by Kate Russo
“Congratulations to you, too.”
“Thank you,” he says, though he feels hollow, aware that he doesn’t deserve her good wishes even a little bit. “Mia doesn’t know yet.”
“Right . . .”
“I’ll tell her before she comes to visit you, but don’t say anything, please.”
“I won’t. But tell her, Bennett.”
“I will.”
“Is that it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Pretty much?”
“I’m sorry,” he manages, half choking on the words. Then, “I’m sorry I made you feel invisible.”
The line goes quiet, again, as he tries desperately to fight back sobs.
“You’re an excellent father, Bennett. This baby is going to be lucky to have you.”
But a terrible husband, she seems to imply. He’s getting better at understanding insinuations. Still, he thinks, the compliment is more than he deserves. “Thank you. That’s it, I guess.” It certainly feels like that’s it. He waits a beat, just in case it isn’t, before hanging up.
* * *
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By the time he gets back to the Claret, the blood vessels in his eyes are broken, throbbing. Claire doesn’t seem to notice. She’s in her own world, polishing wineglasses and stacking them on the shelves behind her. He sets her spring rolls in their plastic container on the bar.
“Hungry?”
“Not really,” she says.
“You should eat.”
She squints, stuck between anger and relief. At least he’s thinking about her that much. Even he can read that thought.
“I’ll polish the glasses, you eat.” He pushes the spring rolls toward her and holds out his other hand for the polishing cloth, which she hands over, reluctantly.
“How was dinner?” she asks.
“Illuminating.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not the only person in the world that wants to punch me. You’ll have to get in line.”
She looks like she’d like to smile, but there’s no way she’s giving in that quickly.
It occurs to him that Kirstie is probably the one person that doesn’t want to punch him. Strange. Mia accused him of giving up too easily, but earlier Kirstie praised him for not giving up. He’d like to accept Kirstie’s opinion and reject those of the other women in his life, but he knows that’s not right. He wants to believe Kirstie understands him best because she likes him best, but liking and understanding aren’t the same thing, no matter how much he wishes they were.
Claire dips a spring roll in the accompanying sweet chili sauce. “I don’t want to punch you,” she says in a less than convincing tone. “I don’t think that’ll have any effect on you whatsoever.”
Bit harsh.
“Might make you feel better?” he says, wiping the rim of a wineglass with the cloth.
“Only one thing is going to make me feel better.”
For the love of God, what is it?
“I want you to think about me the way you think about her.”
He’s not sure whether she’s talking about Eliza or Kirstie.
Don’t ask.
She looks him in the eye, like she’s challenging him to another staring contest, but he lets her win right away, averting his eyes back to the glass in his hand, before she can see he’s been crying.
“You pushed me away,” he says. That’s true, isn’t? Didn’t she?
She drops her spring roll back in the plastic container. “Actually, I asked you to move in with me, which is quite the opposite.”
Oh yeah. Right.
“Well, I think we should revisit that conversation.”
“Do you?”
“I’m going to sell my house.”
“Are you?” She leans forward, predatory.
Jesus, the questions.
“Because you mentioned that yesterday,” she says, accusatory. “Have you called an estate agent? Told your ‘guest’”—she uses air quotes—“that she needs to find another place to live?”
“Not yet.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s been one day. You wouldn’t even talk to me yesterday,” he says, raising his voice, which sounds hoarse, unfamiliar.
“So you need me to hold your hand? Stroke your head and say ‘good boy’ every step of the way?”
“Come on!”
“In order to do the right thing, you need me to stop being angry with you? Is that right?”
Yes.
“Bennett, you’d put a crib in that stupid studio of yours, I know you would. I don’t want my baby breathing in your paint fumes.”
You loved that “stupid studio.”
“I’m telling you, I’ll sell the house,” he says, emphatically.
“Tomorrow? You’ll call an estate agent tomorrow? And you’ll tell her tomorrow that she needs to move?”
“Yes,” far less emphatic this time.
She shakes her head in disbelief.
“Claire, I’m trying.”
“You always say that. You shouldn’t have to try so hard.”
This can’t be what she wants, he thinks, for the two of them to have a baby. Why can’t she just admit that this isn’t ideal for either of them? Not right now. It’s like she wants him to say this baby is everything he’s ever hoped for.
Well, it’s not.
“I’m still getting my head around this. Can you be patient with me?”
“I think you have feelings for that woman in your house.”
“Claire—”
“Tell me you don’t,” she interrupts.
“Claire . . .” She doesn’t interrupt this time, so he just lets his voice fall because he doesn’t know what to say.
“I think if I wasn’t pregnant, you’d have left me for her by now. Am I right?”
Why does she insist on knowing the truth, even when it’ll crush her?
“We’ve become close friends.”
That response seems to hurt her just as much as the truth would have, and she puts her face in her hands. After a couple seconds of silence, he can hear her start to weep, her stomach pulsing with the tiny gasps.
