While You Were Gone: A Thought I Knew You Novella (11 page)

It would be a good segue.
Our relationship?
But I let the moment hang until it fades away, unable to decide how to press it.

I turn the stove back on and simmer the sauce. He comes up behind me. His hands rest on my hips, his dress shoes flanking my bare feet. I love this, our domesticity, more than anything else about us. I love playing house, imagining for a moment that he doesn’t live hundreds of miles away, in another country, entrenched in a life or whatever he said the other night. It’s a fun fantasy.

He nuzzles the back of my head. “Do you mind if I take a shower?”

I shake my head and wave my hand. “Of course not,
mi casa, su casa
and all that.”

I hear him pad to the bathroom, and the water rushes on, up the wall behind me. I lean forward, steadying myself against the sink, and take a deep breath. My eye catches on his overnight bag in front of the door, and I have an idea.

Greg’s always been proud of his ability to pack light. His bag is small, only slightly bigger than a bowling bag. I grab the sleeve of golf balls off the table and unzip it, feeling a little guilty. I want him to find them tomorrow morning, while he’s dressing and I’m sleeping, when he’s at his most bored—or frustrated with his job, or feeling stuck. I want him to remember that I think it’s possible.

I unzip the side pocket and fumble around, looking for his toothbrush. My fingertips slide on something smooth and metallic, and I pull it out. Examine it. Turn it around in my fingers, my heart picking up speed with every passing second, a dull thud behind my eyes. It’s heavier than I would think, silver-gray, battered and weathered. I can still feel his weight on me, his shudder between my thighs, his mouth on my neck, his breath in my ear.
I love you.

It’s a man’s wedding ring.

Chapter 9

H
e’s whistling when he comes out of the shower, one of my faded beach towels slung lazily off his hips. He’s fucking whistling.

“I’ll need my bag,” he jokes and kisses me on the crown of my head, oblivious. He stops, cocks his head, stares at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

I hold up the ring between my thumb and my forefinger. The color drains from his face, he swallows, and in that moment, I know it’s true. My brain was frantic, filling in the gaps with some tragic story: an accident from his past, an ex-wife, a deceased wife, anything. It’s truly amazing the story your mind can spin in one panicked second. But none of that was true. What’s real and true is that Greg is
married,
not past tense, not divorced, not widowed. I can see our whole relationship in his white face. I see his furtive two a.m. phone calls, his cryptic texts, his seemingly random reticence interlaced with moments where he was just
so happy
to see me. His business trips, the way he never stayed here, the way he didn’t talk about his life much, the way he called it boring.

We stand off, him trying to look somewhat dignified in my
towel and me trying not to vomit. I smell the shrimp burning on the stove. I hold the ring out to him, and he takes it, tucks it into his fist. I walk to the kitchen, turn off the burner, and walk back to the living room, where he still stands woodenly next to his overnight bag.

“It’s true, right? You’re married.” I stand in front of him with my arms crossed over my chest. I’m suddenly overly aware of what I’m wearing, and I’m freezing. “You’re married.”

“Yes.” He doesn’t offer an explanation or an excuse, because I would hate him for that. I hate him enough as it is, but some pathetic mumbling about a bad marriage or money troubles or horrible sex lives or whatever else married couples fight about would push me right over the edge.

“But.” I swallow. “You don’t wear a ring. You weren’t wearing one the first night we met. I would have noticed.”

“I….” His voice fades, and his eyes dart wildly around the room. He sighs. “The first time I met you—I had taken it off that week. To see what it felt like. I… was thinking of leaving. I haven’t been happy for a long time. And after that, I didn’t know how to put it back on.” He splays his hands out helplessly. “How to tell you.”

“How long have you been married?” I hiss this.

“Ten years.” His voice is hoarse, and my mind flits impossibly on the idea that it might be okay. He could leave his wife. No.
No.

“This is a thing you do, then? Just skip from affair to affair?” I’m wondering who else he’s slept with. I don’t even think about his wife.
His wife.
The anger is white hot behind my eyes, and my chest aches. Oh, my God. I’ve never been so stupid. Anyone would have seen this. All his stupid vague answers that I just let go—on some level, I must have known. “I’m so stupid.”

