I lie awake night after night
And never get the answers right.
Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot?
Did words of mine put too great strain
On that woman's reeling brain?
Could my spoken words have checked
That whereby a house lay wrecked?
And all seems evil until I
Sleepless would lie down and die.
Echo
Lie down and die.
That was the answer to guilt, the echo seemed to say. You want to lie down and die? Fine, do it. Give yourself up to the sorrow, the hopelessness. Sink into the night, if that’s where you think you’re going. No hope, no introspection. Just an echo chamber based on the spiral of despair that could sometimes overtake a person’s soul.
Or maybe its parody, calling its bluff.
Because the poem ended with the man’s voice, not the echo’s. Pulled out of his thoughts by the immediacy of the world, the man abandoned his introspection for more important things:
Man.
O Rocky Voice,
Shall we in that great night rejoice?
What do we know but that we face
One another in this place?
But hush, for I have lost the theme,
Its joy or night-seem but a dream;
Up there some hawk or owl has struck,
Dropping out of sky or rock,
A stricken rabbit is crying out,
And its cry distracts my thought.
Yes, Eric thought as he read the end of the poem again, and again. Some interpreted this poem as a dismal reckoning on the meaninglessness of life. How easily one’s purpose could be flung away with small distractions. But Eric saw it differently. He saw it as a description of the visceral connections between all forms of life and the pains they experience. A recollection that one wasn’t truly alone.
It was this passage and ones like it that had helped pull him out of his own despair after Penny’s death. His father’s death. Reminders that real life existed outside the clamor and darkness of one’s own thoughts.
Poetics came to mind, via an essay on Aristotle that had saved him when Penny died, so long ago. When Eric’s own guilt had been eating him alive too.
Aristotle wrote that the point of reading and hearing and viewing tragedy was to help readers or listeners “purge” of emotions like fear, sadness. And, sure, guilt. People, in other words, had too many damn feelings. And if they didn’t let them out in some way or another, they were eaten up by them. But most people, Aristotle said, couldn’t articulate those feelings, the complicated emotions of life. That’s why they needed others who could express them in words, music, art, drama. Through poetry, they faced the terrible conditions of life again and again, and in doing so, were able to let them go. Were able to purge and make way for the next round.
But despite being someone who had made her living on words as a lawyer, Jane wasn’t a huge reader. She was a tactile person, kinetic. She coped with life’s difficulties by living it, not passively absorbing others’ impressions.
It was one of the ways in which they were so different. But that didn’t mean Eric couldn’t understand some of her.
Guilt. Yeah. He knew something about that.
Jane’s emotions were eating her up. But her catharsis would have to come through experience, or perhaps witnessing someone else’s in real time. And that, Eric thought, he could help with.
Finally.
“Jane, get up. We’re going out.”
It was past ten o’clock. She had been sleeping later and later every day instead of getting up earlier and earlier. Another sign of her deep depression, or so confirmed her doctor.
Jane pushed his arm away. “I’m still tired,” she mumbled into her pillow, which had left a brutal red mark across one cheek. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Eric sat up on the bed and worried his lip for a moment as Jane’s eyes remained shut. He could be gentle about this. He could pet her head and murmur nice things into her ear and coax her downstairs for breakfast, like he’d managed a few times before. But he’d been gentle for weeks, tiptoeing around the woman all the damn time like she was about to break. It seemed to be making things worse, not better.
Fuck it.
He yanked the pillow out from under her head, causing her head to flop down onto the mattress.
Her eyes flew open. “Hey! What the fuck?”
“I said get up,” he repeated. “I have something to do today, and I need you to come with me.”
She scowled, though she did grab her glasses off the nightstand and shove them on to glare at him with more clarity. “And I said I don’t want to go anywhere. Can’t you do your little errand without me?”
Eric opened his mouth and paused. Was he pushing her too much? It had only been five weeks. Maybe she needed more time.
