by John Hart
He smiled a wider smile and I saw that food was stuck in his teeth, something brown. “Good boy,” he said, trying to be friendly but sounding condescending. I tried to return his smile but couldn’t. A nod was the best I could do, and even that hurt. He wasn’t sure about me. I saw it in his eyes. Could I have killed Ezra? It was a question for him, and he would check my alibi. I also knew that he’d discussed this with Detective Mills. This was his county and a media case; he’d never sit on the sidelines. So he’d lied to me as I’d lied to him, and that meant one thing. Our friendship was dead, whether Douglas wanted it that way or not. He could hang someone for my father’s death tomorrow, but I could never go back. That bridge was smoking ash.
He left then, and I watched his wide back as he shuffled across the lot to his tired Chevrolet sedan. He got in and drove away. He never looked back, and I realized that he knew it, too. Ezra’s death was like a match dropped into damp tinder; it was a slow burn now, but only a matter of time until it flashed. I wondered what else would end a smoking ruin.
I started my own car and left the windows down. I drove my hair dry and smoked a couple of cigarettes to take away the smell of fresh soap. I thought of Vanessa’s face in the afternoon light. That’s what I would hold on to. How it started, not how it ended. Not what I would say to her the next time I caved to my weakness and sought redemption in her tender mercies.
I said her name once, then tucked it away.
It was almost six o’clock by the time I got home. I knew that something was off the minute I walked in. Candles perfumed the air and soft music played on the stereo. Barbara called from the kitchen and I answered her, dropping my jacket onto a chair back and moving slowly her way. She met me at the kitchen door with a glass of chilled white wine, a chardonnay that probably cost a fortune. She was wearing a smile and a very small black dress.
“Welcome home, baby,” she said, and kissed me. Her lips parted and I felt the tip of her tongue. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d called me baby, and the last time she kissed me that way, she’d been dead drunk. She pressed against me and, looking down, I saw her breasts swell from the top of her dress with the pressure. She wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Are you drunk?” I asked without thinking.
She didn’t flinch. “Not yet,” she said. “But two more glasses and you might get lucky.” She ground against me, making me vaguely uncomfortable. I felt out of my depth. I looked over the top of her head, saw the pot and pans simmering on the stove.
“Are you cooking?” I asked, surprised. Barbara rarely cooked.
“Beef Wellington,” she replied.
“What’s the occasion?”
She stepped back, put her wine on the counter. “An apology,” she said. “For the way I treated you last night. It was a bad time for you, a horrible time, and I could have been more supportive.” She cast her eyes down, but I didn’t believe her. “I should have been, Work. I should have been there for you.”
Barbara had not apologized to me in years, not for anything. I was struck dumb.
She took my hands and peered at me with what had to be mock concern. “Are you okay?” she asked, referring to my fall, I guessed. “I should have come to the hospital, I know, but I was still mad at you.” She made a pout of her lips and I knew that in her mind, that made everything okay. She turned away before I could respond and snatched up her wineglass. Her calm seemed less natural when half of the glass disappeared in one swallow. She turned again to face me and leaned against the sink, her eyes shiny. “So,” she began again, her voice too loud. “How was your day?”
I almost laughed. I almost slapped her, just to see what expression would appear on her perfectly prepared face. Somebody tried to kill me last night and you didn’t come to the hospital. I made love to a fragile and lonely woman, then ground her spirit into the dirt for reasons I’m too chickenshit to explore. My father is dead with a couple of bullets in his head, and the district attorney wants to know where I was on the night in question. I’d really like to choke the fake smile off your face, which, I think, means my marriage is in trouble. And my sister, whom I have failed in every possible way, hates me. And worst of all, this sister, whom I love—I’m pretty sure that she murdered our father.
“Fine,” I told her. “My day was fine. How was yours?”
“The same,” she said. “Go sit. The paper is on the table. Dinner will be ready in half an hour.”