He takes a step forward and reaches out to touch my arm. “No. Karen, no. You’re the first—”

I swat his hand away. “Don’t you touch me
.
You don’t get to touch me.” My temper flares, the one that made me throw the mug at Scott, and I close my eyes to steady my breathing. My pulse throbs in my temples. “Why?”

“Why what?” Greg asks, dumbly.

“Why did you pick me to screw over? Why did you make me fall in love with you? Why did you let me
do this?” I realize that I’m yelling at him, and I don’t care. I pursued him, and he let me. He takes a step back, his eyes wide. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? You tried to tell me. That first night, you said, ‘Wait, I have to tell you something.’ Was this the something? Is this my fault?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not what I wanted, either. Don’t you see that? This has been killing me.” He tries to touch my arm again, and I slap his hands away, paddling at him with both hands. I can’t even stand to think about his hands on my skin. “I didn’t set out to do this. I fell in love with you, too, and I didn’t know that it was possible to love two people at the same time. But you and Claire are so different—”

“Claire?”

“My wife.”

I sit on the floor, the strap of my dress hanging off the side of my shoulder, and I don’t even bother to fix it. “I don’t want to know her name!” I pound the floor with my fist. I don’t want to know anything about her or his life. I don’t want his excuses or his lies about his unhappy—or maybe happy—marriage. Her name, Claire
,
sits under my tongue like sand in an oyster shell that will never pearl, gritty and bitter, and I swallow it.
His fucking wife.

“Karen, I’m sorry. Please.” He’s crying, too, and he sits next to me, not touching me because he knows better now.

“I don’t care about your sorry. Why?” I stand up and pace around the room, to the couch, the TV. I pick up a candle, put it back. Hard. The television rattles. “Why did you seek me out?”

“I didn’t seek you out! Not really. I was attracted to you at the bar, and then you got hit, and everything snowballed. I wanted to help you, and no one else was helping you—”

“So I was a fucking charity case to you? Did you sleep with me out of pity?”

“Karen, stop. That’s ridiculous. I didn’t set out for this to happen. It just happened
.
”

“No. It didn’t just happen. You knew you were married, and I did not. You let this happen.”

He’s silent for a moment. “You’re right. I let this happen.” His voice is soft and hoarse, and I’m so angry I can feel it vibrating all the way down to my toes, but still, somehow, I want to touch him. I want to reach out and comfort him
.
It makes no sense, and I won’t do it. I refuse. His back is bare, and I stare at it and remember kissing up the dip in his spine, my hands splayed across his shoulder blades, my nakedness against his nakedness, all my
I love yous
whispered into nothingness, into the wind because I was saying them to someone who should not, could not love me back.

“I loved you.” I push the heel of my hand into my forehead. “I still do love you
.
And that’s the shit of it all. I still do, and I’m going to for a long time. You have to live with this. You hurt me. You did this.” I take a deep breath, ragged and shaking. “I let you know me. Now you know me when no one else does, and you have to deal with that.”

“Karen, please. I’m so sorry. I love you, too. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t say that. Can you understand?”

“But you can tell me now?” I stand across the room, my arms folded tightly across my middle.

He opens his mouth, closes it. “I don’t know. I’ve been falling apart inside for months. I couldn’t tell you, but then sometimes it seemed like you were my…. salvation. I couldn’t leave this. My marriage is… was…”

I hold up my hand. “I don’t want to know about your marriage.” But as soon as I say it, I realize it’s a total lie. I want to know everything about his marriage. I want him to justify staying here with me, for this to continue. I want him to leave her. I am the other woman. This happens in movies, dammit, and he needs to leave her.

“Would you leave her? Your wife?”

His leg peeks out from under the towel, his thigh, all the way up to his hip, and it’s so vulnerable and pale, the part that no one sees. The intimacy of it is shocking, all that coarse, light hair curling around the skin of his thigh. He stands and picks up the bag. His movements are slow, underwater and thick. He walks to the bathroom, and the door clicks shut. I hear him getting dressed, a soft, muffled rustling. I imagine him coming out of the bathroom, holding me, kissing me, wanting only me. I dig my nails into my arm. It’s so goddamn pathetic that I would want that. Where is my self-respect? I channel Amy. She’d shake my shoulders and say, “What is wrong with you?” She’d never grovel for a man, married or not. At least, she never did.

