A Good Man

by Ani Katz

  We appreciate you being here, Mr. Martin.

  Did I have a choice? I retorted. The HR woman ignored the remark, cleared her throat again.

  I’ll come right to the point, she said. Serious concerns about your conduct have been brought to our attention in recent days, and we need to address the accusations with you before proceeding.

  Before proceeding with what? I demanded. What accusations?

  Mr. Martin, please. You are familiar with Ms. Abigail Landry?

  Abigail licking her lips. Abigail laughing. Abigail wriggling, Abigail unbuttoning. Abigail crying. A wave of nausea rocked through me, roiling my gut.

  Yes, I said. I know her.

  Ms. Landry has filed an extensively documented complaint against you alleging a long-standing pattern of sexual harassment and assault.

  All sound left the room. I watched the HR woman’s mouth moving, but could not hear what she was saying. I swallowed hard and the sound came back.

  Central to Ms. Landry’s complaint is an evening this past December, shortly before the holidays, the HR woman was saying. Ms. Landry maintains that, after working very late on an important presentation, you pressured her to drink until she blacked out. She contends that you then coerced her into performing sexual acts on you, and that you only allowed her to stop when she became physically incapacitated and could no longer move.

  I thought back to that night, remembered Abigail draping herself over me, remembered her rubbing her body against mine, unbuttoning my fly. There had been no coercion—she had insisted, and I had refused. That was how I remembered it.

  That’s not what happened, I said finally. I know what you’re talking about, and that is not at all what happened that night.

  I’m afraid that’s not the only incident in the complaint. Ms. Landry has recorded a number of incidents over the course of the last two years.

  That’s not possible.

  Do you recall anything about the company Christmas party the year Ms. Landry was hired?

  No.

  Or taking her home in a car service one night last June?

  No. No, of course I don’t remember that. None of this makes any sense.

  Ms. Landry maintains that you consistently pressure her to stay late and drink with you, and that you yourself frequently drink to excess in her company.

  That’s not true.

  She says that when you drink you become physical with her, and she feels obligated to respond to your sexual advances because she fears you will become violent and vindictive if she does not.

  No.

  She says your behavior creates a hostile work environment and has caused her acute physical and psychological distress. She is afraid to come to work and has confessed to self-harm and suicidal ideation.

  It was a story fit for a failed writer like Abigail, a sordid and predictable piece of garbage. I couldn’t believe she had the balls to share it with the public.

  But this is completely unfounded, I protested. This is a classic case of her word against mine. It doesn’t mean anything.

  Mrs. Bloom also supports Ms. Landry’s version of events. She coauthored all the documentation dating back over the last six months.

  I looked down at the pages again, trying to read them, to see what they said about me and what I had done. What I had allegedly done.

  May I see them? I asked. The notes?

  I’m afraid that’s not possible.

  Then I want to speak to Carly. Mrs. Bloom, I mean.

  I’m sorry, Mr. Martin. As you know, Mrs. Bloom is on maternity leave, and in any case, I highly doubt her attorney would allow any direct contact at this stage.

  Well why aren’t we having a mediation? I asked. Isn’t that how these things usually work? Don’t I get to face my accuser?

  Ms. Landry and her attorney felt she might be in danger.

  Oh, bullshit! I’ve been nothing but a gentleman and mentor to Abigail—to Ms. Landry—ever since she was hired here.

  That is not what the documentation shows.

  But she came on to me! If anything I should be accusing her of misconduct.

  Anyone could see that she wasn’t my type at all—pasty, fattened with butter and grain. How had I ever entertained even a feigned attraction to that bloated chunk of flesh? She was nothing but trash from a cancerous, incestuous swamp. No wonder she’d decided to accuse me; I was a step up for her.

  Mr. Martin, we understand that there can be gray area, and that lines can be blurry. We know stories can change based on who tells them. But the documentation is so thorough—and there are witnesses too, you know. Unfortunately the pattern is impossible to ignore. And with everything happening in the industry now, management simply can’t let these things slide.

  Then why even bother talking to me about it?

  The woman looked irritated then, a flash of disgust flitting into her eyes before she could stop it.

  If there were specific evidence to exonerate you, then we may have been able to come to a different conclusion, she said, an edge to her voice now. However, that does not seem to be the case. In any event, we were legally obligated to speak to you before proceeding with termination.

  I blinked.

  I’m fired?

  Yes, Mr. Martin. We are terminating your employment, as of today.

  A very long pause.

  We also suggest you retain a lawyer. That is if you don’t already have one, the woman added. There are some firms we can recommend, if you’d like.

  I’ll admit it, I almost laughed then. They were being totally irrational, completely delusional. After everything I’d done for this firm, they couldn’t do this to me.

  Where’s Greg? I asked. I want to see Greg. He should be here for this.

  Mr. Conroy accepts the decision of human resources, and seeks to avoid exposing the firm to any further threat of legal action. He will not be involving himself any more than he already has.

