The Sweetheart Deal (23 page)

P
acking didn't feel anything like the last time I'd packed, when I'd come out here, when I'd been ready to leave Boston in spite of the reason. But loss was forcing me to pack again. I'd left Boston because we'd lost Leo, and now I was leaving Portland because I'd lost Audrey.

I heard the boys come downstairs and mill around the kitchen. Chris walked into the guest room.

“What are you doing?” he said. My suitcase was on the stripped bed, and he touched the edge of the zipper. He looked young and fragile. Not like the man of the house he'd been playing at.

I took my stuff out of the bottom drawer and put it in the suitcase. He didn't move his hand off the zipper. “I'm packing,” I said. “It's time for me to go back to Boston.”

“But you're not done,” he said. “The room's not finished.”

I shrugged and went back to the dresser and emptied the next drawer into the suitcase.

“She asked you to leave, didn't she?” Chris said. “She's mad. Because of the note.”

“What do you know about it?” I said.

“I took it,” Chris pressed his lips together flat. “I found it in your drawer and I took it and I hid it in this place in my closet and she found it.” He was doing everything in his power not to cry. I wouldn't have minded if he did, but I knew he would be embarrassed, so I hoped for his sake he could hold back the tears. “It's my fault.” He pawed at his face. “It's my fault she's making you leave. I'm sorry I took it. I'm sorry she found it. I shouldn't have. You told me no.”

Now I had the whole picture, but the details didn't matter. It was too late. “It's okay,” I said. I put my arm on his shoulder. “Look at me, Chris. It's okay. We agreed it's time.”

“But it's because of this. You wouldn't be leaving if this hadn't happened,” he said.

“I'll come back and visit,” I said. “You guys can always come to Boston.”

Then he didn't look so young anymore, and stepped away from my arm. “Do you love her?” he said. “Don't you love her? If you love her, you can't go. Doesn't she love you? I mean, you know, you two—” He stopped.

Jesus, this kid
. “Chris, I don't know,” I said. “I don't know if she loves me. I'm her good friend, or I was. But yes, I love your mom. She doesn't have to love me back for me to feel that way. It doesn't always work out neat and easy. It's fucked up being an adult,” I said. “You think it's going to be so great, but a lot of times it's not.” I laughed. “Don't be in a hurry to be anything more than seventeen. You'll be okay and I will too. And for sure your mom is. We're going to be okay.”

“Maybe I'll come next summer,” he said. “Maybe I'll go to college in Boston.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “That would be great. You'll see me before you know it.”

I went in the kitchen and said goodbye to Brian and Andrew, too, who were both somber and confused, without knowing what Christopher did, and I told them the same things that I'd said to him. They were easier to convince, but when they both mentioned that the addition wasn't finished, I told them it was a natural place to stop temporarily and because of some unexpected things happening back east, it was time for me to go.

I went back into the guest room, shut the door, and sat on the bed. Just like I had in my apartment—this time sober, this time in a whisper, this time in Leo's house—I said it again,
Fuck you, Leo. Goddamn you
.

But there was more now.
I'm in love with your wife
.

And I imagined him there with me, just listening, leaning against the wall in the room where I'd first slept with her.

I did all the talking.
But she's not your wife anymore, is she?

I imagined him standing, waiting, not judging like he had by the fire pit, more than a decade ago, when he'd admonished me for all my women. He couldn't say anything now, and I would have given anything, everything, to have him here to say something, because I needed it. I really needed the one thing I couldn't have.

Is this what you wanted?
I thought to the imaginary Leo, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, crossing his arms. Crossing the room to sit on the bed next to me, resting an ankle on his opposite knee.

You've fucked me up
. I sat next to no one.
Because of you, I've fucked everything up. I don't want to be you, I want to be me. I want to be me with your wife, with your sons, who I could never replace with my own children. I want to stay and I can't. She doesn't want me to.

The Leo who existed only in my addled mind continued to sit.

You and your fucking jokes,
I thought.
If we had gone to bed earlier, if we hadn't drunk so much, it never would have happened. And I would be happy now, happy with the way I was living before. Happy that that was enough. I
was
happy.

I was arguing in my mind, in an empty room in Leo's house.

How dare you? Is this what you wanted
? My thoughts wouldn't stop coming, as much as I wanted them to. I wasn't done.

What about what the rest of us wanted? Audrey would have been fine. She didn't need me. She barely needed you
. I wanted to laugh in his living face.
You know that, right? She barely needed you. You needed her more than she needed you. She's a woman who doesn't need anybody. You got lucky. You're lucky she married you.

