Shelter Us: A Novel (27 page)

“It was a fluke. I didn’t feel comfortable staying at Josie’s mother’s apartment. I wanted to give them some time alone.” Robert’s face is still, his jaw set. “I didn’t know what to do. So I headed toward Berkeley. I thought it would be good to visit our old neighborhood.” I want to remind him that Berkeley is our place. “I went to the Cheese Board—I could smell those cinnamon rolls from two blocks away—and while I was waiting in line, I ran into Brian, so we had lunch together. They make pizza now—it is so good.” I’m trying to be chatty, and am pretty pleased with the way I’m telling the story, especially because I wasn’t planning to tell it. Not having practiced makes it sound more believable. The waiter brings my wine.

“Is that all?” Robert asks me. I take a sip of wine. Another server comes, with more bread, but Robert waves him away.

“What do you mean?” A part of me realizes that I am experiencing just the slightest enjoyment over his hint of jealousy, as payback for his frequent absences these past three years. It fleetingly occurs to me that if Robert had been different, the thing with Brian might never have happened. I’m tempted to follow that thread, but my better self
warns against it. The only way to get rid of this guilt is to own it. This isn’t Robert’s fault.

“I mean, what else did you do in Berkeley?”

I don’t want to keep lying, but the truth would be unforgiveable. I have to make something up, concoct an itinerary of a day that did not happen. I picture the neighborhood where we used to live, where we used to spend every day together, becoming a couple. “I just walked around, looked at the stores.”

“Oh? Did you buy anything?” Is he testing me or just making conversation?

“No. I was too upset about her brother being missing to really focus on anything.” There, that’s a good answer. That rings true.

“Did Brian go with you?” He’s stuck on Brian. Let me put an end to it.

“No, I went by myself.”

“So, wait, you didn’t even see Carolina?” Another lie is outed. I realize this conversation has turned into a line of questioning. He now sounds like the prosecutor he once thought he’d be. My sensors are on alert, like a deceptive witness wary of being tripped up on cross-examination.

“No, I didn’t even tell her I’d be in town. I didn’t want to upset her, with the baby due soon and all.”

“So she
is
pregnant. That part is true?”

“Yes, Robert, she is pregnant.” I accept the mocking in his tone, as deserved. The bread guy makes another pass. Feeling the tension, he moves on without offering. “Robert, I am so sorry I lied to you about why I went up there. I shouldn’t have.” I am sincere. But Robert does not take this opportunity to forgive me quickly and end this now. He is not finished with his interrogation. I watch him prepare his next question. His hands are folded in front of his mouth, as though they could block the words from erupting into the air between us. In that moment, I realize what he’s going to ask next. His line of questioning has been a chronological travelogue of my day. I don’t have an answer for what comes next—where I spent the night.

“Excuse me, honey. I need to use the restroom,” I say, nearly knocking my chair backward. “Be right back.” I leave him to ruminate on the question I hope he’ll decide not to ask. I walk into the bathroom and ask my reflection what to say. I can tell him that I slept on Brian’s couch. Or I could say I slept at Josie’s, but that doesn’t feel right. Maybe I could say I went to a hotel? But he could check the credit card bill. I could say I slept in the car, but he’d want to know why. Which lie is most promising? Which can I deliver with a straight face? I can’t stay here forever. I walk back to the table and sit down, hoping for a waiter to interrupt us.

Robert hesitates, like someone deciding whether to walk across burning coals or just walk away. He knows there’s danger there, but he can’t resist. “I am curious where you slept.” He uses restraint to keep his voice calm and his face stoic. The restaurant door opens again, and an influx of male voices collides around us. A woman at the bar greets the men with a high-pitched “Oh my gaaaaawd!” I glance toward the sound, watch them air-kiss, try to tune them out. I turn back to Robert.

