Authors: Will Allison
“Under surveillance?” I said.
Liz skipped right over that. If she was ever going to stay home with Sara, she said, now was the time. “Things are only going to get harder for her.” She said she’d be working for herself, as a consultant, like we’d talked about. She had savings. She was good for six months. If it didn’t work out, she said, she could always get another job—and I believed it. She apparently had a gift for recruiting. She’d been recruited by other banks herself. What I didn’t believe was that she hadn’t bothered talking any of this over with me first.
“What the hell, Liz? Do I not even exist?”
“Like you said, if you get sued now, that’s your business. This is mine.”
For the first time, I had to agree with her about the likelihood of a lawsuit. We sat Sara down in the kitchen the next
day to explain why things were going to be different. We told her we had decided to take a break after all. We weren’t getting a divorce, but we had some issues to work out. I’d thought it would be easier with her than before—partly because we’d already taken the first, worst step, and partly because this time it wasn’t a perverse, unnecessary lie—we really
did
have things to work out.
“Grown-up stuff,” Liz said. “It has nothing to do with you, butterfly.”
“How long of a break?”
Liz and I looked at each other.
“I knew it,” Sara said. “I knew it wasn’t about work.”
She pushed away from the table and ran upstairs. By the time we caught up with her, she’d already tipped her bookshelf over and was pulling drawers out of her dresser, calling us liars. Neither of us tried to stop her. We just sat on the bed, hoping she’d come to us when she was done.
We worked out a new schedule, which Liz had Braun put into the separation agreement. She took Sara to school; I picked her up. I had her every other weekend and until seven on weeknights. Each afternoon, as soon as I was finished with the crosswalk, I’d take her to a park, a playground, a movie. Having something to do or somewhere to be seemed important. A couple of times she brought along a friend. Once we went roller-skating. If the weather was
bad, we came back to the apartment and played Monopoly while Chairman Meow tried to lie on the board. Sara was generally a good sport. She went along. No matter what we did, though, sadness hung from her like a heavy coat. She slumped; she shuffled. Now and then—on a tire swing at the park, or collecting Boardwalk rent from me—she’d light up like she used to, smiling and laughing, but only for a moment.
I’d keep her right up until the buzzer, 6:55, then drive her home and tell her good night on the front steps. Liz would meet us at the door, and we’d visit for a few minutes, both of us pretending, for Sara’s sake and ours, that we were all doing okay.
I went ahead and called Linda Schwartz, the lawyer Liz’s coworker had recommended. Now that Rizzo openly distrusted me, there was no point worrying how it would look. I told her I was a suspect in the police investigation of a fatal car crash. She agreed to meet with me. The next day, I drove to an office building in Jersey City and sat in the parking deck, staring at my hands on the wheel, remembering how I’d cut it back and forth. I stared long enough that they began to seem separate from my body, like someone else’s hands.
During our meeting, I told Schwartz the same half-truths I’d told Burris and the police; I told her about my
conversations with Rizzo; I told her there had been a misunderstanding with Sara that had led the detective to consider me a suspect. I figured that was all she needed to know. The important thing was, I was getting a lawyer.
I was looking forward to telling Liz, but Schwartz’s assessment was only half encouraging. If the autopsy report showed Juwan really had been drinking, she said, a grand jury might feel he’d gotten what he deserved. In her opinion, the case would probably never go to trial, if they even got so far as charging me, which she doubted they would since their evidence was purely circumstantial.
“But the civil suit,” she said. “That could still be huge.”
The time I spent with Sara felt like actual living. The rest just felt like waiting, to see her again or for something to give—for the investigation to be over, one way or another. Part of the problem was the autopsy report. I figured once there was proof Juwan had been drinking, Rizzo would have to close the case. If nothing else, the prosecutor would make him move on. But the report wasn’t due back until January at the earliest. Three to six months, he’d said. The lag time boggled my mind. Wasn’t it cruel to make Juwan’s family wait so long? And what about me? How was I even going to know when it was done? It wasn’t as if Rizzo would go out of his way to tell me.
I got so impatient, I ended up calling the medical examiner’s
office myself, not caring if Rizzo found out. For all I knew, they’d finished the report early. The clerk said she couldn’t tell me anything, though. I told her I knew the reports were a matter of public record.