Everything. Everything is wrong with me. I want this, more than anything. I want him to choose me, to pick me, to grab me and kiss me and make love to me on the floor of my living room with no secrets and no lies. I want him to tell me it’s always been me, all along, and he didn’t know true love until he met me. I want him to tell me he’s leaving her. He’ll move to Toronto. He’ll marry me.

The door to the bathroom opens, and his bag is zipped. It’s closed. Over. Passion doesn’t stop to zip a bag.

“Would you leave her?” I ask again. This time, I square my shoulders because I know the answer.

“Karen, please don’t do this. I love you. I love both of you. I didn’t know that was possible—”

“Stop saying that. Just stop it. It’s easy. Yes or no? Will you leave your wife? For me?” I don’t even think of her, of who she is or what she wants, or if she knows that her husband has been having an affair. I don’t consider her at all, actually, and I can’t because if I think of who she might be, if she has dark hair or long hair, or short hair, or if she is thin or curvy or voluptuous like Scott’s Rosa, or bony-thin like me, I might come undone. Right there, I think I could come undone.

She is a flat, paper cardboard person to me, the outline of a woman with no personality. I can’t think of her, whether she likes to read or play chess or plays piano or writes poetry. I can’t ask if she is mousy or shy or loud or abrasive or flirty or prim. I don’t want to know any of these things. I just need to know one thing.
Will he leave her for me?

“No.” He reaches out to touch me again, and this time I let him, his hand falling heavy and awkward on my shoulder. When I look at his face, he’s crying real, fat tears. I’ve never seen a man cry before, not Pete or Scott or my father. I touch his face. My hand comes away wet.

I sob, curled into a ball, my face shoved between my knees. My dress bunches up around my waist and the carpet is rough and scratchy on my bare bottom. I don’t even care what Greg can see, how I must look to him. I wonder if his wife is undignified or emotional. No. I don’t want to know anything about her. She is a cardboard person. “You need to leave.”

“Please, Karen. Not like this, I can’t leave you like this.” He’s choking and inching toward me, trying to touch me. I kick at him.

“Just get out. Now.” And then I lean toward him and scream it in his face. “Now!” He backs away slowly, and I can tell I’ve made this easier by losing my cool, by coming undone. No guy likes the crazy chick, the one who screams and kicks and hits and bites. I’m not usually her, but I think of my temper and my broken thrown mugs.

He picks up his bag and leaves in two easy steps. The door closes softly behind him. I lean against it, wondering if he’s on the other side, waiting for me to open it. But I won’t—I can’t—look through the peephole. I don’t hear him walk away. I go to the bathroom, take his towel that he’s hung neatly over the towel rod, and bring it to my nose. It’s still damp and smells like his soap. I hold it against my face to muffle the sound of my sob. If he’s in the hallway, he won’t hear me. I bite into it, the terry cloth between my teeth, the bitter residue of men’s shower soap popping on my tongue.

I stare at the door and fight against all the muscles in my body not to run across the room, fling it open, and call him back. Instead, I sit on the floor and stare at the door, wrapped in a wet towel, and I cry.

I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.

Chapter 10

T
he bus ride to New York is six hours long, and I sleep for much of it, alternately gazing out the window and trying to hide the fact that I’m crying. My stomach slides around inside, sick and cramping. Amy sits next to me but doesn’t say much. I tell her the bare bones of what has happened with Greg, and she responds with a soft cluck of her tongue and an “
I’m so sorry.
” The trip will be a reprieve, I tell myself. Greg has been gone a week, and I’ve become hopelessly addicted to crime drama shows. I watch one after the other:
CSI
,
Law and Order
,
NCIS
,
Criminal Minds.
My head is so full of murder and violence, I jump at every little noise in the house, every bang from the apartments downstairs or next door.

