Donald lit a cigarette. “Let’s go with the fantastic then and assume it’s true, that this evil is real. What’s the solution?”
“We find it,” I said, surprised at how calm my voice had become. “We root it out, get it out of the shadows, into the open and into the light where we can see for ourselves just what in the hell it is we’re dealing with.”
“And then?”
“We kill it.”
CHAPTER 18
In an instant, life can change. Sometimes it is reduced to fragments, disjointed shards of a once larger and intact whole, strewn about like pieces from a shattered vase. And those things once striking and beautiful are suddenly rubble, as without warning, existence changes, sometimes irrevocably, sometimes not. If we’re wise, or even just lucky, these experiences remind us of who we are, and why. If we’re unlucky, we fade to black. No explanations, no condolences.
When I got home, Toni was packing, transferring neatly folded items from her bureau to the suitcase without looking at me, without saying a word. I stood in the doorway to our bedroom and watched, helpless. “What’s all this supposed to be?” I said. She shot me a quick, oddly neutral glance, and continued her duties with motions so repetitive and studied they seemed more robotic than human. “Great timing. This is the last thing I need right now.”
“The last thing you need.”
“Come on, Toni.” She stopped then, a tan silk blouse I’d bought her as a birthday present a few years before dangling from her fingers. “I remember when I got you that,” I said. “The clerk wanted to know if it was a gift, and I said it was, so she offered to wrap it for me. I told her—”
“No. You told her no.”
I nodded. “Even though I can’t wrap for shit. Never have gotten the hang of it. I told the clerk I always wrapped your presents myself anyway.”
Toni pursed her lips to prevent them from trembling. “And what did she say?”
“She said that was very sweet, that most men would jump at the chance to have a gift wrapped for them, especially men with no talent for doing it themselves.” I wanted to reach out and pull the blouse from her grasp, or maybe to just hold it with her. “I told her I wasn’t most men.”
A glint in her eye told me that despite it all, she still believed the same thing. She turned away, folded the blouse as neatly as her shaking hands would allow and slipped it into the suitcase. “When I got home from work today, instead of coming right in I went over to one of the benches by the water and watched the ducks and swans for a while.” She pushed some hair from her face and even smiled a little, though not at me. “I sat there and smoked a cigarette, and for a little while everything—all the noise and the bullshit—seemed to soften a little, like somebody had lowered the volume. It was so nice. There was that feeling in the air—you know the one—when you can actually feel the change in season, you can feel spring slowly becoming summer. The air changes, the light, everything. It’s new, but it’s familiar, and I started to think about how spring used to last so much longer when I was a little girl. Remember when it was more than just a couple weeks? Nothing stays the same—not even the seasons—yet nothing really changes. Maybe that’s the whole point. I watched this one swan gliding along the water and I thought, I could stand up, get into my car right now and drive away. Just… drive away. No one would kill me or put me in jail. I could just slip away and no one could stop me. If I wanted to do it, I could. I could, and the world wouldn’t even notice.”
“The world never does,” I said.
“It made me wonder why we do what we do, you know? Why we stay. Do we do it because it’s the right thing to do, or because we’re afraid of the consequences?”
I found it interesting that she hadn’t included love as a possible reason—on either side of the argument. “Regardless, you’re leaving town, is that it?”
She shook her head, disappointed. “You’re such a literalist.”
“Oh, sorry about that. I figured packing your bags was pretty fucking literal.” I’d mustered as much sarcasm as I could, and it hardly seemed enough. “So you’re not leaving town then. Just me.”
She looked genuinely surprised. “Do you want me to?”
“No.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Am I supposed to leave? I mean, is that what I’m supposed to do? I’m not sure how this kind of thing works.”
She gave a little shrug. “Me either.” She looked so beautiful I could’ve killed her.
“I can’t believe you think this is the way to—”
“You know the little cottage Martha has down by the beach, the one her parents left her? She said if I needed it for a while I could use it, which is nice of her since she could easily rent it for the entire summer.”
“Yeah, how thoughtful.” I needed another drink but stayed where I was for fear she wouldn’t follow me if I slipped back into the kitchen, and the conversation, such as it was, would end right then, right there. “So I guess you need it.”
“Yes, just for a while. I need some time away, some time to think.”
“Oh, but after your time at the think-tank you’ll be back? Well, there’s some good news after all.”
Toni closed the suitcase. The sound of the zipper sealing went right through me. “You’re obsessed with this Bernard business, and you’re getting in over your head. You’re becoming involved in things you’re not equipped to handle.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You need to get some help, Alan.”
“Is that what your boyfriend suggests?”
“You’re such a child sometimes.”
“You’re right. The mature move is to go fuck someone else.” I saw her wilt, as if the words had physically injured her, and for a brief instant, I felt a rush of satisfaction. I wanted to share the pain. “I never had any idea you hated me so much.”
She dropped the suitcase to the floor with a deliberate thud, and I pictured the patrons in the pizza parlor downstairs all gazing up at the ceiling. “I don’t hate you, Alan. The only thing I feel right now is sorrow. There’s no room left for hatred or anything else.”
I steadied myself against the doorway, maybe because I’d had too much to drink at Donald’s, maybe not. “Have I really failed so horribly?”
“We need some time apart right now. I need—”
“You know I think I could handle this if you just let me have it, both barrels,” I said. “If you just called me an asshole or a lousy husband or a fucking loser. But this ‘I need some time apart’ bullshit just makes me want to puke. Don’t make this out to be anything other than what it is, Toni. You’re having an affair and you’re leaving to lessen your own fucking guilt about it, to make yourself feel better, because if you leave, well then we aren’t together anymore and then it isn’t really cheating is it? At that point you aren’t betraying me, and that just feels so much better than feeling like a spineless conniving whore.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Finished?”
“No. Fuck you for doing this. Now I’m finished.”
“Feel better?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well maybe this’ll help. Fuck you right back, Alan.” She picked up her suitcase and started to leave the room, but hesitated once alongside me. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe there is no affair? You believe what you should question, but never question what you should believe.”
“Yeah, OK, who are you, Confucius now?” I laughed lightly, but it was merely a defense, an attempt to prevent myself from imploding, from crumbling and collapsing into myself. “If you leave, don’t come back. You leave tonight and that’s it, you hear me? It’s done.”