“I’ll go change,” I said, and walked from the room on wooden feet. I felt things as I moved: the wall, the banister. What was real? What mattered? If I walked back into the kitchen with shit in my mouth, would she kiss me and tell me I tasted like chocolate?
I splashed water on my face and put on khakis and a cotton roll-neck sweater that Barbara had given me for Christmas several years back. I studied my face in the mirror, amazed at how complete it appeared, how calm and intact. Then I smiled and the illusion collapsed. I thought of the things Vanessa had said.
Barbara still stood at the stove when I walked back into the kitchen. Her glass was full again. She smiled as I poured more for myself. Wordlessly, we clinked glasses and drank. “Ten more minutes,” she said. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“Do you want me to set the table?” I asked.
“I’ve got it. Go and relax.”
I turned for the living room and the deep, soft couch. Ten minutes sounded good.
“Douglas stopped by,” my wife announced. I stopped and turned.
“What?”
“Yeah, a routine visit, he said. Just to talk about the night Ezra disappeared.”
“Routine,” I repeated.
“To fill in the blanks, he said. For his forms.”
“His forms.”
She looked quizzically at me. “Why are you repeating what I say?” she asked.
“Am I?”
“Yes. Almost every word.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was.”
“Honestly, Work.” She laughed. “Sometimes.” She turned back to the stove, her hand on a wooden spoon. I stood rooted, dimly aware that numbness was becoming my normal state of existence.
“What did you tell him?” I finally asked.
“The truth,” she said. “What else?”
“Of course the truth, Barbara, but what specifically?”
“Don’t snap at me, Work,” she said. “I’m trying . . .” She trailed off, gesturing with the spoon at the cluttered kitchen. Drops of something yellow landed on the counter and I stared at them because I couldn’t meet her eyes. When I did look up, I saw that she had her hand over her mouth and tears shimmered in eyes turned to the floor. Another man would have gone to her and put his arms around her, but my soul was already black with lies.
I gave her an awkward minute and she pulled herself together. “What did you tell him?” I asked again, more gently this time.
“Just what little I know. You’ve never told me much.” Her voice was small. “I told him that after going to the hospital with”—she paused, barely able to finish the sentence; she’d almost said my mother’s corpse—“with your mother, you went to your father’s house. Then you came here. I told him how upset you were, you and Jean.” She looked down again. “About how you two argued.”
I stopped her. “I told you about that?”
“Not what you argued about. Not the words. Just that you fought about something. You were very upset.”
“What else?”
“Jesus, Work. What is all this?”
“Just tell me, please.”
“Nothing else to tell. He wanted to know where you were that night and I told him you were here. He thanked me and left. That’s it.”
Thank God. But I had to test her. I had to be sure.
I made my voice casual. “Could you swear that I was here all night? Could you testify to that?”
“You’re scaring me, Work.”
“No reason to be scared,” I assured her. “It’s just
the lawyer in me. I know how some people might think, and it’s best if we’re clear on this.”
She stepped closer, stopping in the kitchen door. She still held the spoon. Her eyes were very steady, and she lowered her voice, as if to give her words a special emphasis. “I would know if you’d left,” she stated simply, and something in her face made me wonder if she knew the truth. That I had left. That I’d spent long hours weeping on Vanessa’s shoulder before creeping back into our bed an hour before dawn, scared weak that she would wake up.
“You were here,” she said. “With me. There can be no question about that.”
I smiled, praying this time that my face would remain intact. “Good. Then we’re settled. Thank you, Barbara.” I rubbed my hands together. “Dinner smells great,” I added lamely, turning away as quickly as might seem reasonable. I almost made it to the couch, when a thought stopped me. “What time did Douglas come by?”
“Four o’clock,” she told me, and I sat down on the couch. Four o’clock. An hour before I spoke to him in the parking lot. I was wrong, then. Our friendship didn’t die when he questioned me; the corpse was already cold and starting to stink. The fat bastard was testing me.