Matching his restraint, I say calmly, “The first night we stopped at a motel. And the next night I ended up sleeping on Brian’s couch. I didn’t plan that, and I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d feel weird about it.” Now I’ve made it his fault. “I didn’t want to bother Josie or her mom.” I stop and wait for the verdict. He lifts his head, examining me through unblinking eyes, analyzing my responses. The sounds of clinking glasses and laughter trickle over from the bar. The electric lights dim then go back to regular strength—a power surge. I keep my eyes on Robert, reassuring myself that he can’t hear how fast my heart is pounding. He looks down at his hands, fiddles with his ring. He is unmoved to touch my hand, which I’ve placed in the center of the table between us. I don’t know if it’s worse that I’ve caused him to doubt me, or to doubt his own judgment. We sit suspended in time, waiting for his move. His arm moves, and an ephemeral hope rises and quickly fades as he reaches not for my hand but for his jacket pocket, where his cell phone is vibrating. He looks at caller ID and answers. “Hi, Mom. Everything okay?”

A different shade of distress clouds his face. “We’ll be right there.”

“What is it?”

He hangs up. “Oliver’s freaking out. My mom can’t calm him down.” He opens his wallet and throws some bills on the table, and I run out the door after him. Nothing is settled.

“U
p here!”
Joan shouts. We run up the stairs. She is standing in the boys’ room, holding Izzy. He reaches out to me, and I take him and continue toward Oliver, who is on the floor next to his bed. He is crying, but the sound is raspy from all the screaming he must have done. Joan’s face is ashen. “I’ve tried and tried. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

I sit next to him and put Izzy down. “Oliver, sweetie, Mommy and Daddy are here.” I rub his back. “We’re here now, it’s okay.” He continues crying.

“What happened?” Robert asks his mother.

“I don’t know. All of a sudden, he just lost it. I have no idea what set him off.”

“Oliver, can you tell us what’s wrong? Does something hurt?”

His crying picks up strength now that his audience has grown. Robert joins me and Izzy on the floor. We huddle around him, desperate to help him. Izzy says, “No cry, Olly.” The sound of Izzy’s voice puts a brake on Oliver’s frenzy, enough for him to catch his breath. In the pause, Robert asks again, “Can you tell us what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

He looks up and says, “I don’t want to die!”

It’s back, his torment. Robert and I look at each other, then at our sad little boy. I search for the right words to wash the worry out of him. I could reach for my tired litany to assure him of the long life
he’ll likely live, but it is empty comfort. I hunger for something more real and true to give him. He craves nothing more than sincerity and to be understood. I hold him closer and simply say: “I know, honey. Neither do I.” There it is.

Through my clouded eyes, I notice that Oliver is clutching a paper in his hands. I wipe my eyes to focus, and I am confronted with a picture of Ella, sleeping in her crib on a yellow furry blanket. Her face, turned to one side, is in sunlight. “Oliver, where did you get that?”

“It’s mine!”

“That’s fine. Oliver, it’s yours, honey. I know.” I rock back and forth with him in my arms. “I was just surprised to see it. Do you think about Ella sometimes?” He nods. “Me too. I think about her every single day. Every day. I say good night to her every night before I go to sleep.”

“You never talk about her.”

I never knew he noticed. “That’s true. I do keep her to myself. But that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about her. Do you want me to tell you sometimes when I’m thinking about Ella?” His breathing is almost back to normal; the crying has subsided. I feel him nod. “Okay, I will tell you when I’m thinking about her. Do you think about her, too, honey?”

“Mm-hmm.” He pumps his head.

“What do you think about?”

“I don’t know,” he says, his voice a quiet whimper. He looks at the picture in his hands. I feel Robert’s hand squeeze my shoulder. I look up at him. His face is so sad. “What do you think about, Mommy?”

“Lots of things.”
The blue of her face. The wrong coldness of her skin
. “I think about when we brought you to the hospital to meet her. I think about how she looked up at you when you peeked in her crib, and how her eyes were always watching you while you played. She loved to watch you. You were her favorite person in the whole world.”

A reluctant smile. “I remember.” He lifts himself up to his feet and climbs into bed, pulling the blankets over him as he settles his head on his pillow. “Mommy, can we talk about her again tomorrow?”

“Yes. Whenever you want.”

“Okay.”

I kneel by his bed so our heads are close. “Oliver, I’m sorry I made you think I don’t think about her.”

“That’s okay, Mommy. You’ll do better now.”

“I will. Thanks for giving me another chance.”

In one hand, he clutches the paper memento of his sister close to his chest. With his eyes closed, he reaches out his other hand toward me, and I hold on tight.