I had to get out of this room. And yet, although I had nothing else to say, to myself only—because Leo was in a Jos. A. Bank suit under six feet of dirt and clay and perfect sod—right before I stood up and walked out, I imagined him uncrossing his leg and leaning forward on the bed, resting his forearms on his thighs, clasping his hands together, and just looking at me, nodding and smiling and not saying a word.

A
fter I got in the cab, I didn't look back. The driver cruised through the neighborhood, headed toward the freeway, and when we were almost there, I stopped him.

What was I doing?
I'll show you, Audrey. I'm out of here
. I didn't want this.

“Shit, I'm sorry,” I said. “Can you go back? I forgot something. My phone. I'm dead without it.”

“Sure, buddy.” He turned around and put the freeway behind us. “It's your buck.”

“No kidding,” I said. “But thanks.”

Why had I fought with her and been such a dick? Why had I been so defensive? To make her partly responsible. She hadn't done anything wrong. My sleeping with her wasn't why she was furious. I had lied to her; that I had kept something from her that I shouldn't have was as bad as a lie, and it was all on me. As much as I wanted to spread the blame around, implicating Leo, too, I couldn't. On the drive back to the house, I realized that implicit in the promise—which had been the farthest thing from a joke there was—to do what Leo had asked and take care of his family, was also the expectation that I wouldn't hurt his wife.

Leo had always been serious about his request. I'd never let myself come to terms with that. It was less of a burden to write it off as a joke. But now that he'd died, there was no way to interpret what he'd asked of me as anything but sincere.

Tempting fate, I made a deal with myself, which was passive and cowardly. I'd never begged a woman to stay or to keep me; it wasn't something a person did every day, or with just anyone. You begged only when it mattered, only when you couldn't bear to lose someone. Audrey had nothing to lose now—she had already endured the worst loss. Ending our romance because she felt betrayed was nothing compared to Leo's death.

So, if when I got back to the house Audrey was there—this was the deal I made with myself, this pussy deal—I'd do anything she asked, anything except let her shut me out, and I was prepared to beg. It was the only choice I had.

Then I would work to undo the ugliness I'd said this morning—I'd be contrite and self-deprecating; I'd remind her she'd said it would be nice if I were closer than Boston. I'd say the words I'd never said and tell her that because of Leo I was conflicted and guilty, but that he'd had nothing to do with how I felt about her. That the biggest mistake of my life, even at the risk of losing or changing what had happened between us, had been not telling her about the promise. That was the least I owed her, and I had failed.

We pulled up in front of the house. It hadn't taken us that long to get back.

I stood on the porch and rang the bell. Andrew opened the door.

“You're back,” he said.

“Where's your mom?” I said.

“She went running. She just left. You could still catch her.”

Fuck
. “She doesn't want to be caught, Andrew,” I said. “I just forgot something.”

I went into the guest room to recover the pretended forgotten thing. I stood in the middle of the floor.

Change the plan. Pay the cab, wait for her, and stay
.

That hadn't been the deal.

Fuck the deal. This “deal” business really isn't something you excel at anyway, is it?

So instead of begging—following my gut—instead of doing the risky, uncertain work of staying—when it truly mattered—I did what I knew how to do. I did the old, easy thing. Andrew stood in the living room and waited the whole time. He was still there when I walked back in.

“I've got to go,” I said. “I'll see you, buddy.” I squeezed his shoulder on my way to the front door. And for the second time that day, I left the house for the airport.

A
fter Garrett had said individual goodbyes to the boys, we all gathered in the living room. It felt like another mourning had overtaken the house. The cab pulled up.

“Safe trip,” I said. “Text me when you're home.”

“Sure,” he said. He squeezed all the boys one last time, walked out, and shut the door behind him.

The four of us watched the black-and-white cab pull away. Then we stood there looking at the empty street.

“I'm going for a run,” I said. “You guys have plans?”

They all moped and shrugged.

“We'll decide something when I get back, okay? Maybe we'll all go to a movie.”

I put on my shoes, and stretched and headed out. It was too hot to run, but I went anyway.

When I came back forty-five minutes later, Christopher and Andrew were taking turns shooting baskets, each with his own ball, and Brian was sitting on the curb drawing. They seemed no less somber than when I'd left, but at least they were all doing something.

As I started to walk up the porch stairs, Andrew ran over to me.

“Hey, Mom. Right after you left, Garrett came back. Did you see him?”

“No,” I said. “I didn't. Why did he come back?”

“He said he forgot something,” said Andrew.

“Well, I hope he found it,” I said.

“I guess he did,” Andrew said. He turned and walked back to the street and I climbed the stairs.

