The Silent Wife (23 page)

“What are you doing here, Mrs. Gilbert?” she asked. “Are
you sick?” She is careful to enunciate her words. Her English is good, but she speaks with a strong Hungarian accent.

“I'm fine, thank you,” said Jodi. “Please just carry on as if I weren't here. I'll try to keep out of your way.”

At the moment Klara is temporarily absent because Jodi has sent her on errands. She gave her a sheaf of cheques to deposit in the bank machine and asked her to take out some cash and pick up a bottle of Stolichnaya. She could have asked one of her friends to help her out with errands, but that would involve explanations, and so far her friends don't know about the latest developments. Nor do they need to know. They don't need to know, for instance, that she is not the person she thought she was, the sturdy branch that bends in the wind and doesn't break, the one who laughs things off and has made a profession of helping others to be more resilient, like her. In the past she has always been open with her friends, but that was when she was on top of things. Jodi not coping is something they don't need to witness. Besides, she can barely acknowledge even to herself the vast, unkind thing that is happening to her. Most of the time she's looking only as far ahead as the next hurdle in her day: the client, the shopping list, the searching look on the doorman's face when he hands her the mail, the compromise she makes between eating a proper meal and eating nothing at all.

It hasn't been difficult to keep her friends at bay. The only one making a nuisance of herself is Alison, who has taken to calling her practically on a daily basis. Alison is a good friend; these days she'd have to say her best friend. Certainly the one person who is trying to be there for her. Alison's concern is endearing,
and no one could appreciate Alison more than Jodi does, but right now she needs to stay focused and conserve her energy, devote herself to keeping her home intact.

After Klara has returned with the vodka and the cash and the bank receipt, Jodi shuts herself in her office and looks at the blinking light on her telephone. She's been aware of people calling but these days regards the ringing doubtfully, much as she would a barking dog. Every day or two she scrolls through the list of missed calls and listens to selected messages. There are some from Todd, but not the Todd she knows and loves. This is a different Todd, and today this different Todd has called her once, from his cell phone, early in the morning. She plays his message but it's hard to hear with Klara battering at the ramparts—she has the vacuum cleaner going and is knocking it against Jodi's office door as she works on the lintel and panelling. Holding a hand over her spare ear Jodi tries to make out what Todd is saying, something about a nightmare, and he sounds distraught, but she can't really get the gist of it with all the noise, and anyway she doesn't have the patience and debates with herself for less than a second before giving up and hitting erase.

22

HIM

He's in his car driving south on Clark Street, heading to the Walgreens at Clark and Lake to fill his prescription for antifungal lozenges. A cotton ball held in place by a piece of tape covers the spot in the crook of his arm where the needle punctured the skin. He's left behind him, at the doctor's office, a vial of his blood, which is going to be tested for the full spate of STDs, including syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea, as well as HIV. Dr. Ruben refused to comment on the likelihood of the human immunodeficiency virus being the cause of the lesion, which Todd thinks is bigger now than it was before. “Let's wait for the test results,” he said. Todd took this as a bad sign, and now he has days to wait, days of worry and foreboding that he'll have to keep to himself. Of course he can't say anything to
Natasha, who has already accused him more than once of infidelity. What would happen if she got a whiff of this? The irony is that she really has no cause for her suspicions. He's barely looked at another woman since he's been with her.

It took the doctor two tries to get the needle into the vein, but Todd felt almost nothing. He wasn't thinking about the needle; he was busy with thoughts of HIV, the virus, which he's come to picture as a kind of mutant disco ball, luridly winking and flashing, an image derived from illustrations found on the Internet. He can only wonder what perverse minds have managed to come up with these depictions. With a diameter of four one-millionths of an inch, the virus is beyond invisible, far too tiny to inhabit the greens and pinks and oranges of the illustrations. To detect it at all you need the Rolls-Royce of microscopes, the one that can enlarge a thing to half a million times the size it actually is. Up to a point, being so minuscule, the virus is harmless. Only in large numbers does it pose a threat. As with ants or bees you need a legion of them before they amount to an imposition. But once inside you it sets up house and quietly proliferates, using your body as a factory, harnessing your natural resources to stamp out copies of itself, establishing its power base, choking out your blood, turning you into a science fiction, and there you are—oblivious—walking around as if nothing were the matter, until one day at the dentist the bottom drops out of your life.

