“Do you want more water?”
“No, I don’t want to throw up.”
“How about a Tylenol?”
I want an excuse to stand and move away from him, so I go into my bathroom and come back with three chewable baby aspirin. I put them in Ted’s sweaty palm and he dutifully grinds them between his teeth.
“Caroline and I had a fight. I just needed some space, a little room to clear my head. I saw your light was off. I figured you were out for the night. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“I understand,” I tell him, even though I really don’t; I have no idea why he climbed into my bed.
“Of course you understand. You’re a very empathetic person. That’s why you’re such a great mother.”
“I’m not a mother yet.”
“You’d make a great mother. You’re kind, you’re caring, and you’d put the child first. It’s not rocket science. Are you wearing Caroline’s dress?”
His eyes are roaming all over my body and I move behind the kitchen counter, grateful to have a barrier between us. “She gave me some clothes last month.”
“Castoffs. Hand-me-downs. You deserve better, Mallory.” He mumbles some things I can’t make out except the very end: “You’re stuck in this shithole and there’s a whole big world out there.”
“I like it here. I like Spring Brook.”
“Because you haven’t been anywhere else. If you’d traveled, if you’d been to Whidbey Island, you’d understand.”
“Where’s that?”
He explains that it’s part of a chain of islands in the Pacific Northwest. “I spent a summer there in college. Best summer of my life. I worked on a ranch, I spent all day in the sun and at night we sat on the beach drinking wine. No TVs, no screens. Just good people and nature and the most gorgeous views you’ve ever seen.”
Then he notices the chinos on top of the bedspread. He seems to understand that they belong to him, that they ought to be on his legs. He shakes out the pants and lowers them to his feet and promptly drops them on the floor. I realize I will need to help. I kneel in front of him, holding open the pants so he can pull them on—first one leg, then the other. He raises them just past his hips, then stares into my eyes. “I swear to you, Mallory, if you saw Puget Sound, you’d forget Spring Brook in five minutes. You’d realize Spring Brook is a shithole, it’s a trap.”
I’m not really listening to anything he’s saying. When you grow up in South Philly, you have lots of encounters with lots of drunks, and you learn that most of their comments are nonsense. None of this means anything.
“Spring Brook is beautiful. And you have a wonderful life here. A beautiful family, a beautiful wife.”
“She sleeps in the guest room. She won’t touch me.”
Ted is mumbling and looking down at his pants, so it’s easy for me to pretend I didn’t hear that.
“You have a beautiful house,” I continue.
“She bought it. Not me. This is the last place on Earth I’d choose to live.”
“What do you mean?”
“Caroline’s father was very wealthy. We could afford to live anywhere. Manhattan, San Francisco, you name it. But she wanted Spring Brook, so here we are in Spring Brook.” He speaks as if events have spiraled beyond his control. “Don’t get me wrong, Mallory. She’s a good person. She has a big heart. And she would do anything for Teddy’s well-being. But this is not the life I wanted. I never signed on for any of this.”
“Can I get you some more water?”
He shakes his head, like I’m failing to grasp some essential point. “I’m not asking you to take care of me. I’m saying I would take care of you.”
“I understand. And I’ll think about it. But right now we should get you home. Caroline is probably worried.”
Ted is increasingly incoherent—he says something about Seneca Lake and wine country and running away from everything. He manages to stand without my help, then lifts his chinos and buttons them. “We should burn these.”
“Tomorrow,” I tell him. “Let’s burn them tomorrow.”
“But not in the cottage.” He points to the smoke detector on the wall. “All your wiring is knob and tube so it’s very delicate. Very fragile. Don’t fix it yourself. Ask me for help.”
I open the door to the cottage and Ted stumbles outside onto the porch. Somehow he manages to descend the three steps to the lawn without tripping, and then he veers off into the dark, heading toward the big house.
“Good night,” I call after him.
“We’ll see,” he calls back.
I close the door to my cottage and lock it. I spy a crumpled wad of Kleenex on the nightstand beside my bed. I pick it up with a paper towel and shove it deep down to the bottom of my wastebasket. Then I pull off my blankets and strip off my sheets and discover three of my bras mixed up in everything. I don’t know how they ended up in my bed and I don’t want to know. Tomorrow I will put everything in the laundry and I will try to forget this happened.
Since I don’t have any other sheets, I have to spread my bath towels over the mattress and lie down on them. It’s not as uncomfortable as it sounds. All I have to do is close my eyes and I’m transported back to the beautiful castle garden with its gentle waterfalls and sweet-smelling floral archways. Nothing can spoil this night for me—not my argument about the séance with Caroline, and certainly not discovering Ted in my cottage. And before I fall asleep I ask God to forgive me for lying to Adrian. I pray that He’ll help me find the right words to tell him the truth. I pray that Adrian will see past all the horrible things I’ve done—that he’ll see me as the person I am now, not the disaster I used to be.
19
The next morning I get to the big house and find Caroline and Ted dressed for work and sitting in the breakfast nook. Caroline is drinking tea and Ted is sipping black coffee and they’re staring at each other in stony silence. I realize they’re waiting for me.
“Can you join us?” Caroline asks. “Ted has something he’d like to say.”
Ted looks like hell. He’s clearly hungover. The man belongs upstairs in bed. Or down on his knees in the bathroom, hunched over a toilet. “I want to apologize for my behavior last night. It was completely unacceptable and—”
“Ted, it’s fine. I’ve already forgotten about it.”
Caroline shakes her head. “No, Mallory, we’re not going to pretend this didn’t happen. We need to fully acknowledge everything that occurred last night.”
Ted nods and dutifully continues, like he’s reciting some kind of memorized public statement. “My actions were arrogant and disrespectful. I’m ashamed of my behavior, and I’m looking inward to understand why I chose to abuse my privilege.”
“Apology accepted,” I tell them. “You don’t need to say anything else. I’d feel better if we just moved on, okay?”
Ted looks to Caroline, and she shrugs. Fine.
“Thank you for understanding, Mallory. I promise it won’t happen again.”