Counterpointe (36 page)

Exhausted from days of primitive travel capped by the long flight from Lima to Boston, Rob took out the key he’d not needed for months and fumbled it into the lock on the apartment door. He slid his luggage inside and went down the hall to the living room where blue walls striped with gold from the setting sun met his startled gaze. He walked into the kitchen, taking in the tangerine backsplash, dishes in the drying rack, and an African violet—a splashy purple—on the windowsill.

He turned and walked to the den. In the doorway, he stopped once again. After he’d absorbed the impact of the burgundy-colored walls, the painting caught his eye. He recognized it from a day he and Clare spent in Rockport. What was it doing here? Puzzled, he turned to the master bedroom. Here the walls were a pale silvery gray and a new bedspread in a blue, green, and black geometric design covered the bed.

Until Clare entered his life, he’d always been satisfied with the basics—a reasonable amount of cleanliness and neatness, a minimal amount of furniture, a comfortable bed. Then Clare opened his eyes to other possibilities, and he’d hoped she would make this apartment a bright and beautiful home, but she hadn’t.

So what was this about?

He walked down the hall to the second bedroom where he’d slept those last months before leaving for South America. It was the only unchanged room—its walls still a sterile white and the room itself neat to the point of asceticism. He walked past the bed into the bathroom to find Clare’s cosmetics on the counter.

What were they doing there? Hadn’t Clare left? The end of March, Lynne said. So why were her things still here?

Leaving the bathroom, he noticed boxes lined up alongside the bed. He opened the closet door and the light scent Clare used drifted off the clothes still hanging there.

When he turned, Clare was standing in the doorway watching him, eyes wide with shock. They stared at each other for a moment before he managed to clear his throat.

But Clare spoke first. “You weren’t due home until Friday.”

“We finished up early. Changed our flights.” He struggled to figure out what was different about her. Her hair was whiter, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t as thin, but that wasn’t it either. She seemed more...herself, somehow. And what was she thinking as she stood looking at him. That he’d changed too?

He’d discovered the extent of the change after they’d arrived in Cuzco. He’d showered, letting the hot water sluice over his body and ease his aching muscles. When he’d stepped out and as the mirror cleared, he’d been shocked at the sight of the man standing there. A man with shaggy hair and a thin face with sharp contours in cheek and chin. A man with none of the softness that had begun to settle around his middle, and through that now-flat middle, the red and silver track of a scar. And there were other changes. Invisible ones.

“I meant to be moved out,” Clare said. “I thought it would be easier.”

It would, but maybe Sam was right about them needing to talk.

“My apartment won’t be ready until tomorrow. I’ll go to a hotel tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that.” The words came automatically, the thought more slowly—what apartment? Wasn’t she moving to Cincinnati?

Clare bit her lip. “Thanks. I imagine you’re tired.”

“What’s this about, Clare? Paint, pictures, plants?”

She looked away, clenching her hands together. “It’s supposed to be an apology. Then I realized I shouldn’t have changed it without asking you.”

He thought about how warm and welcoming the apartment now looked, how walking into this one remaining white room gave him a chill. But sorting all that out would have to wait. “I’d like to take a shower, and after that I expect I’ll sleep at least twenty-four hours.”

“Are you hungry? I can fix something.”

“That’s okay. You don’t need to do that.”

“Really. It’s no trouble.”

“You’re sleeping in here now?”

“I moved in here, while I was painting the other room.”

She left him then and he returned to the master bedroom. He checked the bureau and the closet to find his clothes had been returned to their original places from the spare room. A good thing, since the clothes he’d brought back from the jungle needed to be burned.

He took a shower then slipped into a pair of slacks and a sports shirt, enjoying the simple fact he had clean, pleasant-smelling clothing to wear. In the jungle, they’d had to boil their clothes so they wouldn’t begin to smell and then rot.

He found Clare in the kitchen putting together a salad while two pots simmered on the stove. It represented a major change from the last meal she’d prepared for him.

He pointed at the pots. “I hope neither of those contains rice or beans.”

She gave him a quizzical look.

“I’ve eaten enough in the past six months to last me the rest of my life.”

“Oh. No. I thought spaghetti.” She turned away, cutting tomatoes for the salad.

“You look good, Clare.”

She ducked her head and began to shred lettuce. “Was it a good trip?”