Dinner would have been great if I could have tasted it. We had caramelized Brie with slivered almonds, Caesar salad, beef Wellington, and fresh bread. The chardonnay turned out to be Australian. My wife was beautiful in the candlelight and at times I thought that maybe I’d misjudged her. She made clever remarks at the expense of no one, spoke of current events and a book we’d both read. Occasionally, her hand touched mine. I grew mellow with wine and hope. By half past nine, I thought maybe we had a chance after all. It didn’t last long.
The plates had been cleared away, stacked in the sink for the people we’d be the next day. The remnants of dessert littered the table and we were halfway through a coffee and Baileys. A quiet contentment filled me, and I looked forward to loving her for the first time in forever. Her hand was on my leg.
“So tell me,” she said, leaning closer, seeming to offer herself. “When do you think we’ll move?” The question caught me by surprise. I didn’t understand, but her eyes had a new glitter and I felt myself sobering, almost against my will. She sipped her wine, her eyes dark above the pale half-moon of the glass’s edge. She waited in silence, as if only for me to pluck a date from the air.
“Move where?” I asked, because I had no choice. I dreaded her answer, mainly because I knew what it would be.
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Don’t joke,” she said.
The last of my pleasure vanished, devoured by the cruel hunger in her voice. “I’m not,” I said. “Are you?”
I watched as her face softened but saw that it was forced. The muscles still clenched in her once-lovely jawline.
“Into Ezra’s house. Into our new house.”
“What in the world makes you think that we’re moving into that house?”
“I just thought . . . I mean . . .”
“Damn it, Barbara, we can barely afford this house, and it’s not even half the size of my father’s.”
“It’s such a lovely home,” she said. “I just assumed . . .”
“You assumed we’d move into an eight-thousand-square-foot house we can’t afford to heat?”
“But the will—”
“I don’t even know what’s in the will!” I exclaimed. “I don’t have a clue!”
“But Glena said—”
I exploded. “Glena! I should have known. Is that what you two were talking about last night?” I thought of the miserable hours I’d spent in the garage while my wife and her detestable friend planned Barbara’s rise to eminence. “You had it all planned out.”
A change came over Barbara as I watched. Suddenly, she was cool dispassion.
“It makes sense if we’re going to start a family,” she said, then sipped her wine and watched me with a hunter’s patience. It was not fair. Barbara knew how much I wanted children. I sighed deeply and poured straight Baileys into my cup.
“Are you blackmailing me?” I asked. “Children for Ezra’s house?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m merely suggesting that children would be a logical next step for us, and we could use the extra space.”
I tried to calm myself. Exhaustion descended upon me like wet cement, but I decided nonetheless that it might be time to face some ugly truths. Vanessa’s tear-streaked face came unbidden to my mind. I thought of the things she’d said, the truths she’d thrust under my nose, truths so abhorrent to me that I’d crushed her rather than face them.
“How come we never had children, Barbara?” I asked.
“You said you needed to concentrate on your career.” Her response was immediate and unrehearsed, and I realized that she believed it. An appalling silence filled my head, an arctic calm.
“I never said that,” I assured her. The very thought of it was absurd. I had sacrificed more than enough to the hollow idol of my law career. I would never give up the idea of children.
“You most certainly did,” Barbara said. “I remember it clearly. You wanted to concentrate on the practice.”
“Every time I brought up children, Barbara, you told me that you weren’t ready yet. You changed the subject. If it had been up to me, we’d have five by now.”
Strange awareness moved across her face, a shadow of understanding. “Maybe it was Ezra,” she said, then jerked, as if stunned that she had actually said the words.
“‘Maybe it was Ezra’?” I repeated.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, but it was too late. I knew what she meant, and suddenly my ears roared, a cacophony that threatened to knock me from my chair.
Maybe it was Ezra.
Maybe . . . it . . . was . . . Ezra.