He abandons the cloth and the wineglass and walks around to the other side of the bar, uninvited, to wrap his arms around her. She wails in a way that he remembers Eliza wailing when she was pregnant and hormonal over any little thing. This though, he knows, is not little. She eventually gives in to his embrace and wraps her arms around his waist.
“We’re not friends, are we?” She sobs into his collarbone.
“Of course, we are.”
“I slept with you too soon.”
He can’t help but laugh a little at that, as though none of this would have happened if they’d just gone to dinner and a movie first.
“Don’t laugh.”
“Sorry,” he says. He kisses her forehead and sways her gently, back and forth. “I started another painting of you.”
“Are you asking for permission or forgiveness this time?”
He steps back so he can look at her and smiles. “It’s from the sketch I made of you here. It’s going to be even better than the other two.”
“Have you done any paintings of her?”
“No. None.”
She smiles, but only for a second. “You never painted your ex-wife, either.” She buries her head under his chin.
“If I do a painting of Kirstie, will that make you feel better?”
“No,” she says, muffled, but it still sounds assertive.
Unsure of his next move, he just holds her, feeling the front of his shirt getting damp. Their child is probably about the size of an avocado pit, he thinks, as her stomach presses up against his. He wonders if she kn
ows she’s carrying around a human the size of an avocado pit. Probably. He decides to take a different approach.
“Mia really likes you,” he says, when her crying begins to subside.
“I know,” she says, wiping her eyes on Bennett’s sleeve. “She said she thought I was good for you.”
He tries to picture the moment they had this exchange, maybe when he was in the bathroom, when Mia could sense that Claire was angry? What had possessed his daughter to make such a bold claim? If Mia knows him better than anyone, as she certainly established tonight, maybe she’s right? Maybe Claire is good for him. He just wishes he knew why. He lifts her chin and kisses her, a strategy that’s worked for them up to this point, whenever they’ve run out of words. She’s reluctant at first, but it’s not long before she gives in, gripping the back of his neck and pulling him down to her. She runs her fingers through his hair, always her most sincere form of affection. It makes the hairs on his arms stand up. “Let’s finish up and get you home.” He pulls away, intending to return to his polishing, but she pulls him back to her, clasping both his hands in hers. He smiles at her because she looks, suddenly, very serious—not upset, just serious. “What?”
“I love you.”
When it comes to love, Bennett’s only ever had three solid reference points. The first is his mother, the only member of his family that he loved voluntarily. He supposes he loved his father out of obligation, because when he was growing up he was told that he did, even though he wasn’t so sure. His mother was different. He would’ve loved her regardless. Kind and sweet, she might have been naive, but she possessed an optimism that was like an alien force in the Driscoll family, always making lemonade out of the rotten piles of lemons that life kept tossing her. For whatever reason, Helen saw herself as the keeper of an alternative, syrupy reality, and she believed in Bennett probably more than anyone with a lick of common sense would have. It was her belief that had allowed him to dream, to imagine, to paint.
Loving Eliza had been a whole different story. Unlike Helen, reality was her default mode. She was the first person to trust him, which is what makes Mia’s recent revelations about his ex-wife’s feelings of abandonment all the more difficult to bear. She was the first woman he slept with who didn’t immediately cover herself with a sheet after the act. As cruel as she was kind, she’d been driven by her dedication to the truth. Her standards were impossibly high. She was a pain in the arse. She absolutely could not relax, ever, and she wanted Bennett at her side for every jaw-clenching minute. In the early going, her love for him could only have been described as fierce. She rallied behind him when he was down, encouraged him when he was unsure, and more than once called her father-in-law a “spineless twat” to his face, because, to her mind, he deserved to know. Bennett had never known love like it before. It didn’t come easily. He had to earn it. He wanted to earn it.
His love for Mia came the easiest. Well, it rolled in like a freight train, but it’s certainly the purest, the most all-encompassing form of love he’s ever experienced. The one that he knows is truly unconditional.
He’s not sure where any of this leaves him, now, standing here with Claire. The truest expression of his feelings in this moment would be “I want to love you,” but he knows he can’t say that. He can’t even be sure that what he feels for her isn’t love. If all love is different, how can anyone ever be sure? It’s not like he can expect himself to feel for Claire what he felt for Eliza. There are lots of things he loves about Claire: her smile, her feistiness, her tits (of course), her confidence behind the bar, even her impatience. Maybe, if he hadn’t met Kirstie, he’d be in love with Claire. And who’s to say you can’t love two people at once, if they give you different things?
Claire, that’s who. He has no doubt she’d tell him exactly why he can’t love two people at once. It would probably be a really smart, really simple answer that he could never come up with on his own. He loves that about her, too, her clarity.
