He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. “Right,” he said gruffly to himself, imagining that his brother was still here, that he’d climbed into the tent with him. “Nice try. Big noble explanation, twelve years in the making.”
Believe what you want, his brother answered. It’s not like I’m looking for thanks or anything. But it wasn’t Scott’s normal tone of voice, all biting and sarcastic. He sounded deflated, maybe even sad, just as he’d sounded when he told Charles not to fuck it up with Joanna just now. Charles crossed his arms over his chest, feeling something inside him start to crack. A ball-shaped lump was stuck halfway down his windpipe, hard and immobile.
“He was kind of an asshole to me,” Charles mumbled aloud.
And what would Scott say? I know? Would he smile? Laugh? Or would he look as miserable as Charles felt? It’s not like we had a very decent relationship, either, he’d maybe say. It’s not like he ever talked to me really. Not like how he talked to her.
Scott’s voice was so real, the words so credible. It was as though he and his brother had really had this conversation once, maybe when very drunk or very sleepy. But when could that have been? When had they really talked? And yet Charles could picture the conversation playing out exactly like this, which made him wonder if these weren’t things he’d already known, deep down, without Scott ever having to tell him.
The wind shivered in the trees, sweeping right into the tent. Charles rolled over and felt something in his pocket. His phone. He pulled it out and stared at it, turning it on. The screen bleated with life. He’d turned it off when he went into the house, but now his screen said he had three new messages.
He wondered if at least one of them was from Fischer, asking if he’d completed the interview. Maybe Back to the Land had already called and told them he hadn’t, that he’d screeched away from the cabin after only a few minutes of talking to Bronwyn. He listened to the first one. At first, it was just dead noise, the sound of an ambulance. Joanna, probably. She often did this, called him, got his voice mail, and then didn’t bother to listen for when the beep came. “Charles?” she said after a moment, and then hung up.
He smiled, daring to be hopeful. He thought about the way Joanna had kissed him on the mouth in that bar two years ago. He thought about the little notebook she kept by her computer entitled Words I Like. Inside were a list of words like anathema, thistle, erstwhile, written down for no other reason than that she thought they were pretty. He thought of her smooth body lying in the Jamaican sun, and he thought of the worry dolls she’d bought on a college trip to Guatemala. She’d had them lined up on the windowsill of her old apartment, the one she’d lived in when he met her. What had happened to those dolls? She must have had at least fifty, all of them different, but he hadn’t seen them in ages. He kind of missed them.
The sun broke from behind a cloud, shining through the tent’s yellow skin. The beams of light turned everything golden. Charles lay on his back again, soaking it up. He wasn’t in his backyard anymore but in the wilderness, all alone. There was no one around to help him. He was responsible for his food, his shelter. He imagined lying here all night, listening to the deer crash through the woods, shivering under a blanket, experiencing every inch of the bumpy soil. Honestly, camping wasn’t for him. It would never be for him. But it was, he understood now, in its own way, beautiful.
Chapter Nineteen
Charles’s car was parked crookedly in the driveway, so Sylvie called his name as she walked into the house. No answer. She dropped her bag on the counter and looked around, trying to feel comforted by the familiar. “Charles?” she called again. Nothing. She walked through the living room to the dining room. Everything was still. She went outside and cupped her hands on Scott’s apartment windows. Dark.
Figuring he’d gone out for a run, she walked back into the kitchen and absently paced from fridge to table to telephone to island. Her letter to Warren was still in her pocket, along with the check. There was no way she could bring herself to read what she’d written. What had he done after she’d left? Called the police? Reported her to Swithin? Actually, she hoped Warren did go to Swithin. He could say she stalked him. He could say she was trying to manipulate him, bribe him. Maybe he’d seen her reach for the letter in her pocket. Maybe he sensed there was a check in the envelope, a check for him. All at once she didn’t want to be a part of Swithin any longer. It had mattered so much, but it didn’t anymore. It felt like the wrong thing to care about.