As if in response, the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed with the hour. No, she didn’t need more time to stew, pushing everyone and everything away so she could wallow deeper in her own misery. He was starting to suspect the longer she did that, the less likely it was she would ever emerge.
“No,” Eric said firmly. “I can’t.”
With a groan, she pushed herself to sitting. Her hair was matted a bit in the back, and despite the twelve or more hours she had already slept, she still had dark, puffy circles under her eyes. She was still beautiful.
“Why are you dressed like that?” she asked through a yawn.
Eric looked down at his clothes, a comfortable pair of chinos and a tailored blue shirt. Somewhere between the suits he wore for work, and sweats he preferred at the gym and, yes, the shooting range (he’d visited a few more times since last week). A gray pea coat was tossed on the chair.
He looked up. “What’s wrong with this?”
“I think you wore that exact outfit at mock trial during our third year.”
He examined his clothes again, trying to remember what she was talking about. “I definitely wasn’t wearing Prada at a law school mock trial. I would have at least worn a tie.” He smiled. This might have been the first joke in over a week. “Are you trying to say I look like a young student again, gorgeous? Is it getting you going?”
“I’m saying you look like a just-off-work bank manager.”
“I was going for respectable.”
He waited for another comeback that he might volley over the proverbial net. But none came. Jane fell back into her pillow.
Eric sighed and squatted next to her side of the bed. “How’s this, Lefferts? You come with me now, you can dress me however you want this afternoon.”
For a moment, she brightened. Her full, somewhat paler-than-usual lips parted, and he could practically see the word “Really?” on the tip of her tongue. But then, her face fell back, assuming that same, blank stare.
“Wear what you want,” she murmured. “They’re just clothes, after all.”
Shit. Even if this had been the first interaction he’d had with her in years, he would have known something was horribly wrong when she said that. Tentatively, Eric reached out and covered her hand with his. The one still resting over her practically concaved stomach. Fucking hell, was she eating at all?
“Jane,” Eric said. “Please. I need you with me today. Your mom is already gone.”
“What?” At that, she perked up again. “Where is she? Where did she go? Is she all right?”
“Relax. Sarah took her and Ji-yeon to Quincy Market, and then I think they are planning to go to a bible study at the Korean Presbyterian church this afternoon.”
Jane sat up, shoving her hair back from her face. “What? Eric, how could they just leave like that? Anyone could follow them, you know, and Quincy Market is incredibly crowded and—”
“Everyone has a personal detail,” he replied calmly. “They are fine. I promise.”
Jane’s eyes glistened. She sighed irritably. “I can’t believe you just
let them go, Eric.”
For a moment, he blinked, unsure of himself. She was annoyed now, not scared. That was good. But she was using his given name. That was bad. He never thought he’d actually want to hear that stupid fucking nickname—Petri dish—again, but these days, he’d probably do a fucking cartwheel if she said it.
Instead, he mustered the best smirk he could. “Your mom and cousin are grown women doing what grown women do. They are living their lives. Now it’s your turn, Lefferts.”
“I’m going back to bed,” Jane mumbled, rolling back into the folds of the comforter.
Fucking hell. “No, you’re not.” This time Eric grabbed her wrist and yanked her back up so that the covers fell away in a pile.
“What the hell!” Jane shrieked as she tucked her arm away. “What’s with the gestapo treatment, asshole?”
Mercilessly, Eric flung the covers off the bed entirely. Jane’s long, bare legs wobbled in the sudden chill. She really was getting too thin. “Well, first you’re going to take a shower and brush your hair. You’re starting to look like the creepy girl from The Ring.”
Jane scowled. “So sorry I couldn’t keep up my looks while I slept. And that’s mean.”
“You’re two seconds from climbing out of the television, Lefferts. Do it now, or tomorrow I’m staging an intervention.”
“This is draconian,” Jane muttered, though she did finally swing her feet to the floor. “Bully.”
