by Gian Sardar
She turns to face the lake. The water has filled with the last moments of the sun’s retreat, darkened purple, deep and satiny. William is inside the house. He’s there. Right behind her. Have they already eaten dinner? What did they have?
When she feels a bit stronger, she turns back to the house, and immediately her breath catches in her throat. There, in the lit downstairs window, is his wife. Claire. A beautiful off-the-shoulder beige dress—silk crepe if Eva had to guess—shoulder-length pale blond hair. When she turns, there’s a quick flash at her wrist, a glimmer from what must be a diamond bracelet. All groomed edges and elegant demeanor. Sophistication. Even from here, Eva can see that her walk is like a waltz, like a starlet in a movie with gliding movements and a voice that’s all sugar and honey. And Claire’s not even aware she’s being watched. This is who she is. Who Eva will never be.
When she takes a seat at the window, Eva waits for something to happen. But Claire does nothing, just stares at the window as if images danced on its surface, and suddenly it’s Eva who feels watched. She tucks herself behind the tree. Could Claire see her? Why is she keeping watch? Eva sneaks another look, in time to see Claire’s head turn just slightly, as if someone’s entered the room. Another lamp switches on, the brightness greater. Eva presses into the tree—it will be William, she knows it will be. But it’s a housekeeper holding a shining silver tea set. She places it on a table by the window and Claire nods a thank-you. That’s what rich people do, Eva realizes, they nod. They don’t even feel they have to speak.
The woman leaves and Claire again turns to the window. She never touches the tea. Even from here, without seeing its details and design, Eva can tell it’s an expensive set, most likely worth more than she makes waiting tables and selling dresses in a whole year. All for a cup of tea that gets ignored.
And then he’s there. William. Walking into the bright room. His dark hair and broad shoulders, a suit she thinks she recognizes. The fact of her longing for him combined with her inability to go to him renders her whole body weak, as if she’s become a ghost watching her own life play on without her. He steps toward Claire, and Eva knows she should look away. She wants to, she needs to, but she can’t. Never did she know this would hurt, but it does, an actual physical pain. Now he’s behind Claire and Claire is saying something and William, so naturally, so fluidly, leans down just as she tilts her head, her pale skin exposed. His lips brush her neck. A practiced kiss. Something done a million times. It takes only seconds. The familiarity is like a paper cut, swift and searing.
When he leaves the room she looks away, back to the lake. In the distance is the faint refrain of water against the shore.
25
Now
THEY TOOK their time at dinner, not to savor the food, but to avoid this moment: silence, no witnesses, two doors. Every so often the whir of a generator kicks in and a cloud passes over the moon.
“I hope the TV works.”
Aidan unlocks her door. “Cable’s pretty much all they’ve got. They’d fix it before the plumbing.”
They’ll be sleeping only feet away from each other. In this quiet, you could probably hear the zipper of a suitcase, a shoe falling to the floor.
“See you tomorrow,” Aidan finally says, which shakes them loose.
Inside, Abby waits, hand on the doorknob, until she hears his door shut as well. Then she turns to the wall and pictures him on the other side, facing her.
He sits on a bed covered in a green blanket and listens for her. Inches of drywall, layers of paint. The closeness is like a hand hovering above your skin, a slight heat, almost an annoyance, like the last peel of an orange or the final steps of hot sand before water. He should’ve thought of this and asked for rooms at least down the hall. Instead he’s left to wonder what she’s doing, separated by so little; if her arms are crossed, lifting off her shirt; if she’s running a bath, testing the water. If she’s scared, her back to the window.
He can’t do this. It’s been a long day. A quick shower and he gets in bed. The sheets are clean but slightly rough, bleached to hell and back, which he’s grateful for, and he sinks his arms into the cool under the pillow. Again he thinks of her, how easily he’d told her about finding the boy, a story he has never repeated—not because of its nature, but because he’d caved in afterward, and that fact was a window into something he’d rather people not see. A darkness he trusted no one with. But her.