We have four performances and a matinee, a visiting orchestra playing for a Vivaldi festival at Lincoln Center. I miss performing. I miss standing on the stage at the end of a show, the applause thundering in my ears and under my feet. I sit out the performances but watch from the wings, and my chest aches. I miss Greg.

“I’m glad you’re back.” When I turn around, Calloway stands in the wings, post-show, his trombone resting against his leg. He gives me a sideways smile, and I smile back weakly.

“I’m glad I’m back, too. It’s weird, but it’s good.” I’m putting away my unused violin and bow, tucking it into the velvet-lined case and Velcroing shut all the elastic to keep it from moving around in the undercarriage of the bus. I turn the screw on the bow twice to loosen the hair. It’s been mostly unused, but it feels good to go through the motions, packing and unpacking, polishing the wood with Shar, the sharp citrus odor stinging my nostrils. I inspect the strings, replacing one, and refill the Dampit with water. I’ve always been meticulous when it comes to maintenance, and returning to it feels ritualistic and comfortable, my hands and my mind focused and busy.

Cal hovers, searches for what to say next, and I don’t help him. “Long break?”

“Maybe? Feels both too long and too short.” I shrug. “I haven’t gone this long without performing since I was ten.”

He laughs. “Me too. It’s in our blood.” He taps his fingertips against the curve of his horn. “Did you miss it?”

“I don’t know. Yes and no. I guess I’m a little lost as to what I want.” I didn’t mean to offer that, but I realize then that it’s true. I do miss performing.

“Have you considered teaching?”

“No. Teaching is what people do when they can’t hack it here.”

“That’s not true,” he protests, but it dies in his throat because he knows it’s a lie. He shifts his weight one way then the other. I inspect the fingerboard until he sighs and says, “Talk to ya later,” and wanders away.

“Who’s that again?” Amy whispers and nods in Calloway’s direction.

“Calloway. He’s new.” I snap the clasps on the case and turn to face her, but she’s craning her neck, peering around me where Cal wandered.

“He’s cute.”

“He seems nice. Go for it.” I take a deep breath and turn toward the exit. The buses wait, ready to take us home.
Home.

“I might,” she murmurs. When I turn back, she’s gone, and I spy her chatting with Cal, her hand resting on his arm. He laughs at something she says.

I board the bus and sit alone, which actually feels like a relief.

The deadbolt has been replaced. It’s the first thing I notice as I stand on Paula’s front step, inspecting the chipped and peeling black paint of her front door. The overnight bag in my hand feels heavy and stupid, and I don’t know what I’m doing here. I almost walk away. I imagine going back to my empty apartment, watching another hour of
NCIS.
I’m here because I can’t be home. I’m here because I need my mother, and she needs me, whether she knows it or not.

I’ve been back from New York for three weeks. Greg has been gone a little over a month. The hollow, empty rattling in my gut is lessening but not going away. I never believed in the physical pain of a broken heart, but I realize now it was because I’d never had one. I know Greg isn’t coming back, and I’m certainly not chasing after him. I sent one wayward text a week ago, and it came back to me. I called his number a few times, but all I got back was a tinny voice suggesting I check the number and try again. He isn’t leaving his wife for me, and the night he left my apartment is likely the last time I’ll ever see him. Sometimes, I wonder if I made him up.

I’ve thrown myself into rehearsals, trying to recapture the skill I know I’ve lost. My life, by all outward appearances, is back on track. It’s my insides that are a mess. Cal’s words, “
why don’t you teach?
” rattle around my brain, banging against the inside of my skull, demanding my attention. I am plagued with memories of Greg: everything from the way he murmured lightly in his sleep, his fingertips grazing across his lips, to the way he always let me spear the last shrimp from his plate. I have one photo strip, from the shopping mall downtown, that shows our faces pressed together, laughing, kissing. I miss, most of all, someone to be silly with. I think of Scott with his high energy and racing thoughts and how we never did that. We were always so focused. And now, I wish Greg had been a bit more sensible. We’ve been so stupid.

I have decisions to make, and I need my mother.

I ring the bell, twice. I flash on a vision of Paula passed out on her bed in the clothes she wore the night before, one arm dangling off the bed, her earrings tangled in her hair. It’s noon, but it’s happened before.

