Laurel hands the card to me. Immediately, I recognize the handwriting.
You’re going to be a wonderful mother, way better a parent than either your mother or father were to you!
—Tricia
Trish?
A bell clangs in my head, telling me something must be wrong. My heart whooshes, flooding me with guilt. How could I think of abandoning Trish when she’s capable of such generosity?
“She’s killing me with kindness,” Laurel says. “Is it possible I’ve misjudged her?”
“See? Trish is great! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. How bad can Trish be if she sends you flowers?” I say, but random acts of generosity are not in Trish’s retinue of tricks. Why would Trish try to get on Laurel’s good side? And then a sudden chill stirs through me—is it possible she’s trying to get on Laurel’s better side so she can turn Laurel against me?
“Just because she sends flowers doesn’t mean I want you to stay married to her.”
“We’ve got the best thing imaginable, you and I: love,” I say. “The love we share for each other. The love we have for our baby. I need time to make sure we don’t get dinged too badly, financially, when I divorce Tricia.”
Laurel snorts. “Jimmy, this is going to shock you, but I’m not a nice person.”
“Sure you are.”
“With parents like mine, I’ve got trust issues, okay? I’ve been burned too many times trying to make my parents happy to ever trust anyone blindly again. And right now, you’re stretching my trust just as far as it can go. Certainly you can understand that, can’t you?”
Leaving Laurel’s room after saying good night, I spot a pay phone in the maternity ward hallway. I hadn’t realized pay phones still existed, and from the dust that’s settled onto its crevices, I doubt anyone’s used it in years. Deep in my wallet is the business card Jack Riggs gave me long ago. Never before have I needed a professional fixer, but there’s no one I can turn to for advice. Laurel’s trust in me is wearing thin. I can’t divorce Trish because of money issues. Plus, as I stretch further from Trish because of Laurel and the baby, I’m filled with regret. Just the possibility of divorce is making me realize how much I still love Trish. How much I rely upon her. But unless I divorce Tricia, I won’t be allowed to have a relationship with my baby daughter. I don’t dare use any of my own cell phones for fear that, if things go wrong, someone (Laurel? Trish?) will be able to trace my actions. I plug quarters into the pay phone, dial the number. Someone answers.
“Is this Simpkins and Simpkins?”
“It could be,” a man says. “Can I help you?”
Chapter Thirteen
TRISH
Driving home from the hospital, I stop at Dean & DeLuca, Georgetown’s M Street gourmet market, and purchase a rack of pasture-raised New Zealand lamb and bundles of asparagus so fragrant you’d swear they were picked this morning. I cooked for James every night when we were first married and living in a Capitol Hill apartment. He used to love it when I cooked for him. Inwardly I quivered with delight at the way his face lit up when I set evening dinners down on the table, but then my father vacated Savory Mew for us. Along with the house, we inherited the services of a professionally trained chef, meaning I cooked rarely thereafter.
Now, though, I reach into the pantry bookshelf and grab a Julia Child cookbook. There are many ways to secure a man’s heart. I pop another Valium. My hands are calm, steady, but my mind is all jittery. James told me he’d be home by seven o’clock; I’ve just enough time to create a meal he won’t soon forget.
Even childless, I thought we’d survive. So many of our friends were on second or third marriages, yet we were still a team. We took walks in Rock Creek Park, my hand in his as we stepped along stone trails that led to remote thickets where, undisturbed, we kissed and hugged. How did we get from the happiness of our Rock Creek strolls to this moment when the continuation of our marriage is in doubt?
I think of my mother barricading herself in the bedroom for weeks at a time. The way my father stood idly watching her decline was criminal but not prosecutable. But what my mother did to herself was indefensible. She sank into depression. She quit trying to live. My father never would’ve done that if their positions were reversed. Thirteen years after my mother first prayed to die, cancer called for her. Doctors, and my father, will say it was the cancer that killed her, but they’re wrong: her refusal to fight for her place in my father’s life was what killed her. I’m not going to succumb to the same fate. If the choice is fighting or dying, I choose fighting. And are there not many ways to fight for a man?
Once I arrive home, I coat the lamb with sea salt, rosemary, crushed garlic, and cracked black peppercorns, letting the garlic’s natural oils carry the other seasonings with it as it’s absorbed into the meat. I look at the black plastic cat clock, shocked to see it’s already past six o’clock. James will be home in less than an hour. I pop another Valium, tell myself to remain calm, and listen to the swish-swash of the cat clock’s tail as it marks the passing seconds.
Remembering that a moist lamb is a happy lamb, I sear the garlicked lamb in a cast iron skillet. When the fatty side of the lamb sizzles, I turn it over to brown its bottom and sides. Once, when we were in Florence, James ordered Bistecca alla Fiorentina, the classic Tuscan grilled steak dish. Neither of us spoke Italian. Our ristorante waiter, unable to otherwise converse with us, flipped over his hand and pointed to a vein in his wrist. “Al sangue?” he asked to discern if James wanted his steak rare, or bloody, as Florentines are fond of their meat. To this day, James still raves about that meal, and ever since, I’ve cooked his meats rare. A moist lamb is a happy lamb, just as I hope my well-fed husband will be a happy husband.
Juices run from the meat when I lift it out of the skillet. James will admire its rosy pinkness and the way the garlic has caramelized on its surface, forming a crust. I’ve enough time to prepare the side dishes: port-wine-glazed carrots and a hollandaise sauce to be served over the asparagus. There are many ways to a man’s heart. Water boils in the asparagus steamer. It’s all coming back to me: the pleasure of making a meal for James’s enjoyment. The swish-swash, swish-swash of the cat clock’s tail seems to be getting louder. In ten minutes, the asparagus will be steamed to perfection. I dip a finger into the hollandaise sauce that I’ve made. The sauce is flawless. I’ve got just enough time, just enough swishes of the kitchen clock’s kitty-cat tail, to rush everything to the dining room table.
Chapter Fourteen
JIM
Simpkins suggested meeting at eight o’clock, meaning I’ve got a half hour to kill. The venue he chose is new to me, Taylor’s, a Tenleytown sports bar catering to the American University college crowd.
“Get you a refill on that drink?” the barkeep asks, motioning to the empty tumbler of twelve-year-old Scotch I just finished. With a head full of curly blond hair reminding me of Harpo Marx, he’s barely older than the frat boys getting hammered playing quarters at a table in the back. In keeping with the bar’s football theme, the barkeep’s dressed in the black-and-white zebra stripes of a referee, a silver whistle hanging from an orange lanyard around his neck, but judging by the way he pours pitchers for the frat boys, I’m guessing he’s not about to flag anyone for overconsumption.