I gaped at my wife as if from a distance and I understood. Ezra wanted me to carry on his tradition of greatness. She wanted me to make more money. Children would distract me. Her features rippled into something that terrified me. Wife and father had conspired to rob me of my children and I’d let them do it, as plodding and dumb as any farm animal. The clarity overwhelmed me. I stumbled from my chair, her voice a distant buzz. Somehow, I found the bottle of scotch and poured a full tumbler. Barbara was looking at me. Her lips moved, and then she walked to the kitchen on a stranger’s legs. Time stood still as she rinsed plates, loaded the dishwasher, and wiped down the counter. She looked at me as she worked, as if worried that I might disappear. But I could not move; there was no one to lead me. I think I laughed at that.
When she finally came for me, I was drunk beyond words, lost in depths I never believed could exist. Stolen! The children I’d always wanted, the family I’d looked forward to since college. By those I should trust the most, my life had been stolen from me. And I’d let it happen. Call it blind trust. Call it cowardice. Call it the complicity of inaction. I shared the guilt, and the enormity of that fact overwhelmed me.
As if through fog, my wife’s hand reached for me. She led me to the bedroom, put me down, and stood before me. Her lips moved and the words followed sometime later. “Don’t worry, darling. We’ll figure it all out. I’m sure Ezra provided.” Her words made little sense.
She undressed, hanging her top carefully before turning back to present her breasts to me like manna from some other man’s heaven. She slipped off her skirt, revealing legs of carved bronze. She was a statue brought to life, a trophy for good behavior. Her fingers found the fasteners of the clothes that should have armored me but didn’t; she took my pants with a victor’s smile, told me to relax, and knelt before me. I knew this was wrong but hid behind closed eyes as she spoke in tongues and wove spells of terrible power; so I surrendered myself, and in surrender knew the damnation of the utterly corrupt.
CHAPTER 10
Sunday morning, early, I cracked my eyes to cold gray light. It stole under the blinds to touch the bed but left most of the room dark. Barbara slept beside me, her leg sweaty against my own.
I edged to the far side of the bed and held myself still. I felt fragile. Glue bound my eyelids, and the tongue that filled my mouth tasted like something long dead. I thought of the brutal truths so often borne on predawn light. I’d had a few in my time, and they’d all led to this. I was a stranger to myself. I’d gone to law school for my father, married for my father; and for that same man, and for the vile woman who shared my bed, I’d surrendered my dreams of family—my very soul. Now he was dead and all I had was this truth: My life was not my own. It belonged to an empty shell that wore my face. Yet I refused to pity myself.
I lifted my head to peer at Barbara: sleep-matted hair, creased skin, open mouth that glistened on the inside. My face twisted at the sight, but still, even on this dawn of revelation, I had to acknowledge her beauty. But I hadn’t married her for her looks; I could tell myself that and believe it. I’d married her for her intensity, her energy. The tail wind of her convictions had swept me into her wake: She would make the perfect wife and only a fool would let her go. Somehow I’d come to believe that, and I thought that now I knew the ugly reasons why. Vanessa had said it: I married her for Ezra. Jesus.
My feet found the floor and I groped my way out of the room. In the laundry room, I found a pair of dirty jeans and some flip-flops. I collected the telephone and a pack of cigarettes and sat on the front porch. Mist was over the park and it was cold. I shivered as I lit up and blew smoke at the world. Nothing moved, and in the stillness I felt very much alive. I dialed Vanessa’s number. Her machine answered and I knew that she was already out of bed, barefoot in the wet grass. As I waited for the beep, I decided to tell her the truth: that she was right and that I was sorry. Not that I loved her. Not yet. That had to be face-to-face, and I wasn’t ready. There were other issues there, stuff that had nothing to do with truth or with the fact that my life was a mess. But I did want her to know that I understood. That she was right and I was wrong. So I let it all out. The words were just words, a pale start all in all, but they had to count for something. As I turned the phone off, I felt good. I had no idea what the future held, but I didn’t care.