“Hold on!” Paula yells from inside, and I hear the new dead bolt slide out of place. She opens the door, and her mouth sags. She couldn’t look more shocked if I was a clown with a party bag.

“Hi.” I try to smile, but it dies somewhere mid-cheek.

She puts a hand to her mouth. “Did you come to yell at me?” She closes her eyes. “Because… I can’t do this. Fight with you, I mean.”

“Nope.” I hold up my overnight bag. “I’m here to stay. For a few days.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Karen. I’m sober.”

I almost snort but catch myself. I study her. Her skin is clear. The fog that had settled over her irises the past few years—a gray-green cloud over the blue—is gone. Her cheeks are pink. She’s wearing ChapStick, not bright-red lipstick, feathered and smeared from the night before. Her eyelashes are bare. She’s wearing a chic tracksuit and a pair of bright white sneakers. New.

I haven’t seen her for two months, and by God, she
is
sober. Her chin juts defiantly as she dares me to argue with her.

“Why are you here?” Her shoulders round, and her eyes narrow defensively.

“Because I need you.” I take a deep breath.

“Bullshit. You haven’t needed me a day in your life.” She laughs, dry and barky.

“Well,” I try to come up with the right words: the true, honest words. That’s always been our problem, Paula’s and mine. So little of what we’ve said to each other has been genuine. I haven’t had empathy for Paula for as long as I can remember. “You’re my mother. I’m your daughter.” I square my shoulders and hold her gaze.

She is smaller than me, slighter than me, and has always seemed younger. She steps forward and folds me into her arms. Her scrawny, veined arms, usually adorned with gold bracelets and clattering costume jewelry, today are startlingly bare. I rest my cheek on her pointy shoulder. We stand like that for a moment, and I revel in the feeling of hugging my mother, something I haven’t done in a very long time. I feel her ribs against my fingertips, through the cotton of her shirt. She smells like baby powder and laundry detergent and not a bit like vodka. Nothing about it feels familiar.

“You left me in jail,” she finally says.

“I know.” I sniff against her shoulder. I don’t apologize because I’m not sorry, and I’m trying on this real-and-true thing.

“I’m going to be a better mother, Karen.” She pats my shoulder, too casual about this admission. She’s never acknowledged that she was anything but a perfect mother. I don’t breathe, and I don’t know what to say back.

She steps back and holds the door open. I peer inside. The house looks clean, like the house from my childhood. From the far reaches of the kitchen, I smell a pot roast, and I almost expect to see Daddy at the counter, reading the paper.

“Can I stay for a few days?” I hold up my overnight bag.

“Not like I’d throw you out into the street.” She smirks, and I know this is Paula being Paula, trying every which way to let me know that I’ve hurt her, neglected her, that all the fissures in our relationship are my
fault. In the past, I would have snapped back at her, muttered some insult under my breath. I bite my tongue and walk past her, into the house.

“Did Pete fix the door?”

“He’s been around once a week to do some light repairs for me. This house is too much by myself.” She pats her hair into place and looks around.

“How long have you been sober?” I ask her, partially out of meanness because old habits die hard and also because, to Paula, sober was a temporary lifestyle, the way normal people refer to holidays.
Oh, it’s Christmas. I haven’t quite gotten to the PTA newsletter this month.

“Since the day you left me in jail.” She walks into the kitchen, and I follow, dropping my bag next to the couch where Daddy used to stow his briefcase. I wonder how many times she’s going to work it in because I’ve been here five minutes, and the ticker is up to two.

“You’ve said this before.” I say it gently, not trying to be mean.

“I know. But…” She pours me iced tea and avoids my eyes, but I can see a small smile playing at her lips. “I’ve gone to AA.”

I almost drop my glass. Paula always called AA
Arrogant Assholes
and claimed that if you ever found her in the dark basement of a rec center, you could just kill her because she’d already lost her soul.

She smirks a little, like she enjoys the look on my face. “So tell me. Why are you really here?”

I take a long drink of my iced tea. It tastes freshly brewed, sweet and cold, faintly like the summer days of my childhood. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I say something I’ve never said to my mother, maybe not even when I was a little girl.

“Because I need help.”