will bring it to mind, bring it to light.

“Are you all right?” Beth says.

“Yes, I … It’s been a long day. Could I use your bathroom?”

“Of course. It’s down there, on the left.”

I walk slowly past the guests clogging the hall, catching snippets of conversation focused on the police officer Claire is hidden away with.

“Do you think that’s …”

“What else could it be?”

“What’s wrong with him, bringing it here today?”

My thoughts exactly.

I stop in front of the bathroom’s closed door. I try the handle, but it’s locked.

“Someone’s in here!” a shrill voice admonishes me.

“Sorry!”

I lean against the wall, waiting my turn. The door Claire and the police officer disappeared behind is across the hall, slightly ajar.

I edge across the hall. Voices float out.

“… investigation?”

“It was an accident …”

More words, then silence, then a creak of the floor, heading towards the door I’m standing too close to.

I jump back, taking up my station waiting for the person who seems to be treating the bathroom like it’s her own.

The police officer leaves, followed by Claire holding the plastic bag. I scan its meagre contents. A wallet. A wedding ring dulled by use. Jeff’s watch. His phone.

I lift my eyes and meet Claire’s for a second, but she’s not seeing me, not really. In an instant, Tim’s by her side, leading her away to the back of the house.

Without thinking, I slip along in their wake, like a magnet’s pulling me. They stop in the solarium that leads to the backyard and I hover in the doorway, ten feet behind them. Tim tells her to wait there, turns, and walks past me. He gives me a puzzled look, like he’s already forgotten where he knows me from, and doesn’t slow his step.

I stare at Claire’s back. Her posture’s perfect—straight,
with square shoulders. I feel schlumpy inside my coat, my head more naturally looking down than straight ahead at life.

Tim passes me again, a bottle in his hand, and in a moment he and Claire are outside, walking across the brown lawn, passing a small stand of crocuses, heading for an old swing set in the back corner.

As the screen door clangs shut I step into the room. The same force propels me to the doorway and keeps me standing there long enough to see them sit in the too-small swings and pass the bottle back and forth with the ease of old intimacy.

I finally force myself to look away, to fix on something else. A cell phone charger is plugged into the wall above the counter. Underneath it sits the bag of Jeff’s effects.

I pick it up. Everything’s intact except Jeff’s cell phone. Its screen is cracked. I press the power button through the plastic, as if bringing it back to life might revive Jeff in some way. But this is foolishness. It looks broken beyond repair. And its damaged state is probably a blessing, really.

I put the bag down, and now I want very badly to talk to Zoey, to check in. But when I dig my phone out of my purse, I remember that it’s dead to the world too. I plug the charger into it and wait, but it’s gone so long without power that it’ll need a few minutes before I can even turn it on. Which leaves me with enough time on my hands to do one more thing I shouldn’t.

Like in my own house, the stairway in Jeff’s displays a series of framed photographs, mostly of Seth through the ages, but also some early ones of Jeff and Claire, back in the day, purely happy, before life intruded.

The top stair squeaks loudly and I stop, nervous as a burglar worried about waking a sleeping family.

“Mom?”

I’m about to turn and bolt when Seth pops his head out of a doorway. He’s taken off his funeral suit and is wearing a hoodie over a pair of surfing shorts.

“I thought it was my mom.”

“She’s outside with your uncle, I think.”

“Who are you?”

“I worked with your dad.”

He looks at me for a moment, turning that over like a worry bead. “A lot of people worked with my dad.”

I take the last step into the hallway, and now, for the first time, I can detect, faintly, the smell I associate with Jeff. This is what I was looking for. This is why I came up here. For one last breath of him.

He was here not so long ago. Not so long ago.

“Yes, they did,” I say.

He edges backwards, and I take this as a sign to follow him, at least to the doorway. The room he’s in is set up as an office. A wall of bookshelves full of the detective fiction Jeff loved to read. A filing cabinet. A large desk made out of a piece of plywood held up by two sawhorses.