“I’ll go to their play with you,” he said quietly. “I’ll stay an extra day. If you’ll have me.”
Carine’s eyes widened, and for a moment, she looked like she would argue with him. But her face softened, as if she’d read something in his eyes. “If you won’t get into trouble, we’d love to have you. The concert is at five.”
Shay did a cartwheel on the tiled kitchen floor in celebration, while Ralph simply high-fived Anton. “You’ve obviously wormed your way into my children’s hearts,” Carine said wryly, and although he replied with a self-deprecating “Yeah, I’m a one-day wonder,” Anton glowed with pleasure.
She eyed him critically. “Tell you what. Either we go out and buy you some clothes this afternoon, or you slip into Mike’s bathrobe after your shower and let me wash what you have on.”
He stayed alone in the house with the kids for a couple of hours while she drove to Penney’s to buy him a pair of jeans and a shirt. After the boys went to take their afternoon nap, he wandered around the house, feeling more at home in this warm, sunlit house with the African wall hangings and paintings than he ever had in his minimalist condo with its strange blend of expensive artwork and IKEA furnishings. He looked for things to fix, his way of thanking Carine for giving him this respite from his life. He would pay a heavy price for the callous disregard of his responsibilities back home, but each time he remembered David’s treachery, he felt a fresh outrage that threatened to destroy everything associated with his father. And so he paced, making a mental list of chores he could perform, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t turned on his phone, dreading the assault of voicemails and texts that he knew awaited him.
He was fixing a leaky faucet in the guest bathroom when Carine returned home. He met her in his bedroom, the wrench still in his hand. He gasped when she entered the bedroom with boxes piled high. “I only gave you, like, sixty bucks. What’s all this?”
She set the boxes down on his bed. “They had a great sale. I got a little carried away,” she said. “I’m sure you can use the shirts on the campaign trail or something.”
He smiled ruefully. “I wish,” he said.
“Huh?”
“We have this guy on the payroll. He’s some sartorial expert. He decides what I wear on the trail.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
He shook his head. “I wish.”
Carine opened her mouth and then shut it. She stared at him, those dark eyes probing his face. Then she smiled and pointed to the wrench. “I didn’t know you were handy.”
He knew she was changing the subject, and he let her. He didn’t really want to explain the state of modern campaigning to Carine. He smiled back. “I’ve picked up a few skills over the years,” he said vaguely.
An hour before they were to leave for the concert, he texted Brad. “Coming home tomorrow,” he wrote. “Sorry. I just need a few days away to think. Will explain everything when I return. Can you let Katherine know?” He knew what he was doing was cowardly, unfair, and potentially fatal to his campaign and to his relationship with Katherine, but at the moment, going to a concert to see two little boys dressed as a lollipop and a piece of cheese seemed like the most important thing in the world.
So that when Carine said to him on the drive, “What if someone recognizes you?,” he could smile broadly and say, “I really don’t care.” And mean it.
MIKE CALLED FROM Afghanistan on Sunday morning, and Carine excused herself to take the call in the bedroom. A few minutes later, she called for the boys to join her, and Anton could hear them squealing with joy, jumping up and down as they told him all about their play. Hearing their chatter interrupted by “I love you, Daddy,” Anton felt like an intruder, a man with his nose pressed against the window of someone else’s happiness. The contentment that he had felt during the play and the ride back here vanished completely. Carine’s home was a borrowed sanctuary, he knew, but was his real life back home anything more than that? Out of the blue, Anton remembered an evening at the Cape when he was a teenager. The sun had set, and he and Pappy were out on the front deck, watching the dark, stormy waves, when a lone gull flew across the water. “The ocean looks lonely tonight,” Pappy had murmured, but Anton had thought: At least the waves have each other for company; the poor seagull is truly alone, and his heart had ached with a reciprocal loneliness. Standing by himself in Carine’s kitchen, Anton remembered that seagull. In order to block out the happy murmur of their conversation, he began to rinse the dishes in the sink from last night’s pasta dinner.
Carine was glowing when she reentered the kitchen ten minutes later. “Everything all right?” he asked politely.
She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Yes. Mike says hi.”
“You told him. About my being here.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
He heard what she was saying—that he was no threat to her marriage. And that she had reassured her husband of the same by not keeping the visit a secret. He felt his cheeks flushing as the differences in their approaches became obvious to him. “He sounds like a good guy,” he said vaguely, aware that Carine was still looking at him.
Her eyes were bright. “He is. The best.”
Anton nodded, and as the silence stretched awkwardly between them, he went back to rinsing the dishes. Carine began to chop the spinach for the omelets she was making. After a few moments she said, “So what’s the plan for today? You need to head back?”
He considered the question. Even if he left soon, it would be late afternoon to early evening before he got home. He imagined walking into his modern, sterile condo, and his heart sank at the thought. Katherine would probably come over, but then there’d be the inevitable questions about where he’d been and what his mother was like. And he knew he wasn’t ready for the questions. He needed time, time and a healthy distance to process what Georgia had done to him. And Brad would do what any good campaign manager would—he’d ask Anton to compartmentalize, to put aside all of the turmoil, until after the election. A week ago, he would’ve agreed with his friend, would have considered it the professional, responsible, adult thing to do. But now he knew the truth—there were no adults. There were just tall children stumbling around the world, walking pools of unfinished hopes, unmet needs, and seething desires. The unsuccessful ones ended up in asylums. The ones who learned to masquerade those needs became politicians. No, his reluctance to return home today was so strong, it felt oppressive, like an overcoat two sizes too small. He wasn’t ready to move from the detonation in his life to figuring out with Katherine whether they should order Thai or Indian for dinner.