At last he hears something from her room, the static buzz of a television. On the nightstand is his phone, and he thinks of calling her—I know you’re awake—but doesn’t, because he knows that’s not all he’d say.
At night you are you. Pure you. Nothing exists past your window. The world stops right there, caught in the reflection in the glass. A desperate time. Pure, inescapable self.
She needs to call Robert, to ask about his meeting, to tell him about Hannah, but just the thought of calling him with Aidan in the other room seems wrong. He would hear it in her voice, an edge of threat, a tone of want. He would know, more than he does. All he’d have to do is ask where she is and she couldn’t lie. So instead she picks up her cell phone and sends a text, then sits by the window.
In the reflection of the glass she watches her own face, held in black. Caught in an overlay of past and present. Not quite far enough down this new road that she doesn’t ache for the ease of the life she knows so well and a love that used to feel like everything—and yet too far to call out, to stop what’s happened, to not feel the verge of her own future, the scintilla of approach. In a way it’s too late, she understands; she can’t unknow this time with Aidan. Never would she be able to forget the sound of his voice, how just a glance at his wrist, those tiny golden hairs by his watch, how just that made her feel undone.
It’s too much. What she’s doing, what she’s escaping or trying to avoid, and yet still she’d rather be awake, left with these jagged pieces, than asleep and in that meadow, at that table just in need of its guests. For the third time she washes her face, letting soap seep into the corner of her eye, anything to be less comfortable, to not slope toward sleep. She can’t stomach more coffee, so she shakes sugar and creamer into hot water from the sink, hoping that will keep her awake. A mouthful. Horrible. Another one, and she sits in a green chair with a low back and pilled fabric. It forces her to sit up straight. On the television, Lucy smuggles cheese onto a plane. Abby turns up the volume.
Suddenly she takes a deep, frantic breath and sits up, a pounding in her ears. She was asleep—how long she doesn’t know. Her heart is racing as if she’s just run a great distance and she fights to catch her breath.
Once again the other chair was yanked from the table, but this time as it flew back, her own chair plummeted into the earth. Buried alive. Someone was pounding in the dirt, packing it. Over and over. She swallows, tasting the dirt that pushed away her breath. She can’t be alone, not with this.
Now she’s barefoot in front of Aidan’s door, shoulders cold in the night. Softly, almost imperceptibly, she knocks. If he hears, she’s meant to go in. If not, she goes back to her room, back to her late-night television and stiff green chair. She touches the 9 on the door, the swoop and curve of the plastic number. It’s a beautiful number. She’s never thought of it before, but it is.
Behind her the street is empty, the woods on the other side, dark. Too many stars. The night air is so fragrant with something it feels thick. She won’t knock again.
But she doesn’t have to, because there he is.
He sees her mouth open, perhaps to apologize, to explain, to excuse, but without giving her a chance, he pulls her into him. Kisses her. Every bit of him pulses as if a switch was pulled, her touch charged. Almost unnerving, but not one bit of him wants to stop. His hand is in her hair, and her tongue soft, mouth like sugar and cream.
She’s kissing him. At last. Every worry, every thought, everything is gone, and yet suddenly a l
ash of images whips through her mind—but just as fast they’re gone, forgotten.
When at last he pulls back, he opens his eyes and sees the night behind her, a night she feels at her back along with everything else, the woods and the empty diner and a craving that’s so deep within her it makes it hard to find her breath.
“I had a dream,” she says, what she came to tell him. But her eyes are on his mouth. She wants him to kiss her again. When he stands aside, she pauses, only for a moment, and steps into his room.
