White Dog Fell from the Sky

10



Marriages survive such things. Hundreds of thousands, millions do, she told herself. Putting his arms around her in bed, Lawrence said that they’d be stronger for this. He seemed more animated, more present than he’d been in months. “Will we?” she asked. Wretchedness—what’s too much to bear? And then the idea of “stronger” caught hold for a moment, the spidery feet of a bird closing around a branch. Yes, perhaps they’d be better off, perhaps this would dislodge some torpor in them, cause something to flare into life. They were still sleeping in the same bed. He said that it was possible to be happily married and continue like this indefinitely. She didn’t ask him not to see Erika. It felt as though it was his business, not hers.

He said gently, “I’m not stopping you, you know.”

“Stopping me from what? Leaving?”

“No. I love you.”

She didn’t believe him. “What? What do you love?”

He looked into her face, his eyes searching the contours. “I love the gap between your teeth,” he said. “I love your hair.” He went to touch it.

Without thinking, she tilted her head away. Those weren’t things to love—hair, teeth. She wasn’t even responsible for them. “Is that it?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not.” They fell silent. Once she’d loved his face, the penetrating aqua eyes, shyness in their depths, the scar under the left one that he’d gotten as a boy, running pell-mell into the branch of a tree. She’d loved his mouth. She’d loved his bashful uncommunicativeness, how she’d had to tease words out of him, the way he neglected his socks until the holes grew so large, three toes came through. She’d loved his old-fashioned sense of honor, at least she did when she believed he possessed it. Now, she didn’t know who he was.

He began again. “What I mean is I’m not stopping you from seeing someone yourself—if you wanted to.”

“I don’t need your permission,” she said coldly. “It’s already been offered, and I turned it down.”

“Who was it?”

She wouldn’t tell him. What she found unforgivable was the way his eyes dilated with excitement when she threw out that piece of information. How dare he? She picked up her pillow and moved into the spare room. She hunted around for sheets and dragged them out of the closet. When she lay down on the bed, the sheet felt cool for a moment, and then it turned hot. Out the window was a remote sliver of light, a wedge of new moon shining in all its blank indifference.

She heard Lawrence get up, and then the sound of truck wheels crunching over gravel. She was stunned, humiliated. Until now, she’d told herself, okay. This is normal, this is modern. But now, sobs erupted that couldn’t be stopped.

The dogs were waiting for Daphne. Alice got out of bed and found her lying on the kitchen floor, exhausted, her head on her paws. She’d gotten out during the dinner party at Erika and Hasse’s. She looked up but didn’t raise her head; her eyes looked bleary. The pack outside seemed to be thinning. Alice asked, “Are you pregnant?” Daphne lifted her chin and put it down again.

She pictured the perspiration near Erika’s hairline, her bone white skin and dark hair. Lawrence touching her. There was a ferocity in that woman, wolf-mother. Lawrence never had a chance. She was playing with him for her own reasons, she didn’t really want him, but he didn’t know that yet. A wave of protectiveness washed over her, metamorphosing to rage. “Bastard,” she said as she climbed back into the guest-room bed, the word bouncing off the white wall.