“Hard,” Claire agreed. She widened her eyes, as if remembering something. “I have to get Jason some beer,” she said. “That’s what I came for!”
“Oh,” Daphne said. She seemed disappointed at Claire’s retreat. “Okay. Well, enjoy the viognier!”
“Thanks,” Claire said, backing away. “Enjoy Tortola!”
Claire’s emotions were so complicated, she didn’t even know where to start. Lock was going to Tortola with Daphne, alone, for a week.
It’s time. We need it.
And he hadn’t even bothered to tell her himself. She had to hear it from Daphne. This was awful. This was the low point. Every minute of every hour since Claire had returned home from the liquor store, she had chastised herself. One of the rules of having an affair was that you weren’t allowed to feel this kind of jealousy. Claire could not be jealous of Daphne. Daphne was Lock’s wife. She had legal ownership, the history, the name, the home, the child. Of course he would go on vacation with Daphne. How could Claire protest? She could not. Agreeing to an affair meant agreeing to a relationship without claims; she had no rights to him. That she should feel utterly betrayed was backward. It was Daphne who should feel betrayed, but Daphne would spend a week with Lock alone, at some ultrachic new resort. They would be making love on a wide, soft bed, not on top of a conference table. It was horrible to contemplate—Lock and Daphne together romantically, sexually. But what a hypocrite she was! She slept every night next to Jason, she made love to him, she even had orgasms—but it was not attended with the same heartbreaking desire that she felt for Lock. What she experienced with Jason was exercise, it was fondly going through the motions, it was empty. She and Lock had talked about this carefully. They had agreed: they would both be happier together, sharing the paper, eating Big Macs, fishing in Ibiza. The happiness brought about simply by talking about these things was impossible to conjure now. Tortola.
Just the two of us. We need it.
Claire’s phone rang on Monday morning at eight fifteen. She was in the car, on her way home from dropping the kids off at school. She checked the display. Lock. She threw the phone as hard as she could at the passenger door. The phone broke into its component parts. Zack started to cry.
Finished!
In the driveway, Claire put her phone back together with trembling hands. It rang again. Lock. Again, she ignored it. She handed Zack off to Pan and went about the tasks of her day.
Finished!
The calls came every hour. Claire lasted until four o’clock. Pan watched the kids; Claire took her phone out to the hot shop. She didn’t bother with “hello.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“That you’d be angry.”
“Any idea how grossly humiliating it was to hear it from Daphne?”
“I was horrified. I would have called you Saturday if I could have.”
“You should have told me yourself. Back whenever it was that you made the plans. A month ago? Two months?”
“I am so sorry, Claire. I am prostrate at your feet.”
“Are you?”
“Yes! God, yes. I love you.”
“You didn’t tell me, why? Because you didn’t think I could handle it?”
“No. I knew you could handle it. But I didn’t think you’d like it.”
“You’re right,” Claire said. “I don’t like it. It’s not fair, but I don’t like it.”
“I know,” he said softly. “I don’t want you to like it.”
“So you’re trying to make me jealous, then? Is that why you’re going?”
“No,” he said. “I’m going because Daphne wants to get away someplace warm, and I can’t blame her, and I have guilt, Claire, and one of the ways to assuage my guilt is to throw Daphne a bone, and Tortola is that bone.”
“Couldn’t you have bought her something? A diamond ring?”
“She wanted to get away.”
Well, that was something Claire understood. The island was frigid, gray, rainy, and miserable, without a single sign of spring except for a few hardy crocuses. Maybe Claire and Jason
should
go away. They could one-up Lock and Daphne and go to Venezuela or Belize. But Jason would never agree to it; he didn’t even like to go to Hyannis.
“Okay,” Claire said. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
Did she? No!
“Yes,” she said.
She understood, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t filled with jealousy, fury, and longing. Lock had promised he would stay in touch by e-mail, but after checking her e-mail fifteen times in the first four hours of his absence, Claire gave up. She didn’t have time to pine after someone like this; she didn’t have time to go into her home office, log on to the computer, punch in her secret password, and wait while the computer told her there were no new messages in her in-box. She had to put her heart in a crate of straw along with the newborn chandelier; she had to tuck it away in the storage closet until Lock came back. She should take advantage of this time apart and use it to spend time with her children.