Not that it necessarily kills you anymore. Nowadays they keep it under control with an antiretroviral cocktail, but it's
still a terrifying prospect. The drugs cost a fortune and there are side effects to contend with and you end up a slave to the medical profession, not to mention the damper it would put on your sex life.
His
sex life. What would Natasha have to say if he started using condoms, especially now that she's pregnant? How could he ever explain that he'd put her at risk, and not only her but the baby too? Even if it turned out well and she and the baby were safe, chances are she would never speak to him again. And then there's Jodi. She, too, would have to be told.

By the time he gets his results the wedding will be just a few days off. First the results, then the wedding, in quick succession, and the truth is that he's dreading the one as much as the other. The way he feels about both upcoming events is that things have gotten away from him. He doesn't know who is in charge of his life these days but it sure as hell isn't him. He's beginning to see himself as little more than a witness, standing on the sidelines while everyone else determines his fate.

As he crosses the river his tires hit the grating on the bridge, and the steady hum of the engine becomes a jarring tremolo. He stops for the red light at Wacker and his hand reaches for his crotch. Damn it all, he meant to ask the doctor about this. It feels like a rash but there are no marks of any kind: no spots or bumps, no welts, no redness, no discoloration. It flares up out of nowhere and feels like an army of centipedes scuttling around on feathery legs under his foreskin. The more he scratches the itchier it gets, but it's impossible to stop scratching. As he pulls across the intersection, one hand on the wheel, he's caught in a
frenzy of rocking to and fro. The car weaves and pedestrians turn to stare, some of them smiling. It isn't hard to guess what they're thinking.

He and Natasha could be perfect together if only she didn't keep pushing, trying to force his hand. Like getting pregnant when she did, and the way she's handling the wedding. Every day she invites more people or adds something to the menu or the table setting. Why does she want asparagus spears when she already has mixed greens? She's spent a fortune on flower arrangements so why does she need an ice sculpture? Yesterday she took on two more bridesmaids, making it a total of eight, and who knows if she's going to stop there. Every bridesmaid gets a dress, a corsage, and a pair of shoes. He's also paying for their hair and makeup. He should have taken control from the start, laid down some ground rules, set some limits.

He's not a violent man. He's not his father and never will be. In all his years with Jodi he barely even raised his voice. But Natasha has to learn that she can't push him around, that he won't be pussy-whipped, not by her or any woman. Natasha is bossy and she's also immature and lacks judgment. There was no need for her to go running home to her daddy, as if his relations with Dean weren't bad enough already. And the truth is he barely laid a hand on her. A cuff on the ear can hardly be called abuse, and it wasn't the reason she fell. It caused her to momentarily lose her balance, but that was only because she was taken off guard. It was
her
who assaulted
him,
and yet she was surprised when he struck back. That's a woman for you. Anyway, after she steadied herself she turned to leave the room, and
that's
when she stumbled and fell. Yes, it was unfortunate, but seconds later she was already twisting the story. All this because he'd asked her to show some restraint. “You know I love you, but you're being unreasonable.” That's all he said. Nothing more than that. And yet she took that tone with him.

“I can't invite half my bridesmaids.”

“You shouldn't have invited so many in the first place.”

“You said I could have whatever I want.”

“Natasha. Dearest. You're dressing your bridesmaids in Armani.”

“Not all of them. Two are wearing Vera Wang.”

“Okay. Fine. Have as many bridesmaids as you like. Have ten bridesmaids. Have twenty bridesmaids. Just keep the budget down to three grand. I think that's fair.”

“Oh, great. You want us to shop at Target. Or maybe we should go to the Goodwill.”

“Shouldn't your father be paying for this? Doesn't the bride's father normally pay for the wedding?”