W
hen I
come out of the bathroom, Robert is already in bed, lights off. I get in next to him, and we lie in silence for a few minutes. “That was awful. I can’t believe I did that, made him think I don’t even think about her.”

“It’s both of us,” he says. “I thought he was fine, too.”

He wipes my eyes, the tenderness drawing us closer together. We begin to kiss, gently, as though not to further shatter our fractured hearts. It is a different passion than what overtook me with Brian. It is the compassion of a partner who has survived battle with me. We are bonded by love and blood. Our lives are knit together by the strongest weaving, durable enough to withstand the pulls and tugs of mistakes and regret. After we make love, I go downstairs to get us glasses of water. I feel like we’re starting to heal, to put this secret business behind us. When I come back into our room, Robert is standing up and our bedroom is filled with light. He stretches one arm toward me, holding my cell phone. His arm is trembling.

“Robert, what’s going on?” He doesn’t speak. I set the water glasses down on the dresser. “Is something wrong?” He still doesn’t say anything. My skin sprouts goose bumps. Something bad is coming. I move in closer to see what wants he me to look at, my disquiet building. “I can’t see. Here, give it to me.” I hold it to my face and my eyes focus. Across the background screen of Robert and the boys with Goofy at Disneyland, is a text:
I can’t stop thinking about you. B
.

Oh, fuck.

“What is
that
?”

“Robert, that doesn’t mean anything,” I stammer, enraged and stunned by Brian’s tactic. Was this what he was trying for? “He’s just—I have no idea why he’d say that—”

“Sarah,” he says, articulating every syllable with slow and deliberate clarity, “I don’t believe you.” His words knock the wind out of me. He starts pulling clothes out of his drawer and getting dressed. I have to stop him. He has to believe me, even though he’s right not to.

“Robert,” I plead. “I swear, he was just—”

“
No
.” He cuts me off, puts his hands up in front of my face, palms out, to block me from saying anything more. “Don’t.”

“Robert, please listen to me. It doesn’t mean anything. Robert—”

He storms downstairs without looking at me. I hear the front door open and close, his car start, then the hum of the engine moving away, the only sound in the still night. I think I understand, now, what it is to have a tornado come from nowhere and rip your house off its foundation. Before, it was a normal day. After, it’s all wreckage and rubble. In a stupor, I turn off the light in our bedroom and stare out the window at the empty driveway. Is that it, then? Are we finished? I finally lie down on top of the blankets. Moments later, it seems, I am awakened by Oliver, standing at my bedside with the pastel-streaked sunrise sky behind him, asking where Daddy is.

“R
obert,”
I plead into the telephone receiver, my digital entreaty recorded for later. “I don’t know why he wrote that. He is a jerk, that’s all.” Half-truths, to save a marriage. “I want you. I need you.” Truths. “Robert. Please come home.”

I leave these messages on Robert’s cell phone and office voice mail every fifteen minutes. He does not call back.

I
’ve paced
our house a hundred times. I keep opening the front door to confirm that the driveway is empty. The boys know something is weird based on the sheer amount of television I’ve let them watch today. We are all still in pajamas although it is afternoon. I don’t know what to feel. Robert hasn’t called back. I swing from self-loathing to intense anger. What if something were wrong with the kids? This is just like him to run away.

Then an idea strikes me. I march up to my room, throw on some clothes and shoes, and announce, “Kiddos, let’s get in the car.”

“Noooo.” Oliver doesn’t want to leave the house or turn off the TV. He likes this rule-free lazy day.

“Yes.”

“Whyyyy?”

Why? “We’re going on an adventure.”

Dubious, he presses, “What kind of adventure?”

I tell him a partial truth, something I’m getting good at. “We’re going to look for runners.”

We drive to the high school track. A pack of teenagers in soccer uniforms are running laps. A coach on the field stands with a clipboard, watching them. “There are some runners, Mommy. Can we go home now?”

I scan for someone matching Robert’s size and gait. No luck. “Not yet, honey.” I drive to Brentwood, cruise San Vicente from the VA to Ocean Avenue. No Robert. He could be anywhere.

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” Oliver says from the back seat. I look at the clock. It’s past their dinnertime. I picture our desolate pantry, calculate how long it will take me to cook spaghetti. I speed-dial for a pizza instead and pick it up on the way home.