Zack was turning one. Her baby! Zack had made some progress. Instead of sitting like a potted plant before crying to be picked up, he scooted forward on his butt if he really wanted something. Claire threw a small party for his birthday. Siobhan and Carter and the boys came over, and Claire made spaghetti and homemade meatballs and a beautiful salad and golden crispy garlic bread. She went to great pains to make a cake that looked like a giraffe, because although Zack couldn’t say the word “giraffe,” it was the one animal he was able to identify. When Claire asked, “Where’s the giraffe, Zack?” he pointed right to it. It was his favorite animal! Claire made a template out of paper, she cut the cakes just so, she dyed the icing yellow and brown, she placed gumdrops for the eyes.
“It’s a gorgeous cake,” Siobhan said. “Must have taken you forever.”
Claire said, “Yeah, it did, but I found myself with some extra time this week.”
Siobhan stared at her, and Claire busied herself with the salad dressing.
The birthday dinner was a success, Claire decided, despite the fact that Zack cried when they sang, despite the fact that he was more interested in chewing the wrapping paper than in the presents inside. Claire drank four glasses of the blasted viognier and it made her teary. She had no idea if Lock remembered that it was Zack’s birthday, though back in the fall he had asked Claire to write all the kids’ birthdays down so he could memorize them. Claire had not predicted how emotionally fraught Zack’s birthday would be—because contained within the celebration was the unspoken fact that they had almost lost him, that he’d been born so early, so unprepared for life outside the womb. Only two pounds seven ounces, he’d fit in Jason’s palm; he wore a diaper the size of a cocktail napkin. No one mentioned her fall in the hot shop or the jet ride to Boston or the five weeks in the hospital. Was Claire the only one who remembered? She looked at Zack and thought,
I am so sorry, buddy.
The party was lovely, the food delicious, the cake charming. Zack was fine, Claire told herself. He was whole and healthy and loved.
As Claire was clearing the dishes, Siobhan, who had consumed no small amount of wine herself, wiped the lenses of her glasses on her dinner napkin and said, “Guess who I caught going to confession last week?”
Claire’s heart went into a free fall; she said nothing. Jason and Carter said, “Who?”
And Siobhan said, “Claire.”
Claire set the dishes in the sink and turned on the water, full blast and hot.
Carter said, “Got something on your conscience, Claire?”
Siobhan said, “Something big, I’d say.”
Steam rose from the sink. Jason said, “Hey, now, leave her alone. You know Claire, always stopping her car so the guinea hens can cross, instead of running them off the road like the rest of us do. She’s as pure as the driven snow.”
They all laughed at that, and the matter was forgotten. When, at the end of the night, Claire kissed Siobhan good-bye, Siobhan tasted bitter, like antiseptic.
And even later, when Jason came to bed, he stroked Claire’s hip and said, “I understand why you went to confession. We’re lucky to have him, you know? We’re lucky the little guy is alive.”
The next morning, Claire took Zack to Dr. Patel’s office for his twelve-month shots. Claire had checked her e-mail—nothing—and she checked her cell phone every twenty minutes for a text message. Surely Lock could send a text message?
Zack was gaining weight, he was getting taller, and his eyes looked good, as did his ears, nose, and throat; his lungs were clear, his reflexes automatic. He screamed during the shots, yowled so that Claire tensed every muscle in her body, but then she held him and gave him his pacifier and he calmed down.
Gita Patel smiled at Claire and said, “He looks great. Do you have any concerns?”
“I look at him,” Claire said, “and I feel something isn’t right.”
“Something like what?” Dr. Patel said.
“Like he’s not developing fast enough. He can’t walk. He doesn’t crawl on his hands and knees. He cries all the time. He doesn’t have any words. He isn’t active or engaged like my other kids were.”
Dr. Patel put a finger out. Zack grabbed it. She held his hands and he took a few steps down the examining table. She tickled his feet, and he smiled, then started crying.
“See?” Claire said.
“He’s fine, Claire,” Dr. Patel said.
“He was so little when he was born,” Claire said. “He was intubated for so long. I shouldn’t have been in the hot shop. It was irresponsible.” She picked Zack up and hugged him. “I feel so guilty.”
“He’s fine, Claire. He’s going to be fine. Kids develop at different rates, even siblings. Okay? If I had any doubts, I would tell you, but I don’t.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Dr. Patel put her hand on Claire’s arm, and this gesture and the words were so comforting that Claire nearly said,
I have a lover, Lock Dixon, and he’s in Tortola with his wife. I miss him. I need him. Father Dominic says I have to stop, but it’s beyond me. Sometimes I can’t believe this is really me because I am not like this. I’m a good person, or I always had been until this thing. Can you help me?
“Thank you,” Claire said.