The strap of her tank top has fallen, and as she sits on the bed every move is sketched into his mind. Eyes bright with anticipation, her hair loose. A blaze of memory, the first morning they met, autumn leaves in full fire—he’d turned around and there she was. A splice from that moment to this—unexpected, surreal how it’s happened, and yet somehow it makes sense. She leans back onto her elbows, watching him. Shadowed dips of collarbone, a freckle on the swell of her chest, rising with a breath. All at once he scoops an arm beneath her legs, the other beneath her shoulders, and moves her further onto the bed. Pushing up her shirt, he kisses her side, tongue light along her ribs until he hears her laugh, phosphorescence upon a shore, and rises up to watch her, taking in her smile. Another laugh as she grabs his shirt, pulling him back to her. He cups her breast, trails his tongue along her skin. Her back arches, a bridge from one end of her to the other.
Skin against skin. It’s magnificent, the weight of him. Different. She tries not to think of it, but it is, his body, so much taller, stronger than Robert’s, she feels as if she could curl beneath his arm, her whole hand almost just the palm of his. Don’t think. Roughened fingertips, the slight scratching of his hands against her, around her, over her and up her sends reverberations through every inch of her body. Her legs are on either side of him and she hooks her ankle against his calf. She wants him and the want is pure, flaring, and desperate. As he rises up ever so slightly, she feels the air between them and waits in excruciating expectation. When at last he lowers himself, she closes her eyes, no longer anywhere she’s ever known.
26
Then
IT’S DARK WHEN CLAIRE WAKES; even the moon seems absent from the sky. Quietly she walks to the bathroom, then shuts the door as softly as she can. William had fallen asleep with his hand on her stomach, and in the night brought her water when he heard her cough. But though he’s clearly determined to be a good father, she still sees a drag in his step and his eyes continue to look past her when she stands before him.
The lies are piling up within her. Stacking one by one into a column of tilting deceptions. All her life is fake. The marriage, the baby, the beautiful horror of a house. In a few months William will mourn a child who never was. He will actually ache for this child, and Claire will have caused that pain. Unnecessary. Cruel. What has she done?
When she returns to the bedroom William has turned on the lamp and is sitting up. He couldn’t sleep, hasn’t slept for more than a few hours here and there since telling Eva it was over, for every time he closes his eyes he sees her face, her eyes, watching him break her heart.
“Were you sick?” he asks Claire. “Can I get you something?”
“I’m fine,” she says, and gently lowers herself into bed.
He’s trying, he really is. Already he’s earmarked the pages of bassinets in the Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue. Already he’s bought her a present, a token of what’s to come. If he just thinks of the baby, he might make it. His child is how he will be a better man.
“I have something for you,” he says, getting out of bed. “Two things.”
Inside the closet, the bag sits alongside his empty suitcase. He has to go to Rochester today to sign papers, and had been planning on taking the suitcase and spending the night, packing up clothes, his grandfather’s pocket watch, just a few things. But even that he dreads, as he knows he’ll hear her footsteps on the stairs, her laughter in the hall. Spending the night there would be too hard, he thinks now. If he can, he’ll sign the papers and leave, pack things later—though perhaps he’ll drive by the house, just to see if a light has been left on. And even that, that one image of a lamp bright in the window, is like a blast of oxygen to a fire, and he must force himself to look at the present he got for Claire. No. No more.
“I should’ve wrapped them,” he says, back in the bedroom. “Sorry.”
She takes the bag and looks inside.
“For a girl or a boy.”
But her face has paled, and not from happiness. He’s confused. He thought she’d like them, the encouragement, the optimism. Though maybe, he now realizes, maybe it’s too optimistic. “Is it too soon?” he asks.
Without looking away from the bag, she nods. “Yes. Anything can still happen.”
“I understand.” He takes the bag from her and returns it to the closet, the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls tucked away until a safer time.
Only the entryway lights are on, the rest of the house asleep, shut off and unaware. Eva is determined to be there from the start of the day, to not miss a chance. After all, it’s only a matter of time until he leaves. A small venture out, a tennis date, an afternoon golfing with a friend. Eva will call to him from across the street and he’ll nod discreetly, starting his car and pulling down the block to wait for her, his brown eyes in the rearview mirror. She’ll talk with him. Face-to-face. She’ll tell him about the Victorian down the street, how easy it could be to stay here half the week. Nothing needs to be over. When you love each other, you find a way.