  Suddenly it had become difficult to breathe. I had wanted to deny these suits the satisfaction of a hysterical response, but now I knew that would be impossible. Sweat soaked my shirt. A buzzing had begun in my left ear, and as I sat there the sound sharpened to a piercing shriek, a needle in my skull. I had been abandoned and betrayed, hung out to dry. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  Mr. Martin, are you in need of assistance?

  They were all gawking at me. Vultures, waiting for me to collapse so they could pick over my corpse and take whatever was left. I let out one long shudder of a sigh, passed my hand over my face.

  No, I said finally. No, thank you. I don’t need anything.

  I took almost nothing from my office. Just the photographs of the girls, the art that my daughter had made for me. I LovE DAdy.

  If this were a movie, I would have seen Abigail on my way out of the office for the last time. I would have caught sight of her behind the protective glass of a conference room, would have seen her red-faced, hiccupping with coloratura sobs as she milked her moment. The other women in the firm would surround her in sisterly solidarity, and they would lay their hands on her doughy limbs, propping her up and propelling her into what they promised would be a better future. She would stay, and I would go.

  Fat bitch. Whore.

  But I didn’t see her. I walked out without seeing anyone, without anyone saying anything to me. Then I was enclosed in the metal sarcophagus of the elevator, sinking to the earth. And finally I was out on the street, squinting into the heavy white sky of the overcast afternoon.

  Maybe I deserved it. Maybe this was my comeuppance, my punishment for the manifold ways I had failed over the years as a husband and father. There had been too many late nights, too much time that should have been spent with the girls that I had sacrificed at the altar of my own selfish striving.

  And for what? What had my sacrifice brough
t me, aside from ruin? Just like Tannhäuser, I had taken my position for granted, and because of my hubris I had been cast out of the grand halls where I once thrived, banished to seek atonement for my alleged sins. But how could I possibly atone now?

  Everything had been taken from me.

  * * *

  —

  On the drive home I thought about what to tell my wife. Certainly I didn’t have to tell her everything. I would not tell her about Abigail’s accusations, or anything about the things I had allegedly done. Emphasis on the allegedly, of course. But I would have to tell her I had lost my job. There was no getting around that, no hiding it from her.

  Could I tell her I had been fired without explaining why? Treat my termination as an act of God, an unforeseen challenge that, while catastrophic, we would overcome together? Things will either get better or worse. There’s nothing you can do about it now, so don’t worry. That’s what she told me months ago, consoling me when I doubted myself. Maybe she could console me now, even though I had wrecked both of our lives.

  It was dusk now, the street washed with shadows. As I rumbled down our gravel drive and approached the house I could see my wife framed in the kitchen window. I beheld her profile—her dark bowed head, her downward gaze absorbed by the laptop screen before her—and felt a surge of admiration for the beauty of her form. She had the warmth of a mother in a Cassatt, the elegance of an aristocrat in a Sargent—she always looked like a painting.

  Should I tell her now and get it over with? Or wait until our daughter was in bed and I had opened another bottle of wine? Wait until we were holding each other tenderly on the sofa, the way we used to when we were young?

  Get it over with, I decided.

  My keys rattled in my hand as I opened the side door and stepped into the kitchen. My wife turned and looked up at me, quick fingertip closing the browser window on the screen, her face brightening into a loving smile.

  How was your day, darling?

  And in that moment I knew I couldn’t tell her. I just couldn’t. Not right then. Not even that night. Instead I took her in my arms, pulling her backward against my chest with a passionate spontaneity that made her gasp, then laugh.

  My day? I murmured, kissing her neck. It was fine.

  Anything new?

  I held her closer and shut my eyes, listened to the pulse beating in her throat.

  No, I said. Nothing to report.

  And then she began to chatter on about the little events of her own day, and I knew I was safe. For the time being, at least.

  The next morning was like any other weekday morning. I woke up at five thirty and ran a brisk five-mile loop around the sleeping neighborhood—the cold white streetlights still burning, the lawns glimmering with dew, the sounds of my huffed breaths and pounding tread imposing a dogged rhythm on the silent dawn. Another overcast day, rain threatening. Then home again, a hot shower. Brewed coffee in the Chemex as the house began to stir. Two hard-boiled eggs, an apple, a tablespoon of almond butter—all of it eaten standing at the kitchen counter. I could hear my wife upstairs, pleading with my daughter to get up. Then the sputter and hush of the shower turned on, the stamped feet of an exhausted adolescent. The dog crouched below me, waiting for dropped morsels, sniffing the air expectantly. I scanned the day’s headlines on my phone: sarin gas attacks in Gaza, the secretary of state indicted for enslaving his housekeeper. On the radio, the ardent trio from the first scene of Don Giovanni (furious father, disgraced daughter, callow Casanova)—do not hope, unless you kill me, that I shall ever let you run away.

  Then my wife was downstairs, standing before me in her bare feet and the silk robe that I’d given her for her birthday last year, the one patterned with pale coral peonies. Her dark hair looked mussed and warm, and she smiled drowsily at me, her eyes still squinted with sleep. Just like any other weekday morning.

  What time will you be home tonight?

  The usual time, I said quickly. Not too late.

  Good. I’ll make dinner.