Bad day followed bad day. Lock was away, still away. How was he filling all those hours with Daphne? Claire thought of Daphne, breasts spilling out of her bathing suit, swimming in a pool with an infinity edge while some cute British butler brought her a planter’s punch. Claire considered e-mailing Lock and telling him about the visit with Dr. Patel; he would be interested in this, he would be happy to hear Claire repeat Dr. Patel’s words, but no, she would not contact him first. He had yet to send her a single e-mail. So . . . if he was wondering how things here were going, let him wonder!
Siobhan called to say that Carter had had an unexpected windfall, and to celebrate, they were throwing a drinks party. Martinis and munchies, Saturday night. This raised Claire’s spirits. Lock was with Daphne in Tortola, but Claire had a wild, rollicking party to attend. She would get perniciously drunk.
Claire was all keyed up for Saturday night. Carter and Siobhan threw the best parties on the island, and all of Claire’s friends would be there, the people in her foxhole. She looked in her closet for something to wear; she yearned for something new, although she never had time to shop. She put on jeans and a jade green cashmere sweater and pearls. She tried not to think about Lock. As she got ready she drank a glass of wine and Jason drank a beer and they listened to Max West on the stereo in their room. Jason was wearing jeans and a black shirt and a black blazer and his cowboy boots. His hair was damp and mussed, and Claire ran her hands through it, smoothing it. He smelled good, his face had a day or two of growth, which was how she liked it—scruffy—and he had a tan from working outside. It had been weeks since he’d come home reeking of cigarette smoke, she realized. She should be grateful for that. Jason was handsome, he was sexy, and she could see this and know it intellectually, but it was hard to make herself feel anything.
“Do you want to fool around?” she asked, thinking it must be a balmy night in Tortola, and Lock and Daphne would be on their way out to dinner, ordering grilled lobster and conch fritters.
Jason glanced at his watch. “We don’t really have time, do we?”
Claire blinked at him, stunned. In fifteen years, he had not turned away from even the slightest chance of getting lucky. They had been late for all sorts of things because of Jason’s libido; they were famous for being late.
She shrugged. “I guess not.” She touched his collar. “You look good tonight, Jase.”
“You, too,” he said.
Claire poured a second glass of wine into one of Zack’s plastic cups and drank it on the way to Siobhan’s house. They took Jason’s truck. It was warm enough to crack the windows, and Jason hummed along to the Allman Brothers on the radio. Claire looked at his profile, as familiar to her as her own face. He was her husband, they had built a family together, a house together, a life together—and yet they had nothing in common anymore, did they, except their mutual efforts to sustain what they had created. They were alone, out of the house together for the first time all week, and they had nothing to say. Claire could ask him about the job, but he didn’t like to talk about work; she could revisit, for the hundredth time, the encouraging things that Dr. Patel had said about Zack, but the words lost their effect every time she repeated them. She wanted to ask Jason why he had turned her down, back in the bedroom. Was he angry with her? Had he noticed her foul mood of the past ten days and connected it to Lock’s absence? Did he know what was going on? Had he lost interest in her, finally, this week—had his desire for her dried up? Was he consumed with stress, about the house in Wauwinet or about something else? She was flabbergasted to find that she had no idea what he was thinking about.
“Does your back still hurt?” she asked.
“A little,” he said.
“Did you take a painkiller?”
“Three Advil, right when I got home.”
He was driving very fast, as though anxious to get to the party. (To see his brother and smoke dope in the basement?) Claire wanted to get there, too, but she couldn’t stand to fritter away this time alone. If they didn’t find each other right now, their marriage would end. This was an exaggeration—it was a manifestation of Claire’s own guilt and stress, and the two glasses of wine taking hold of her senses, and the lingering sting of being turned down—but she felt it, deeply. Did they have
any
common ground? What had they talked about when they first met, when they were dating, when they were married but had not yet had children? They had been so focused on getting set up, getting situated and organized for the rest of their lives, that they had overlooked the fact that their relationship was based on . . . nothing. Well, there was physical attraction, a mutual love for the island, a desire to raise a family. But was that it? Shouldn’t there be a shared passion for something else—even if it was just for watching
Junkyard Wars
? (Claire hated it.) She wanted to travel with the kids—take them to Machu Picchu and to Egypt to see the Pyramids—but would that ever happen? She wanted to read novels and see films and talk about important ideas. Claire was reading a book of short stories by an Aboriginal writer that Lock had recommended, but whenever she started explaining the book to Jason, he glazed over.