“Then we’re going to Zaftig’s for some food,” Eric continued as he walked to the closet and started picking out some clothes for her to wear. He’d brought more things last week from their apartment, but only because if he had to see her put on one more pair of fucking yoga pants, he was going to burn them all. “You’re getting the banana-stuffed French toast. And maybe some eggs too.”
Jane grabbed a bathrobe slung over the chair. “Bossy, aren’t you?”
Eric tossed a pair of jeans, a sweater, and Jane’s favorite combat boots on the bed. “After that, we’re going to run some errands. I want some company, and you need to get out of this room so Skylar’s housekeeper can finally change the damn sheets.” He surveyed the outfit. Jane would probably pick out something else entirely, but it was a start. “I’ll meet you downstairs in thirty minutes. I’ll get you a coffee.”
Ignoring her grumbled protests, he walked out.
“One more thing,” he said, turning at the door. “If you come down without that goddamn lipstick, I’m dragging you back up here and putting it on you myself. And since my handiwork will probably make you look like The Joker, I suggest you do it right the first time, pretty girl.”
When her lips—already with more color in them—fell open, Eric only shut the door behind him and hoped he was doing the right thing. But a few seconds later, when he could hear her muttering to herself, Eric finally exhaled and smiled.
23
She didn’t delay. Within thirty minutes she got right up, showered for the first time in days, and came downstairs for coffee.
That was a good sign.
“Is this respectable enough?” she asked as she entered the kitchen.
Eric turned from the French press to find her toying with the rings on her fingers—two sets of glinting silver bands, plus their wedding rings, including the sharp black diamond he had given her.
She had replaced her boring black frames with one of her favorite vintage pairs, bright red and cat-eyed. With the tight black jeans, a black hoodie, and her favorite combat boots, she looked much like her student days, only missing her old cropped hair.
Another good sign.
But then his gaze had traveled up her body and landed on her face, bereft of its usual makeup, including her characteristic slash of red lips.
Bad sign. Very bad sign.
“Oh, no,” Eric said, abandoning the coffee. “You fucking heard me.”
Her mouth dropped into a perfect, plump “O,” making his pants uncomfortably tight. Shit. It had been a while, hadn’t it? Nearly two months since New Year’s.
She backed away. “You wouldn’t.”
“I don’t ever go back on my word.”
And before she could jump out of reach—Jesus, she was out of practice—he snagged her hand and proceeded to drag her back upstairs, where he pinned her to the en suite bathroom’s counter and started drawing the lipstick around her full, kissable mouth.
“Eric!” she crowed, causing him to smear the color across her chin too.
He couldn’t help laughing, though he kept her wrists behind her back. “I told you, pretty girl. I warned you what would happen.”
And then it happened. She struggled. Twisted. Grinded against him. Was it really his fault that the last almost two full months of abstinence decided to take their toll right fucking then and there? Was it his fault that he happened to be poised right between her legs so there was no fucking way she could miss it?
Her mouth dropped again. That perfect shape. And the hell if he didn’t want to shove her to her knees right then and there, unzip his pants, and feed her his dick until they both forget where they were, even if just for a few brief minutes.
He almost did it too. Until, of course, she scooted back.
“I, um, I got it,” she said, plucking the lipstick from his hand. She swallowed heavily, clearly fighting not to stare at the prominent erection testing his zipper.
Another bad sign.
Eric cleared his throat. She was uncomfortable? Well, he was her fucking husband. She knew exactly what she was getting down there.
But he still turned away. Mostly because he was scared of what he would do if she left her mouth open like that for one more second.
“I’ll be downstairs,” he said and left before she could answer.
But when she came back down, the lipstick was on. She wouldn’t meet his eye, but he could have sworn there was a different spring in her step.
Definitely a good sign.
Jane took exactly five bites of her breakfast at Zaftig’s, a restaurant teeming with Brookline families., complete with small children. Lots of babies. Not, Eric realized, the best place to go.
