“Remember David Hoyle?” Malcolm said, and they both cracked up. David Hoyle had been in school with them until fourth grade, and then switched schools halfway through the year under mysterious circumstances. He used to press down on his crotch with both hands when Miss McConaughey walked up the aisle. None of their mothers would ever explain why he left so abruptly.
“Jack told me this morning that he can’t be in the kitchen when I’m eating because my chewing is gross,” Patrick said. “He told me it sounds like a swamp in my mouth. Can you imagine saying that to your father? Can you imagine what would happen? But that’s the way it is now.”
“And you have good ones! I mean, they’re normal. More or less.”
“Depends on the hour.”
“Toby’s kid is pretty odd, right? That middle one?” Malcolm pulled a face that mimicked Toby’s second son’s expression whenever he interrupted the adults.
“Oh my God,” Patrick said, taking quick glances at Malcolm’s impression as he merged onto the highway. “How have I never seen this before? Mal! You know what? That kid’s eleven years old and has yet to flush a toilet in my house. Unreal.”
Malcolm did his impression of the kid’s face once more, and Patrick laughed so hard the car swerved.
“He deuced on our trampoline when he was maybe seven. Did I ever tell you that? I didn’t, right? Siobhán said not to. Why do I listen to her? She made me clean it up and told me to pretend to myself it was the dog and never tell anyone.”
Malcolm laughed so hard he felt beads of sweat spring up under his collar. It was a beautiful spring day, perfect for golfing, perfect for a beer outside, what did it matter that they all stunk at golf, it was just an excuse to be together. Jess was so miserable, absolutely gutted, and he was heartbroken for her, but he just wasn’t as sad. He wasn’t, and he couldn’t pretend he was. He didn’t see the sense. He was relieved that they were finally moving on. They were still young. There was time to make a good life with each other. All around him, in every part of his life, he saw pretty good fortune. And the day before him was one reason why. Hour by hour, day by day, it was possible to will oneself into feeling better.
“Skip it,” Patrick said. “The bar is your baby anyway.”
“Oof. Can’t say that to Jess.”
“No. Jesus. Definitely not.”
* * *
Malcolm didn’t know if he’d be able to find the house again. The whole neighborhood looked different in the winter, the velvet green lawns covered in snow. The lots in that section of town were divided precisely, far bigger than in his neighborhood. He made turns as his instincts dictated, and next thing he saw it: Bratton’s car.
He pulled all the way into the driveway, which was cleared to a perfect asphalt rectangle and showed exactly zero signs of the weather. A curtain moved in an upstairs window. Let him come outside, Malcolm thought. Let him fucking come outside. In another moment, it was Jess who stepped out, wearing a pair of snow boots he’d never seen before. Her hair up, without makeup, she could have been twenty-five years old. When he just kept staring straight ahead, refusing to look at her or roll down his window, she walked around to the passenger side and opened the door.
“Hey,” she said, sitting. For some reason she put on her seat belt. “I stopped by. You got my texts?”
But he said nothing. He would not make it easier for her. He felt something rise up in him, a choked-off feeling, like all the things he wanted to say were bottlenecked in his sternum. He pushed back from the steering wheel, took a deep breath. He glanced at her quickly—she was pale, far too skinny, purple pockets under her eyes. He imagined how he probably looked to her, after the weekend he’d had.
“How are you?”
“Fuck you, Jess.”
She flinched, looked at her lap.
They sat side by side in silence, the car’s engine humming. She should talk first, he decided. Let her come up with something. Let her work for it.
But then. “He knows you’re out here with me?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s okay with that?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t up to a vote, you know?”
“No, I bet it wasn’t. I bet you just went ahead and did whatever you wanted.”
“Well,” she said, in a tone that said she had a few things to say about that but she’d give him a minute.
He imagined barging in, finding Bratton, throwing him through his giant picture window. He didn’t give one shit if the guy’s kids watched him do it. He had twenty people who’d vouch for him, say he’d been on their couch playing Go Fish with their families all day. And Jess. What a liar, what a—But none of the usual words felt right. And it hadn’t felt good, even in his imagination. As soon as she opened Bratton’s front door and stepped outside, he felt most of the rage evaporate, and instead he felt hollow, tired, adrift. There was his girl. She was just standing in a different house.
“Where’s your car?”
“In the city.”
“So? You’re sleeping with him. And what else? Do you love him?”
“Malcolm,” she said like a plea, quickly turning her face away from him. “I don’t know.” He accepted her answer like a blow. He folded it up and absorbed it and waited a moment to see how it would take.
She reached for his hand, squeezed it tight, but he pulled it away.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said again.
Two older men walking dogs passed on the street behind them, taking slow, deliberate steps on the ice. Malcolm watched them in the rearview. Hot air blasted from the dashboard vents but his hands refused to warm up.
“You should have seen the bar. You should have seen it on Friday when I pulled up. I knew right away. I just felt it. If I could figure out how to make it like that every night. Or not even! Four nights a week. And it was only half a night, really. We closed before midnight.”
“Really?” she asked. She was humoring him maybe, but he didn’t care. Her favorite nights in Hugh’s time were the nights when tables and chairs were spontaneously pushed aside to make room for dancing. The bottoms of her feet would get filthy because she always took off her heels, and then after, when they got home, she’d have to lather and rinse them in the tub before she got into bed, before she let him pull her there. “Just put on socks!” he used to plead. Remembering this, he described everything that was still vivid about Friday, and he knew by the way she looked at him that she could see it, that he’d done a good job, that she believed every word.
“You look good, Mal,” she said. “You look okay.”
“You look awful,” he said. “Sorry.”
The sky was changing. Still bright blue for the most part, but a line of gray was advancing from the north. The air, which all day had smelled so clean, so dry, like pine and bare branches, now had a faint earthy scent, humidity settling over the land. They shivered at the same time.
“I can’t believe you.” He intended to sound disgusted, to let her know where things stood, but the words came out in a near whisper.
“I know.”
“How could you? And not a fucking word. I’m waiting here like an idiot for you to come home. Four months. And then to hear about this from someone else. You know how stupid I feel? After all these years. And with Patrick’s friend. Aside from losing you, what’s this going to do to Patrick and me? You just wanted to take everything down with you?”
“No of course I didn’t want that. I wasn’t thinking about Patrick.”
“No you sure weren’t.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her face had that stricken look that came just before crying. He was so affable, so easy in so many ways, but if there was one thing he wouldn’t forgive, it was being made to feel stupid.
“And you know—” It was getting difficult to shape the words; his breath kept getting squeezed into the pocket at the base of his throat. She turned away to give him privacy. He banged the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “When I said I was worried that working so hard for a kid would mess things up between us, and I felt a little protective of the great thing we had going, you said that we were already a family. I asked you and that’s what you said.”