“Don't, Todd. Just don't go there.”

“Why not? Why am I picking up the tab for your deadbeat father? That's something we've never even discussed.”

“Now you're being impossible. I don't know why I'm even talking to you.”

“He's got to have at least a million stashed away. He owns his house. What does he even spend money on?”

“Leave my father out of it. You know he hates you.”

“Hates me so much that he gets out of paying for the wedding.”

“I thought you wanted this wedding. I thought it was important to you.”

“This is not a wedding. This is a shopping spree.”

“Maybe you don't want to get married.”

“You're acting like a child.”

“Yeah, well, who knew you were such a cheapskate.”

This took place over dinner, and with most of the food still on their plates, she left the table and slammed into the bedroom. He got up and followed her. He couldn't understand why she was acting this way. “Why don't you stop being such a bitch?” he said. She was lying facedown on the bed, and when he said that she leapt up and came at him like a cat, all teeth and nails.

That's when he struck her.

It doesn't help that he hasn't been sleeping, that he wakes up night after night with the same goddamn nightmare. This is entirely new for him. He never has nightmares. He rarely even dreams. Jodi says that everybody dreams, but when he wakes up in the morning, as a rule, he remembers nothing. And this is the nightmare to end all nightmares. Jodi would be impressed. Not only that, she could help him. She'd have a take on it. Jodi works with her clients on their dreams, and she has a way of making sense of them. He really needs to talk to her—about that and other things. The loss of control he's been feeling and the worry about his health and his future. Too much is happening and it's happening too fast.

In the nightmare he's running on a treadmill at the gym. It's an ordinary day and an ordinary workout, but even so he has a sense of approaching doom. And then, abruptly, the scene
changes. The gym has disappeared, the treadmill is gone, and there he is like Bugs Bunny, still running, but now suspended over a void, feet paddling in midair, arms spinning like windmills. The sustained motion somehow holds him aloft, and he keeps at it, frantic to save himself, but his muscles are tiring, his strength is giving out, and he knows that he can't keep it up for very much longer, that it's only a matter of time before he drops like a stone.

23

HER

In retrospect she'd like to say that it was all Alison's doing, but she knows that if she hadn't played her part it wouldn't have happened. And it was more than just going along with Alison; she actually fell to fawning on her friend, and she hates herself more for the fawning, just as in eighth grade she hated herself for being teacher's pet. Still, she has to allow that she was under duress. Isolated, vulnerable, run-down, drinking a lot and not eating, trying to hold herself together but in reality falling apart.

Alison's way of talking about it was so offhand that Jodi's alarm bells never sounded. As if it were a basic household repair, like stopping a sprung leak; or a minor surgery, the removal of a troublesome appendix. Get a plumber, find a surgeon, come
up with the money, problem solved. It was easy. Alison made it easy. When Jodi finally understood what was on offer, she felt grateful and relieved, so much so that she nearly broke down and cried. It was the perfect moment for the floodgates to open and all the grief and sorrow to come pouring out. But tears rarely fall in Jodi's personal biosphere. The benefits of a good cry are known to her—the release of pent-up emotions, the clearing of static from the system—but as the years go by she finds herself less and less able to let go, becomes more and more accustomed to the brittleness that goes with endurance. The day will come, she imagines, when fine cracks appear in her skin and go about branching and splitting till she comes to resemble the crackle-glaze vase on the mantel.

She's glad now that Alison broke through her hermetic seal. After such a long spell of not cooking and not eating it felt good to get into the kitchen and make dinner for the two of them, engage in routine tasks like slicing and chopping, the process of rendering bulky roots and gourds into tamer domestic forms: a mound of ribbons, a pile of cubes. The kitchen provides the simple satisfaction of exact measures and predictable outcomes, and yet in the business of precision there is also alchemy, something she learned from her pharmacist father. In culinary terms it's the alchemy of applying heat or a whisk or pounding something in a mortar. What's tough and impenetrable becomes yielding and permeable. A viscous liquid ends as a mass of froth. A pinch of dry seeds releases an unexpected, outlandish perfume.