Would she even believe him if he said he loves her, too? After all, she accused him of having feelings for another woman not thirty minutes ago. Behind all her worrying, her eye rolls, and her complaints, he knows that, ultimately, Claire is a hopeful person. She’s a born optimist who’s burned, daily, by the shortcomings of everyone around her. In this moment, she’s still hopeful that he’ll say he loves her, too. What’s worse? To say “I love you” when he’s not sure, or to tell her he needs more time, which could crush her? Maybe she didn’t mean it as seriously as all that? Maybe it’s just like, “Love you, man.”
Probably not.
She’s been watching him this whole time, although he’s not sure how long that’s been. Nor can he judge what expression he’s wearing on his face. Brave smile? Sheer terror? Eventually, he runs out of time and she has her answer.
“Just promise me”—she tells him, looking at her feet—“you’ll love the baby like you do Mia.”
You’re a twat, Bennett.
“Of course, I will.”
She pulls away. “You should head home. I’ll finish up here.”
“I thought I was coming home with you?”
She looks up at him, her eyes bloodshot, finally out of tears. “What’s the point?”
What’s the point?
He runs his hand through his hair and looks at her one more time, hoping to convey with his eyes what he’s too cowardly to put into words.
I want to love you, I will love you, just give me a little time.
“Go on, go,” she says.
“I’m calling an estate agent tomorrow,” he tells her, coming out from behind the bar, still determined to show her he’s doing his best, though he knows he should be capable of more than this.
“Okay,” she says, picking up the cloth and the glass Bennett abandoned.
“I’ll call you when it’s done.” He lingers between the bar and the door. “When is the baby due?”
Her back to him, she answers, “November second. Mark your calendar.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Of course she’s not alright.
“Bennett . . .”
“Right.” He pushes on the door. “Good night.”
“Thank you for the spring rolls.”
Spring rolls? Is that all I have to give?
* * *
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When he gets back to the house, all the lights are still on. He knocks on the back door and Kirstie turns around on the sofa. She’s been watching some crime show; two cops are chasing a man to the edge of a cliff where stones cascade to the water below. Bennett waves sheepishly through the glass. Kirstie returns his wave with a frown before turning down the volume and getting up. She’s changed out of her wrap dress into a loose fitting pink T-shirt and a pair of gingham pajama bottoms. Her hair is tied up in a bun that reveals her grey roots.
“Why are you knocking on your own door, you daft banana?” she asks, letting him in. “What happened? What are you doing back?” She takes his hand and leads him to the sofa.
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“The beginning, darling.” She sits down on the sofa and pulls him down with her.
He takes a deep breath. “I need to sell the house, Kirstie,” he just says it, like ripping off a plaster. “I need to list it tomorrow.”
“I know.” She nods, sensing his urgency.
“I’m sorry, really I am. Wait. How?”
She puts her hand on his leg. “She’s pregnant? Your pretty girlfriend?”
“How did you know all this?”
“If I said women’s intuition would you believe me?”
Probably.
“In your studio this morning, there was a notebook open to a page that said, ‘Facts: Claire is pregnant’ and ‘I need to sell the house.’”
“So, the exact opposite of intuition, then.”
She smiles. “Just nosy. What happens now?”
“Fuck, if I know,” he says, staring at the TV screen, where a clean-shaven silver fox is putting handcuffs on a scruffy-looking man, who Bennett can’t help but think looks a little like him. “I need to sell this house. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”
“You’ll figure it out,” she says, stroking his knee. “You’ve done this before.”
“Not like this, I haven’t. This isn’t ideal.”
“Oh please, when was the last time anything in your life could be described as ‘ideal’?”
He thinks back, but nothing in the last ten years, maybe even further, comes to mind. “Fair enough,” he concedes. “If you found out you were having another kid, how do you think you’d handle it?”
She chuckles. “Darling, that ship has sailed.”
He looks at her. Oh yeah.
“You’ll be fine,” she reassures him. “You two will figure it out, together.”
“Claire thinks I have feelings for you.”
She takes her hand off his leg. “Well, tell her you don’t.”
He faces her. “What if I do?”
She scoots down to the other end of the sofa. “Tell her you don’t.”
When he starts to say that he does a second time, she cuts him off. “Being a single mother is lonely. Lonelier than anything you can imagine.” (Yes, even lonelier than a divorced man in his fifties—he twigs this implication as well.) Her eye contact is suddenly very urgent and very serious. He doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t dare look away.
“I’m not going to let her do it alone.”
“That’s not enough, Bennett.”
Uh-oh. No more “darling.”
“She needs a real partner, someone who intends to sacrifice as much as she has to for this child.”
He nods, aware he’s been caught out. He’s somehow forgotten that above all, courage involves sacrifice. Fighting for something isn’t a real fight unless you know what you’re prepared to give up and what you’re willing to break bones to keep.
The silver fox on the TV now has his arm around a young blonde. They stand on the cliffside looking out to sea. “How can I ever repay you?” she asks.