Fog rolls in great wispy tumbles across the lakes, the whole place otherworldly. There’s a perfect spot that she’s found, adjacent to the house, behind trees and a shrub so thick she literally must concentrate on the one sliver of view to see the house. There’s no way anyone would see her. And not in this fog.
Suddenly she feels daring. A bolt of rebellion. She wants to be up close to the house and now is her chance, when the house is sleeping. She crosses, vulnerable, an animal entering a clearing. The base of the iron gate is plain, just bars, but up at the very top there are scrolls that swoop from spears of altering height. She holds on to two of the bars, wraps her fingers around the cold metal, then looks at her pale hands, so pale that for a second, in the fog, she herself could be a ghost. She raises her gaze, peering through the bars, just as suddenly a light turns on in an upstairs room.
—
A couple of hours later, the front door opens. William. In the threshold, turning around and about to step outside. Eva’s heart surges and she stands—but then there’s Claire. He’s holding the door for her and she pauses so he can lean in and press a kiss against her cheek.
Eva ducks behind the tree and hears the approach of Claire’s heels, the slower pace as she takes the steps down to the sidewalk followed by a pause at the gate and the creaking, heavy swing of iron and then more steps, slower now but more punctuated, heavier, as if she’s heading up stairs. A quick peek. Claire’s approaching the neighbor’s door.
This is her chance, William alone in the house, even though Claire’s just next door. It’s all she’s got. Quickly she looks back to William, but he’s gone. The front door is closed. Where is he? The squeaking yawn of a car door opening—William’s at the yellow Cadillac.
“Dinner when I get back?” he calls out as he lowers himself into his car.
“Do you have any idea of the time?”
“Lots of loose ends to tie up—I’d say late evening. If it’s too late, please don’t worry about me.”
“Do you need anything from Bergdorf’s?”
“Not a thing. You and Edith treat yourselves. I’ll see you tonight.”
Claire waits for the door to open. Hurry, Eva thinks, open the door. She needs to catch William. She needs Claire to disappear. William’s pulling forward. Almost at the mouth of the drive—her chance slipping away. And yet Claire is still standing there, the beige silk of her
hat lit up in the sun, ruining everything.
The neighbor’s door swings open just as William’s car touches the street. He’s inching forward, looking at Claire and the neighbor woman. Eva smooths down her skirt and is ready to step out and get his attention the second he looks her way. But he glances to his left and back to his right. Not once does he look straight ahead. Not once do his eyes even pause at the lake, nor does he suspect, even for a second, that Eva, the one he loves, is standing there waiting for him, needing just a second-long glance, just one look, just one. Instead he looks back to the women and waves, shadows of tree branches splayed upon the hood of the car. There’s a smile on his face, but it’s sad—Eva catches it, she knows him that well. This isn’t what he wants.
A flash of red brake lights—Eva stands taller, this is it—but then she sees the squirrel that had run before him, safely bounding to the other side. The car continues. She looks back up to the house and sees that Claire, too, has been watching him, must have seen the sadness, for she now aims her face to the path, a moment to compose herself before turning around. And Eva’s so caught in this moment, in feeling that he’s leading his life for someone else, that she barely notices how far he’s gone until his back windshield brightens with light. A pause at a stop sign, already two blocks away.
At last the neighbor’s front door closes, both women inside.
And it’s then that his taillights round the bend, and he’s gone.
The one good thing about the farce is that suddenly the shame of Claire’s recent weight gain has been lifted; the anger at her stomach, protrusive and constantly needing to be held in by girdles, has turned to a strange acceptance. No longer is she trying to escape her body, banging against the boundaries of her physical self, but she’s almost—quite nearly—relishing in it, present in a new and liberating way. It’s as if she’s woken with a different face, smaller shoulders, daintier feet. And though she knows she has no right, for whole chunks of the day she feels beautiful.