“Not if they’re part of an ongoing case,” she said.
All I could do was try to stay busy, but at that time of the year, I typically had more time than work to fill it. I did what I could, meeting with clients, updating software, studying changes in the tax code. An accounting firm in Newark was looking to farm out some bookkeeping, and despite the so-so pay, I took it on. I even put out feelers on the job market, though I wasn’t ready to do anything that would jeopardize my time with Sara.
Thanksgiving came and went. For the first time since college, I didn’t spend the day with Liz. I took Sara out for lunch, and she had a real dinner with her mom and Helen that night. I ended up downtown at The Gaslight, drank a couple of pints, then went for a long walk, until I was tired enough to sleep.
And that became my routine. I’d work late, swing by the pub, then head out, walking all over town—everywhere except Tawana’s neighborhood. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d been wandering the streets herself at that hour, and the prospect of seeing her terrified me. By then she must have known I was a suspect. Rizzo would have told her.
Probably he’d done it the minute I left his office, eager to see her put the legal screws to me, even if he couldn’t manage to bring criminal charges himself. Now that a lawsuit couldn’t hurt Liz and Sara, though, the money hardly mattered to me; I just didn’t want to face Tawana again. If she sued, I intended to settle right away. I’d let Schwartz handle it all. They could take a cut of my earnings for the rest of my life. Whatever else of mine Tawana wanted, she could have—not that there was much left.
But as November turned to December with no word from Burris, I could only conclude that Tawana had meant what she’d said about not suing. That, or they didn’t have enough of a case until I was actually charged with a crime—which, despite Rizzo’s threats, seemed less likely with each passing day.
Sometimes I’d leave the pub at eleven and not get home until after one. But no matter what direction I started off in, inevitably I’d end up on the east end of town, in front of our house, looking up at Sara’s window. One night a couple of weeks before Christmas, out of curiosity, I walked up the drive to see if Liz’s car was there. She was home and still awake; she noticed the security light come on. As I was looking through the garage window, she opened the back door.
“Glen? Is that you?”
She came out onto the patio wearing an old pea coat of mine over her flannel pajamas. I thought she’d ask me to leave, but instead she offered me a sip of her wine. She said she’d seen me out in front of the house twice. I asked how she was holding up.
“Could we not talk about us?” she said, turning up her collar.
“Okay. How’s work?”
Before she even left the bank, they’d offered her a six-month contract—the same work she’d been doing, but on a consulting basis.
“Pay’s not what it used to be,” she said, “but I’m only going in three or four times a week, and only for a few hours. I can do the rest here.”
“I’ll help out,” I said. “Once things pick up. We’ll be fine.”
Her silence was like a finger against my lips. I mentioned my bookkeeping gig. I said I’d have a check for her at the beginning of the month, every month. She said she didn’t need it.
“Then you can put it in the bank. It’ll be safer in your account than mine. Isn’t that the idea?”
She said fine, she’d have Braun add something about child support to the agreement.
“Speaking of lawyers,” I said, “I met with Linda Schwartz.” I hadn’t mentioned it sooner because I didn’t want to go into what she’d said about a civil suit. But now I told Liz I’d agreed not to speak with the police or Burris again without Schwartz there.
“I wish you hadn’t waited so long. But it’s good you went.” Stamping her feet, she passed me the glass again and said I should finish it. Across the street, the memorial shone in the moonlight. A cross now stood among the flowers. Fresh bouquets had continued to arrive despite the frost.
“Sara ends up in bed with me most nights,” she said. “She asks when you’re coming home.”
“Yesterday she accused me of not even wanting to.”
Liz blew into her hands and reached for the empty glass. “You better go. It’s freezing out here. And don’t tell her you came by, okay? She’ll stay up looking for you.”
The next night, when I brought Sara home, I waited until she was inside, then told Liz it wasn’t worth it anymore. I tried to be diplomatic. I said I could understand why things had had to change after Rizzo turned up the heat, but it had been a month now. Whatever he’d told Tawana hadn’t changed her mind about not suing.
“What’s a month?” Liz said. “They have two years.”