“Depends on how you define good.” So many memories, he had no idea which one to share with her. “What about you?” he said, instead. “Have you kept busy?”

She nodded and turned to add spaghetti to the one pot before she took the lid off the second and stirred its contents. Then she bent over to check the oven, and he caught a glimpse of rolls browning. He was suddenly ravenous.

While Clare finished cooking, he set the table. Then she handed him two plates of spaghetti. It smelled delicious. She sat in her usual spot, kitty-corner from him, and unfolded her napkin. “So. What else did you eat besides rice and beans?”

“Lots of manioc, fruit, fish.”

As they ate, he told her a couple of stories about the trip. They weren’t about anything important, but he was working hard to be polite, and the stories were adequate for that.

“We stopped talking,” Clare said. “Before that day.”

He looked at her in surprise. He knew exactly which day she was referring to. The day he’d taken her to the Cape to show her the cottage.

“Yes. Why do you think that was?”

She tipped her wine glass toward him. “It hurt too much.”

He hadn’t yet drunk enough wine to agree with her. An odd reversal of roles. Clare sharing and him backing off.

It made Rob uncomfortable, sleeping in the master bedroom while Clare slept in the guest room, but she refused to move. He stretched out in bed, and sleep—deep and dreamless—came swiftly. He awoke in the dark and turned his head to squint at the alarm clock. Only five fifteen, but he was slept out.

He pulled on a pair of jeans but didn’t bother with a shirt or shoes. In the kitchen, he foraged in the refrigerator for sandwich makings and carried the resulting sandwich and a fresh cup of coffee into the living room where he sat eating and sipping coffee, watching the sky begin imperceptibly to lighten.

In spite of the coffee, his eyes grew heavy. He didn’t feel like moving, so he reclined the chair and dozed where he was.

When she got up at seven, Clare found Rob asleep in the living room. With the worry lines smoothed out and the sadness in his eyes veiled, he looked younger than the day they met. God, he was thin. As if he were recovering from a serious illness rather than returning from six months in the jungle. Then she noticed the scar. A scar that hadn’t been there when he left Boston.

She raised her eyes to his face to find he was awake and watching her. She nodded toward the scar. “What happened, Rob?”

“Acute appendix.” His voice was uninflected.

“While you were in the jungle?”

“Yes.”

“You had surgery in the jungle?”

“Lucky for me, we had a surgeon with us.” His tone was casual, but he was obviously assessing her response.

She stood transfixed, letting the knowledge seep in—Rob could have died. “I’m so glad he was there.”

“The surgeon was a woman. She said I went right to the edge.”

“The edge?”

“I almost died. Tends to focus the mind.”

Sadness slipped through Clare. “When you focused, what did you see?”

“All sorts of things. I’m still thinking about them.”

He stared past her, out the window.

“Would you like another cup of coffee?”

His eyes refocused on her. “No. Thank you.” He went back to staring out the window.

It was too much. Rob’s sudden, unexpected appearance, their awkward dance around the things they needed to say to each other, and now this announcement he’d nearly died.

She left him to his contemplation of the dawn and went to get dressed. When she stepped out of the bedroom she found Rob, dressed and obviously ready to leave for Northeastern. So why hadn’t he left already?

“I’ll be moving today,” she said, relieved her voice was working reasonably well.

He looked puzzled.

“I found a place to stay until I leave for Cincinnati. It’s available today.”

He frowned and Clare wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to shiver.

“Do you need any help?”

“I can handle it, but thank you.”

“Well, be sure to ask if there’s anything I can do. You know how to reach me.” He picked up his briefcase.

She focused on the back of the chair she was gripping, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “I’d like to hear more about your trip.”

“I guess we could have dinner sometime.”

“That would be nice.”

He nodded. “It’s a date.” But he didn’t suggest a day and time.

He left, and she forced herself to eat breakfast. Then she finished filling the boxes and carried them down to the car. Luckily, she didn’t have much. Clothes, records and tapes, a few books, and the heirloom dishes her mother gave them as a wedding present.

She unloaded everything at the new apartment then made a trip to the mall to buy an air mattress, linens, a pillow, and enough kitchen items to allow her to cook and eat simple meals. Next she went to a grocery store.

After unloading the car the last time, she drove back to Rob’s apartment. She wrote him a note telling him the divorce papers were on his desk, and she left the note along with keys to the apartment and car on the dining room table.