57
daniel
I watch Claire drive away. I’ve always been fairly certain that this day would come, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. I tell myself it doesn’t matter that I laid my cards on the table; she was never available in the first place and she never tried to make me think she was.
It will be hard not knowing how she’s doing. If she’s okay. That was the hardest thing about losing Jessie. The way she felt about me didn’t change the way I felt about her, and it didn’t mean that I stopped caring. I let her go only because I thought it was what she wanted.
Claire’s the second woman in a row that I’ve lost and I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
58
claire
I’m quiet the next morning when Elisa and I drive to yoga. I wait until we’re seated on our mats before I tell her about Daniel. “I’m not going to spend time with Daniel anymore.”
“You’re not?”
“No. It turns out that men and women can’t be friends. Not really,” I say.
Elisa takes a drink from her water bottle. “How do you feel about that?”
“Sad. There’s this space that he used to occupy and now it’s empty.” I stretch my arms over my head and exhale. “It was the right thing to do, though.”
“Are you going to tell Chris about Daniel?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt him, and I’m not sure what would hurt him more: telling him about it now that it’s over, or not telling him about it at all.” The instructor is moments away from starting the class when I say, “Elisa?”
She looks over at me. “Yes?”
“Do you think it’s possible to love more than one person? At the same time?”
“I think just about anything is possible when it comes to love,” she says.
59
chris
It’s late when I get back to my hotel room. I’m so goddamned tired of key cards, plastic-wrapped glasses, and ice buckets that I’d be happy to never see another hotel room again. They even have a smell I can’t stand. I don’t know what it is, only that it doesn’t smell remotely like home.
Being back out on the road these last three weeks, after staying home with Claire and the kids, has been hard. Jim made a big deal of welcoming me back and asking about Claire during our last conference call, but that was for the benefit of the twenty other people who were also on the line. I know this because when I called him from the hospital to tell him I was taking a week off he acted like a complete dick.
“It isn’t a good time, Chris,” he said.
“This is my wife, Jim. I’m staying home.” Fuck him. It makes me nervous to leave Claire alone now. It’s been so long since there was a problem that I got way too comfortable. If I hadn’t found her in time . . . well. I still can’t get it out of my head.
Claire assured me that she would be fine. “Mom and Dad will be checking on me,” she said. “Elisa is close by.”
I haven’t said anything to Claire yet, but I’ve been spending a lot of time with Seth, one of the senior software engineers who’s been traveling with us and assisting the implementation team. He joined me for drinks one night and we started talking. He doesn’t say much, but when he does open his mouth, what comes out is brilliant. What he told me the other day, what we stayed up until 4:00 A.M. discussing, blew me away. The possibility of what it could mean for Seth, for me, for my family, is the only thing that’s keeping me motivated right now.
I loosen my tie and sit down on the bed to call Claire. “Hey. How are you?” I ask when she answers.
“I’m fine,” she says. “Feeling good. Are you at the hotel?”
“Just got back. We took the clients out. Some sports bar they wanted to go to. Same old shit,” I say. “How are the kids?”
“They’re good. Josh is building a volcano for science class.”
“The kind with the vinegar and baking soda?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s a regular rite of passage.”
“How about my daughter?”
“She’s okay. A little quiet tonight. She spent a long time in her room rearranging her stuffed animals. I think it soothes her.”
Jordan struggles the most with my absence. I sigh and walk over to the fridge. Use the opener to pry the cap off a bottle.
“Minibar?” Claire asks.
“Amstel,” I say.
“Everything will be fine,” she says.
“Yeah.” I’m no longer satisfied with fine. I used to be, but I’m not anymore. “You should get some sleep. It’s getting late.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you when you get home.”
“Sleep tight,” I say.
“You, too.”
Later, when I’ve shut my laptop and I’m lying in my hotel bed alone I think about Claire and how much I’ve missed her. I think about how Jim says, “Jump,” and until now, I’ve always said, “How high?” All this for a man who couldn’t understand why I wanted to stay home with my wife after she almost died. If I hadn’t pulled my head out of my own ass and figured out what was really important, how long would it have taken before I turned into someone just like him?
60
claire
I lift the lid on the pot and inhale the smell of basil and tomatoes. The water in the other pot is just coming to a bubble and I grab the box of pasta out of the cupboard. After giving the marinara a final stir, I turn the heat down to low and replace the lid. The door that leads from the garage into the kitchen opens. “Wipe your feet,” I say, without turning around. It rained earlier and the kids have been tracking in mud ever since they got home from school.
“It’s me,” Chris says. I didn’t hear his car pull in, and I whip around, surprised that he’s home so early on a Friday.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to land until eight?”
“I wanted to get home sooner,” he says, setting down his suitcase and his laptop. “I had to fly standby, but I got lucky.” Yawning and rubbing his eyes, he joins me at the stove and lifts the lid on the marinara, inhaling just like I did moments earlier. “That smells good.”
“I used your mom’s recipe,” I say. “It’s the best.” I dump the pasta into the water that’s finally come to a rolling boil and set the timer. “I thought I’d be heating it up for you hours from now.”
Chris loosens his tie and says, “Nope. I can eat with you and the kids tonight.” He removes the tie completely, throws it on the island, and unbuttons the top two buttons on his shirt. “Are they outside?” he asks.
“They’re at Elisa’s, playing with Travis.”
I cross the kitchen to the cupboard where I keep my colander and after I locate it I set it near the edge of the sink. I need a bowl for the pasta and I finally spot the one I want on a high shelf, but I can’t quite reach it even when I’m standing on my tiptoes.
Chris walks up behind me and reaches over my shoulder to grab the bowl. His front is pressed up against my back and he doesn’t move after he sets the bowl on the counter. We don’t speak and suddenly the only sound in the kitchen is the sound of our breathing. He uses one hand to brush my hair to the side and then nuzzles my neck.