“But look what we’re doing to Sara. What’s the point of protecting our assets if we’re not protecting her?”
Glancing at the house, Liz admitted she sometimes felt the same way. She said every night that Sara cried herself to sleep, she did too. “But we’ll regret it if we’re short-sighted. We have to think about the rest of her life.”
“
This
is her life,” I said. “Now. And it’s going to leave a mark.”
She gave me a tired look. She said couples separated all the time, and of course it wasn’t pretty but the kids turned out fine. “Besides, it’s not like she doesn’t see us both, it’s not like we fight in front of her, it’s not like it’s even permanent. It’s the most benign separation in the history of marriage.”
“In any case,” I said, “I’m coming home.”
I went back to the apartment and repacked a few boxes. I knew Liz might flip out, but it also seemed like she might not. I at least had to try. The next morning, I was at the house, getting ready to unload the car, when she came home from taking Sara to school.
“Bring a single box inside,” she said, “and I’ll get a restraining order.”
“If that’s what you feel like you have to do.” I carried a box past her and up to my office. By the time I got back downstairs, she was on the phone, calling Braun. I still thought she might not go through with it. I wished Helen were there to put in her two cents, but she’d gone back to Philadelphia for the week.
“Please,” I said. “Hang up the phone.”
Liz didn’t blink. She was waiting for Braun to answer. She said she didn’t want to kick me out in front of Sara, but I wasn’t giving her much choice. “What are you going to
do? Tell her you’re home, then leave again when they hand you the papers?”
When Braun picked up, she turned her back on me, asking him what she needed to do. “No,” she said. “He’s here, but he’s not violent or anything.”
I came around and stood in front of her, hoping the sight of me would make a difference, but I might as well have been standing in front of a wall.
“All right. You can stop now. I’m going.”
On the last day of school before Christmas break, after Liz and I finished divvying up Sara’s wish list on the phone, she asked if I’d spoken with Schwartz about anything other than the accident. I think she was afraid I’d start fighting the separation.
“No,” I said.
“Braun says I should go ahead with the restraining order. In case you try again.”
“I’m not planning to.”
“Good. I told him no anyway. I’d never do that—I mean, unless I really had to.”
I took the opportunity to suggest that the three of us spend Christmas at my parents’ in Kentucky, where no one would know we weren’t supposed to be together. I even offered to take a separate flight, but Liz said no, arguing that at some point we might have to sign an affidavit attesting
to the particulars of our separation. She said Sara could go to Covington with me after Christmas, just the two of us. I looked out at the snow coming down on the railroad tracks. When I’d finally gotten around to telling my parents what was going on, I tried to make them understand it was only temporary, but they didn’t believe me. Showing up without Liz would only make things worse.
“No,” I said. “I can’t go without you.” Then I suggested we all spend Christmas together anyway—even divorced couples get together on holidays for the sake of the kids, I pointed out—but Liz wouldn’t budge. Too tired for another showdown, I eventually agreed to Sara’s spending Christmas Eve with me and Christmas Day with her and Helen.
By the time I got to school, the snow was falling harder, straight down like rain. A storm had arrived sooner than expected, and the salt trucks weren’t out yet. I got my gear and headed for the crosswalk. I’d already told Warren it would be my last day. The job was cutting into my time with Sara, and she didn’t like having to wait around for me after school.
When her class let out, she came over to the fence and asked if she could go home with Lacy. I reminded her that we were going to Maplewood to pick out a Christmas tree for the apartment.
“It’s your apartment,” she said. “Why do I have to pick out the tree?”
A boy from her class, Ted, was waiting to cross the street, eating a bag of M&M’s. His mother, Rachel, gave me a
sympathetic look. I hated being the first grade’s token estranged husband. I held up my sign and motioned for them to cross, but halfway into the street, Ted spilled his candy, red and green M&Ms dotting the snow. As he knelt to retrieve them, a pickup crested the hill and braked too late. It fishtailed into the intersection. The driver laid on the horn. Ted panicked and slipped in the snow. I grabbed him by his jacket and shoved him toward the curb. Rachel caught him as the pickup’s fender collided with my shoulder. I went sprawling in the snow and rolled, trying not to get run over, but the truck must have already stopped.