  That would be nice.

  Why don’t I roast a chicken? It’s always so much better than the store-bought.

  She was being so sweet to me, so loving and accommodating. A good wife.

  I felt ill.

  I’ve got to go, I said, armoring myself with my sports coat.

  Already?

  Got a client meeting first thing. Give our girl a kiss for me?

  Of course. And one for me?

  I stepped toward her. My wife closed her eyes, tipped her face upward. Her soft mouth was pressed to mine for a suspended moment, and then I was out the door. I got in my car, backed out of the driveway, and drove toward the expressway that would take me to the city, just as I always did.

  Except today I passed the bottleneck of station wagons and Suburbans turning onto the westbound entrance ramp, let the commuter traffic recede behind me. I loosened my tie, lifted it over my neck, and cast it onto the seat beside me. Then I followed the signs for the next entrance, eastbound.

  I drove east until the highway sprawl of strip malls and car dealerships gave way to the green of farmland and pine barrens, drove until I reached the purer part of the island. There was a small white clapboard house a few miles past the end of the expressway that sold wonderful pies and other products made from the fruit they grew themselves. The girls and I had always bought provisions here when we spent the weekend out east, my wife being particularly partial to their boysenberry jam and fresh-pressed peach juice.

  I pictured the three of us on one of these summer pilgrimages, my daughter in pale denim shorts, the heels of her bare feet propped against the backseat passenger-side window as she pouts into her phone, pivoting her head slightly to get the perfect shot, a pink tip of tongue protruding. My wife beside me, her jaw set in stoicism at the traffic, her oversize tortoiseshell sunglasses shielding her half-closed eyes.

  I stopped at the little store and spent twenty-six dollars on a blackberry apple pie, picked at its flushed and glutinous innards with a plastic spoon I found in the glove compartment while sitting alone in the parking lot.

  For the rest of the day I traversed the country roads of the North Fork, seeking out familiar landmarks. There was the roadside shack where my daughter had made a delighted mess cracking the claws of her first lobster; the bed-and-breakfast where the girls and I had once stayed, the one with the chickens and goats in the backyard; the vineyards my wife refused to patronize, insisting they would insult her sophisticated French palate; all the quaintly moldering towns named for Indian tribes our government had long ago decimated through disease and development. Midweek in the low season it seemed I could go for miles without encountering another car, but in another month or so these abandoned roads and quiet towns would be congested with the cars of vacationing families just like mine.

  Would we ever be able to count ourselves among them again?

  * * *

  —

  Late in the afternoon I got back on the expressway and headed west. It was still too early to go home, so I took the exit for the Ocean Parkway and crossed the bridge over the bay to the beach. The lot was deserted, the sea matte gray under a matte gray sky, deep hollows carved into the shore by the series of almost weekly nor’easters we’d had that spring. I walked along the surf for a while, watching for the black marks of boats on the barely perceptible horizon as seagulls shrieked overhead.

  Then I got back into the car. I read the news on my phone until it died and the screen went black. I may have fallen asleep—at some point I may have sobbed, my forehead pressed to the steering wheel—but in all honesty I can’t remember what else I did, how I passed the time until the evening.

  I do remember that I had to throw out the rest of the pie—it was my wife’s favorite kind, the blackberry apple, but I couldn’t possibly bring it back with me.

  I went home. Once again I rumbled do
wn the gravel drive, once again I could see my wife framed in the kitchen window as I approached the house. Once again I hesitated at the side door before going in, keys awkward in my hand. The kitchen was warm and inviting, rich with the smells of chicken fat and rosemary. My wife received me with a soft kiss and a glass of red wine, then turned back to the oven to check on the root vegetables roasting beneath the bird. A good wife, a truly good wife. A perfect picture of happiness. It was everything I had ever wanted, but now I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was merely a visitor in a dream—that I was living someone else’s life.

  How was your day, darling?

  Oh fine, I sighed, settling myself at the counter and sifting distractedly through the bills that had come in the mail. Hutch tuition. Electric. Amex. Home insurance.

  And your meeting?

  What meeting?

  The one you told me about this morning.

  I had forgotten. For several sickening seconds I struggled to invent something, anything, but after decades of experience spinning stories not even the flimsiest imaginary client or fictional pitch would come to mind. Not now, when I needed it most.

  I was rescued by my daughter, who chose that moment to come marching down the stairs. I had expected her to greet me with her usual elation at my homecoming, but this evening she looked grim, all bitten lip and huffed breath. She and my wife exchanged a sharp look, a current of resentment passing between them.

  What’s wrong, sweetheart? I asked, my voice light and even, grateful for the interruption. My daughter pushed herself into my arms and looked at my wife again, who turned away, shaking her head.

  Does Daddy know?

  I haven’t told him anything, my wife replied tersely, focusing her gaze on the cucumbers she was now slicing for the salad. You have to tell him.

  But Mommy—

  You tell him!

  My daughter sighed heavily, then pressed her cheek against my chest, her voice lowering to a baby-voiced whimper.

  I have a big project to do on The Call of the Wild, she whispered as I stroked her hair.