After a few minutes, he tugs my nightgown back over my hips. I can still feel his erection and think I should do something about it, but he doesn’t seem to expect anything in return, and anyway I’m drained from all the tension of the past weeks and now this.
So I’m grateful when he pulls the quilt back over me and lies down behind me, wrapping one arm around my waist. There’s not a heck of a lot of room on the sofa for both of us, but it’s a warm, cozy cocoon, and I fall asleep with the movement of his breathing against my back.
I go to the bank the next day and get a cashier’s check. I consider writing a return letter to my mother, but I can’t think of anything to say. I put the check in an envelope and seal it, then scribble the address and drop it in the mailbox on the way home.
It’s unsettled me, the unexpected contact. I try not to think of my mother often, even though she’s still there like a shadow.
I don’t have many pictures of her or good memories either, but the letter ignites flashes of our life together—the hot, vinyl interior of our old car, the floorboards littered with crumpled potato-chip packages and candy wrappers.
The stares of other kids as I walked into what felt like the hundredth classroom. Sitting cross-legged on a beach boardwalk as my mother arranged her bracelets and necklaces for sale. The sound of her moans coming from a stranger’s bedroom.
There’s now a perpetual tight knot in my chest. I try to ignore it, try not to think about the fact that it’s tangled up with all the other confusion that has risen to the surface in the past few weeks.
After Dean leaves the following morning, I clean the living room and do a load of laundry before heading out. On my way to the Historical Museum, I stop to get a coffee at a place on Ruby Street.
“Mrs. West?”
I’m not accustomed to being called that, so at first I don’t respond.
“Mrs. West?”
I turn. Behind me is the blond grad student I’d met outside Dean’s office—Marcy… no, Maggie. She’s looking at me a trifle uncertainly, her pretty face bare of makeup, her hair pulled back into a messy bun. A heavy-looking backpack is slung over her shoulder.
“Maggie Hamilton,” she says. “We met last week. I’m one of Professor West’s students.”
“Yes, of course. How are you?”
“Busy.” She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Grad school is not for the faint of heart.”
“No, I imagine it’s not.”
“Everyone tells me I should be glad I’m working with Professor West, though.” Maggie holds up a finger to indicate that I should wait while she places her coffee order. Then she turns back to me. “You know, because he’s so brilliant, and it’ll be great to have his name behind my work.”
“I’ll tell him you said that.” I step back to add cream to my coffee. “Good luck to you.”
“Thanks.” She grabs two coffees from the server and puts them into a paper-cup carrier along with a few sugar packets.
“I’m meeting with him right now,” she continues before I can leave. “Thought I’d bring him a coffee too. We’re supposed to tackle my thesis topic again, so I figure a little buttering-up can’t hurt.” She gives me a half-grin. “But don’t tell him I said that.”
I shake my head and say nothing. Words jam up into my throat. I move to get some napkins while she waves and pushes the door open with her shoulder, balancing the coffee tray in one hand. I watch as she heads for a blue hatchback parked at the curb.
I’m not jealous—Dean has taught and advised plenty of pretty grads and undergrads, and I’ve never once had reason to be concerned. And nothing about Maggie Hamilton should make me apprehensive, except that she’s a young woman bringing my husband a coffee.
Which is exactly what makes the knot in my chest tighten.
As I walk down the street, I try to push Maggie Hamilton out of my thoughts, but she’s there and Dean’s there and they’re sitting in his office drinking coffee that she brought him and discussing her paper about medieval gynecology or whatever.
When I get to the museum, I hate that I’m giving in to a worry that shouldn’t even exist, but I call Dean on his cell phone and ask if he wants to meet for lunch.
“Sure, but it’ll have to be quick. I have a one o’clock departmental meeting before my Crusades seminar.”
The dullness of his afternoon schedule is oddly reassuring. I work at the Historical Museum for a few hours, typing up a new brochure and showing a group of kindergarteners around. Then I head over to campus.
We get sandwiches from one of the university eateries and sit on a bench in the quad. It’s a hot, end-of-summer day—bright sun, boats dotting the lake, blue sky. Students walk along the paths cutting through the grass, their backpacks hitched over their shoulders and their strides purposeful.
“I saw one of your grad students at Java Works this morning,” I remark. “Maggie Hamilton.”
“She told me.” He pulls a sandwich from the bag and hands it to me. “She’s not one of the better students. Far from it, unfortunately.”