Then she barely spoke on the rest of the drive to the nearby heliport, followed him mutely onto the helicopter, and stared out the window all the way to New York. She hadn’t even asked where they were going when they landed.
More bad signs. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Eric had pretended to work on his phone most of the time. It was hard to hide his relief when she finally said, “Queens?” just as Tony turned onto the Queensboro Bridge.
“Are we going rock climbing again?” she joked.
To be honest, Eric had fantasized more than once about tying Jane into one of the harnesses. The idea of suspending her lithe body like that in midair had a lot of…possibilities.
Instead he watched as she reapplied her lipstick—perhaps in memory of the last time they had been there?—then blinked and shook his head. “No. No, not today. Unless you’re interested in a little rope play…”
But she just turned away and watched the river pass beyond the bridge. “Role play. No.”
The Manhattan skyscrapers and the riverside buildings of Queens gradually gave way to the more stolid brick apartments and townhouses of Astoria. Jane clearly had no idea where they were. In the not-even-a-year since she had moved to New York, she hadn’t really ventured farther than Manhattan, Eric realized, except to visit him at Rikers. God, he had so much more of this city to show her. Things he had forgotten himself.
There would be time for that. They had a lifetime together, right?
Starting now. Eric swallowed. He really hoped this first step would help, because it certainly wouldn’t be easy.
“All right,” he said as Tony pulled the car to the curb of East Thirty-First Avenue. It was a classic winter day, with wind sweeping harshly off the East River where it curled around the Con Ed plant in the distance, tempered only by the bluebird sky and the bright sun that lit up the squat buildings of
Astoria and Ditmars. This was one of the parts of New York that were quiet. Real people lived here, not just rich Wall Street brokers, students, and trust-funded legacies.
The familiar restaurant in the bottom of the walkup met him like an old friend. The Epic Diner’s name had always been so incongruous with its humble exterior—the rumbling red brick, the weathered glass door, the blinking neon sign. But for a short period, this had been a natural stop whenever Eric had come home.
“Where are we?” Jane asked as she exited the car to the cracked sidewalk and looked around. “Still Queens?”
Eric pulled at his shirt collar. “Astoria. This is the Epic.”
“You took me all the way to Queens to get more mediocre eggs?” Jane peered suspiciously through the smudged glass. “They aren’t very busy. We passed a bunch of other places on the way here that looked a lot more crowded.”
“The Kostas benefit more from the breakfast rush and the lunch crowd from Con Ed,” Eric said automatically, almost defensively. He clapped his mouth shut, but Jane obviously hadn’t missed a beat.
“The Kostas?”
Eric nodded, resisting the urge to pull at his collar again. It wasn’t even buttoned, but it felt like it was strangling him. “Penny’s family.”
Jane’s eyes widened as she adjusted her glasses and turned back to the restaurant with renewed curiosity. Perhaps she was recalling when Eric had revealed the circumstances surrounding his former fiancée’s death. When she had encouraged him to make peace with Penny’s parents. But if she was thinking of that, she didn’t say it.
“Will you come in with me?” he asked finally when it was clear she wasn’t going to respond.
Jane’s eyes sharpened, sharper than he had seen them in weeks. “I’m here,” she said, and followed him inside.
Nothing had changed. The faded sprigged wallpaper. The cracked vinyl booths. The stained Formica counter, behind which still stood Lazaros Kostas, joking and taking orders on a small pad poised over a growing belly. Behind him, overseeing the cooks and checking the orders clipped to the ticket carousel, was his wife, Antonia. Suddenly, Eric felt like he was seventeen again, skipping polo practice to sit in Penny’s section and order too many chocolate milkshakes just to see his girlfriend smile. But other than where her photo hung behind the register amidst the collection of signed head shots of celebrities and local politicians, Penny wasn’t here.
The Love Trap (Quicksilver Book 3) Page 22