Matthew watched him cross the parking lot back to his car, before leaving the place himself. What had he learned? In terms of hard information, nothing. Yet for some reason he drove away with a sense of having accomplished something, and for the rest of the afternoon he found himself reliving the little sequence: following the man once again in his mind’s eye from the Greenmarket to the rental place, standing behind him at the register, watching him return the movie. The memory of the statue he’d seen became clearer in his mind. It seemed to superimpose itself on his image of the man, supplanting his features and figure with its own more archetypal embodiment of stout-bellied vigor, striding the earth with jovially arrogant confidence. Was that how Chloe saw him? It seemed to him, in that close proximity he often felt to the current of Chloe’s feelings, that it was, and that for precisely this reason it absolved her, at least in her own mind, of hypocrisy. She had her own code of conduct: he’d always sensed that. For all her churchgoing sweetness and compassion, what motivated her wasn’t the ambition to be a “good person” in any conventional sense (Charlie was the conventional one in that respect), but simply a desire to engage with whatever offered the promise of life, energy, vitality. It was, he realized with a sort of gloomy clarity, one of the things he most admired about her.
A few days later, after he’d been puttering around town for the better part of the morning, he caught sight of the man again, approaching on foot from the far end of Veery Road. He continued driving toward him, aware of the black hemlocks and green laurel hedges flowing backward around him as the distance closed between them. He’d been mentally planning a dinner of scallops and pork belly with a parmesan espuma as he drove around, and had realized he’d forgotten to bring any spare cartridges for his foamer when the man’s stocky figure had appeared in the distance. He was walking on Matthew’s side of the road, sensibly facing the oncoming traffic, and carrying a shiny white shopping bag with a bottle in it: champagne, Matthew saw as he drew closer and the foil top glittered. He found himself simultaneously wondering where he might be able to get hold of nitrous oxide cartridges for the espuma, picturing the man pouring a foaming glass of champagne for Chloe as they lay in bed and realizing with a sudden gush of aggression that with nothing more than a quick jerk of the steering wheel he could knock him down, run right over his thick neck and be gone before anyone knew what had happened.
Instead, he slowed down politely and swung wide of him, receiving an appreciative nod in return.
He felt shaken after that. He hadn’t realized he bore the guy actual hostility. The “incident,” purely imaginary as it had been, made him aware he was getting a little overwrought about the whole business.
It seemed to him he had been given a warning: to pull back, or at least formulate a more rational, practical plan of action than this rather aimless to-ing and fro-ing.
But a plan to do what, exactly? Aside from the desire for things to be restored to their original condition, which was hardly a realistic aim, he had no clear objective around which to build a plan.
That afternoon Chloe announced she was going out to photograph some more mailboxes. There was one in particular, she said, that would make a good cover for a book if she ever collected them.
“Where’s that?” Matthew asked, adding quickly, so as to cover the tone of suspicion he’d caught in his own voice: “I mean, I was wondering if I’d seen it.”
She smiled, gathering up her car keys.
“Probably not. It’s on a road that doesn’t really lead anywhere.”
Charlie, who was on his iPad at the kitchen table and hadn’t seemed to be following the conversation, said, without looking up:
“Which road?”
“Fletcher,” Chloe answered without hesitation. “Just past the place that sells ducks’ eggs. Why don’t you come with me and take a look? It’s very pretty. You too, Matthew, if you’d like…”
Charlie grunted, “Maybe another time,” and Matthew, realizing he’d been outmaneuvered, muttered that he was a little tired.
“Well, come down later, if you feel like it,” Chloe said, smiling at each of them. “I’ll be there till sunset.”
As she left, Matthew saw Charlie glancing after her, and thought he caught something uneasy in his expression. He had in fact considered the possibility that Charlie had some inkling of what was going on. He happened to know that his cousin had a problem with jealousy. In those candid talks they’d had during the first months of their reunion in New York, when Charlie was still hurting from the breakup of his first marriage and glad of a willing listener, he’d confided in Matthew that one of the reasons for the breakup was that he’d driven Nikki, his wife, crazy with his suspicions. He’d wanted a kid, and when she’d said she wasn’t ready he’d taken that-by his own shamefaced admission-as evidence that she wanted to go on, in his words, “fooling around with other guys.” He’d changed since then, obviously. Under Chloe’s steadying influence the anguished, self-flagellating Charlie of those days had given way to the contented husband and father that now formed the image he presented to the world, and presumably he’d learned to ignore the tremors of his hypervigilant instincts. But those instincts were surely still alive in him somewhere, however much he might wish to suppress what they were telling him. And if that was the case, might he not, at some level, be actually grateful for an opportunity to talk?
True, he’d shown no sign of interest in Matthew’s attempts so far to open the subject, but then those attempts had been so indirect that it was entirely possible Charlie hadn’t even realized what they were.
All of which seemed to argue for a more direct approach, or at least (caution intervening once again as the decision formed to broach the topic) a less oblique one.
“You seem,” Matthew said, perching on a kitchen stool, “really happy, you and Chloe.”
Charlie looked up at him.
“I’d say we’re pretty happy.”
“You seem to have a great balance between togetherness and… independence.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I admire that.”
“Well, Chloe’s always been totally her own person.”
“I know.”
Charlie continued looking at him, as if his curiosity had been piqued, and Matthew felt he could safely develop the point.
“Unusually so, I’d say, compared with what I’ve noticed in other married couples.”
Charlie seemed to mull this over.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, just that she seems to have these very strongly demarcated areas of her life that she keeps… private.”
“Such as?”
“I suppose I’m thinking of the way she goes off for her classes, or the photography. I mean, I think it’s good to have that kind of separation in a relationship. I think it’s a real strength.”
“It seems pretty normal to me.”
“Absolutely. Absolutely.”
Now he was afraid he’d misjudged Charlie’s mood after all, or else scared him off.