For the rest of that day, and during the weeks that followed, I searched the house looking for something I imagined Garrett left for me, some kind of message or sign of what, I didn't know, but I wanted one. I found nothing in every place I looked, which brought its own kind of heartbreak. More than once Leo had left me a Post-it on the bathroom mirror or a note on my windshield or inside a book I was reading. All kinds of notes:
I'm an asshole. I'm sorry
. Another:
I love you. I feel like I haven't seen you at all lately and I miss you. We need a night out
. And the one on my pillow:
This has been such a shitty week. I know the boys have been a pain in the ass. I'll see you in the morning.
After all that time, when I finally gave up, because I knew there was nothing from Garrett for me to find, I realized I'd been thinking of Leo, because that's the sort of thing he would have done.

I
had a window seat from Portland to Chicago, and for the first time I could remember, I slept on the plane. I sprinted through O'Hare for the leg to Boston, certain I wouldn't make it to the concourse, expecting to miss my connection. Although I didn't, I had the shit luck of the middle seat, and the man who got the window boarded after me and I had to stand up to let him pass when he was done stowing his things in the overhead. After he sat he nodded at me and I nodded back. He looked like the news anchor Brian Williams, a well-groomed, impervious, dashing sort of fellow, and though I knew it wasn't Williams, I wondered why the guy wasn't flying first class. It wasn't until after all the preflight instructions, taxiing, liftoff, and a half hour in the air, rising to our cruising altitude, that I noticed both of us were just sitting there, staring at the backs of the seats in front of us. I didn't want to read, watch a movie, or even shut my eyes.

“You going to Boston for business or pleasure?” I said.

“Ah, neither.” He pressed his lips together. “Bit of a family emergency.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Since we're just both sitting here. Plane talk.” I felt like an ass.

He shook his head and waved his hand. “It's all right. We just can't get there fast enough.” He didn't resemble Brian Williams very much anymore.

“I've been there,” I said. “Even when flying's the only way, it's still too slow.”

“You have kids?” he said.

“No, I don't.”

“I'm going to the Cape to get my daughter and bring her home. Back to San Francisco,” he said. “She was a freshman this year and she got a summer job with her girlfriends. But she's too far away.” None of this sounded like anything terrible. “My wife, Jodi, and I, we have three other daughters, so I came. We are—we were—very close, Amelia, my daughter, and I.”

“I teach—I taught—at BC,” I said. “Freshman year is a huge adjustment no matter how far from home you are, but she's a long way, for sure.”

He looked at me with a fresh recognition of relief, like he'd found a friend in a crowd. “That's where she was last year, at BC. Good school.” Then his expression grew sad and he sighed. “But she got really sick, you know, not eating. She's five foot nine and a hundred and ten pounds. I don't know what the hell happened. She's always been a good kid, talks to her mother, you know, talks to us both.” I looked at the guy again, folded in his seat. He was tall.

“Sorry.” He waved his hand at the air again, like he wanted to take everything back and return to sitting privately, undisturbed, until the plane landed and he could stop waiting, passive, and finally do something. “You know,” he said, “once you have kids you do whatever you can, as long as you can, for them. Then you do some more. I can't just let her slip away to nothing.”

“No,” I said. “No, of course you can't. Sorry that's happening. Sorry I intruded. You sound like a great father. I hope she'll be okay.” I wanted to take back initiating this conversation too. I wasn't sorry we'd been talking, but I felt of no use to the guy after what he'd shared.

“No, no, don't worry about it. Thanks,” he said. “Thanks for listening. I think she will. At least we're doing something. My parents, their generation, would have had no idea.” He extended his hand. “I'm Brad, by the way.”

I took his hand and shook it and held on maybe a little longer than I should have. “I'm Garrett,” I said. “Nice talking with you, circumstances aside of course. Best of luck, really.”

He didn't seem to mind the extended clasp and took his hand back when I finally let go. “So.” He turned his palms up over his lap. “What about you? Coming off vacation, heading back to work?” My turn.

“Something like that,” I said. “I've been in Portland and I'm just heading home to pack up and go back there. It was time for a change. There's more for me in Portland than Boston, I think. Or at least there's nothing in Boston to keep me there. I don't stay in one place very long, so it was just a matter of time.”

“Wanderlust,” Brad said. “What a wonderful thing. It keeps you moving till you find what you're searching for, or it just keeps you moving, if that
is
the thing you're looking for. No standstill.” He smiled, kindly, like a satisfied man who had found what he'd searched for, pitying someone who hadn't. “If you don't keep looking, you'll never find it, right?”

“Right.” I laughed. “Even if you don't know what it is.”

“But you know it when you find it,” Brad said.

“Yeah,” I said. “You do. You know it when you find it.”