Her heart was beating so fast she thought she might be having a heart attack. She didn’t wait for him to answer, she just walked out.
Despite everything, she did not end the affair right away. Instead, she waited until after the election. Perhaps it was part of her recklessness then, but she kept meeting Miles. Every Monday night she went to campaign headquarters in the law office and sat beside him, calling people to urge them to vote for JFK. They sat at big desks, and drank cold bottles of Coca-Cola, the fat White Pages open in front of them. At nine o’clock, they left along with everyone else, and went to their separate cars, and drove around the block, meeting back in the parking lot where she got into his car and they drove off together. They had one hour to say all the things they wanted to say to each other, to touch each other, to wonder how they could be together. Usually, they parked in an empty bank parking lot down the street. Claire believed that they were in love, and they had just that one hour on Monday nights and Wednesday afternoons together.
On election night, in the Hilton Hotel ballroom, under a ceiling of balloons and streamers, she had kissed him for the last time.
“We won,” he’d said into her mouth. His hand was on the small of her back, and she stood slightly on tiptoe to reach his lips.
By then, she had learned she was pregnant.
“We won,” she said back to him, letting him press his body against hers. She said it, even though she knew it wasn’t so.
While Peter went to call Birdy, Claire tried to feed Kathy the hot dog. She had woken up, fussy and disoriented. In their rush to leave, Claire had forgotten to take Mimi, Kathy’s stuffed bunny, and now Kathy was in a panic, demanding it. “I need her!” she wailed. “Go get her! Get Mimi!”
“Mimi’s at home asleep,” Claire said.
“I need her!”
The waitress walked by, carrying a tray of empty glasses.
“Excuse me,” Claire said, stopping her. “Could you fill this bottle with warm milk please?”
Kathy’s cries pierced the restaurant.
“Tough having to take her out in a storm like this,” the waitress said, taking the bottle.
Claire busied herself with getting Kathy out of the high chair. All of her movements were so clumsy now it was hard to imagine she had ever been graceful. Her face and hands were puffy, her breasts achy and large. She felt like she inhabited the wrong body.
Finally she wrangled Kathy out of the high chair. The child had made her body go rigid, and Claire held her awkwardly on her lap.
Peter appeared beside them. “Well,” he said, “the party’s on. You only turn eighty once, she said.”
He frowned down at Claire. “Can’t you quiet her?”
“The waitress is getting some milk,” she said. She didn’t mention that she’d forgotten Mimi.
“What a mess,” Peter said.
Kathy’s screams were giving Claire a headache. The baby inside her rolled. The bright noisy restaurant was almost too much. Tears fell down her cheeks. Everything was a mess. She was a mess.
“Claire,” Peter said. “Come on. Stop that.” She could hear in his voice that he still loved her, despite himself. Despite everything.
He tugged on her arm, pulling her up and out of the seat. Claire felt everyone’s eyes on her, a pregnant woman with a screaming child and an angry husband. She cried harder, awkwardly holding her stiff wailing daughter as Peter urged her forward. At the door, the waitress ran up to them, holding out the bottle of milk.
“You’ll need this,” she said, looking at Claire with pity.
Outside, the snow covered everything. It seeped into the tops of Claire’s boots. She pulled Kathy’s hood up.
“Wait here,” Peter said. “I’ll bring the car around.”
Claire watched as his charcoal gray coat disappeared in the snow. Again, she found herself imagining him really disappearing, and never coming back. She imagined calling her old roommate Rose and asking her to come and pick her up. Rose would take her and Kathy back to her house and help her figure out what to do next. Claire squinted at the line of cars inching along beyond the parking lot. Rose had married a pilot and moved to New London, Connecticut. She wondered if that was nearby.
But then Peter drove up, the station wagon skidding to a halt. He leaned across the front seat and opened the door for her. When the interior light came on, Claire paused to study his face illuminated like that. He was handsome, her husband. Even with his dark hair wet with snow and the beginning of stubble along his sharp jaw. Even with his face set hard and his eyes cold.
“Hurry up,” he said. “All we need is for Kathy to get sick on top of everything else.”
Claire sighed, and handed Kathy to him. She had fallen asleep again. Her cheeks were red from the cold and she had snot hardening between her nose and mouth. Peter placed her on the backseat, tucking her little powder blue blanket around her.
He didn’t shift into first gear. Instead, he stared out the windshield, already covered again with snow.