"The truth," Laura said, reading his mind in the stiff reluctance of his body. "That's what I want."
"An affair?" He turned from the window, a salesman's smile plastered to his mouth. "Laura, come on! I can't believe you -" He stopped speaking because his son was down the hall in the maternity window, and he couldn't carry off the lie.
"How long?" she prodded. Her face was wan and pale, her eyes tired. She felt light of body and leaden of spirit. "A month? Two months? Doug, I'd like to hear it."
He was silent. His mind was searching for cracks like a mouse who hears a footstep in the dark.
"She lives at the Hillandale Apartments," Laura went on. "Apartment 5-E. I followed you there on Thursday night."
Doug's mouth opened. Hung open. A small gasp escaped his chest. She saw the color bloom in his cheeks. "You… followed me? You actually… my God, you actually followed me?" He shook his head incredulously. "Jesus! I can't believe this! You followed me like… like I was some kind of… common criminal or something?"
"STOP IT, DOUG!" The thunder crashed out of her before she could contain it. She was not a yeller – far from it – but the anger sprang forth seemingly from every pore in her body like scalding steam. "Stop the lies, all right? Just stop lying, right now!"
"Keep your voice down, will you?"
"Hell, no, I won't keep my voice down!" The expression of shocked outrage on Doug's face was like kerosene on her charcoals. The flames leapt high, out of her control. "I know you've got a girlfriend, Doug! I found the two tickets! I found out Eric was in Charleston the night he was supposed to have called you to the office! Someone called me and told me what her address was! You'd better believe I followed you, and by God I was hoping you wouldn't go to her, but there you were! Right there! How was the beer, Doug?" She felt her mouth contort in a bitter twist. "Did you two enjoy the six-pack? My water broke right there in the parking lot, while you were walking to her door! While our son – my son – was being born, you were shacked up with a stranger across town! Was it good, Doug? Come on, tell me, damn you! Was it good? Was it really really good?"
"Are you finished?" He was grim-lipped and stoic, but she saw the shiny fear in his eyes.
"NO! No, I'm not finished! How could you do something like this? Knowing I was about to have David? How? Don't you have a conscience? My God, you must think I'm so stupid! Did you think I'd never know? Is that it? Did you think you could have this secret life forever, and I'd never figure it out?" Tears burned her eyes. She blinked them back, and they were gone. "Come on, let's hear it! Let's hear how you figured you'd have your little piece of cake at home and your little piece of…" She couldn't say the word she was thinking. "Your little girlfriend at the Hillandale Apartments and I'd never find out!"
The bloom had faded from Doug's cheeks. He stood there, just staring at her with his eyes that glinted like false coins, and he seemed very small to her. He seemed to have shrunken in the space of a minute or so, until his Dockers khaki trousers and his Polo sweater hung on a framework of bones and lies. He lifted his hand and touched his forehead, and Laura saw his hand tremble. "Someone told you?" he asked; even his voice had gotten small. "Who told you?"
"A friend. How long has it been going on? Will you tell me that, or not?"
He drew a breath and let it leak out. He was deflating, right in front of her. His face had gotten pasty and pallid, and he spoke with what seemed a great effort: "I… met her… in September. I've been… I've been seeing her since… the end of October."
Christmas. All through Christmas Doug had been sleeping with another woman. For three months as David grew inside her, Doug had been making his heated runs to and from the Hillandale Apartments. Laura said, "Oh my God" and pressed her hand to her mouth.
"She's a secretary at a real estate agency," Doug went on, flaying her with a small, hushed voice. "I met her when I was doing some work for one of the realtors. She seemed… I don't know, cute, I guess. I asked her out to lunch. She said okay. She knew I was married, but she didn't mind." Doug turned away from Laura, his gaze scanning the clouds again. "It happened fast. Two lunch dates in a row, and then I asked her out to dinner. She said she'd make dinner for me at her apartment. On the way over there I pulled off the road and just sat and thought. I knew what I was doing. I knew I was stepping on you and David. I knew it."
"But you did it anyway. Very thoughtful of you."
"I did it anyway," he agreed. "I have no reason for it other than an old tired one: she's twenty-three, and when I was with her I felt like a kid again. Just starting out, no responsibilities, no wife, no child on the way, no house payments, no car payments, nothing but the wild blue yonder ahead. That sounds like bullshit, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Maybe so, but it's the truth." He looked at her, his face ancient with sorrow. "I meant to stop seeing her. It was just going to be a one-time thing. But… it got away from me. She's studying for her real estate tests, and I helped her with her homework. We drank wine and watched old movies. You know, talking to somebody that age is like talking to a person from another planet. She's never heard of Howdy Doody, or Steppenwolf, or Mighty Mouse or John Garfield or Boris Karloff or…" He shrugged. "I guess I was trying to reinvent myself, maybe. Make myself younger, go back to how I used to be before I knew what the world was all about. She looked at me and saw somebody you don't know, Laura. Can you understand that?"
"Why didn't you show that person to me?" she asked. Her voice cracked, but she held the tears at bay. "I wanted to see you. Why didn't you let me?"
"You know the real me," he said. "It was easier to fool her."
Laura felt the crush of despair settle upon her. She wanted to rage and scream and throw something, but she did not. She said, in a quiet voice, "We did love each other once, didn't we? The whole thing wasn't a lie, was it?"
"No, it wasn't a lie," Doug answered. "We did love each other." He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, his eyes glazed and unfocused. "Can we work this out?" he asked.
Someone knocked on the door. A nurse with curly red hair came in, carrying a small human being wrapped up in a downy blue blanket. The nurse smiled, showing big front teeth. "Here's the little one!" she said brightly, and she offered David to his mother.
Laura took him. His skin was pink, his skull – reformed into an oval by Dr. Bonnart's gentle hands – covered with light brown fuzz. He made a mewling noise, and blinked his pale blue eyes. Laura smelled his aroma: a peaches-and-cream smell that she'd caught the first time David was brought to her after being cleaned. Around his pudgy left ankle he wore a plastic band that had Boy, Clayborne, Room 21 typed on it. His mewling became a hiccupy sound, and Laura said, "Shhhhh, shhhhh," as she rocked him in her arms.