He kept his eyes on the soapy water in the sink. “I was thinking of staying another day,” he mumbled. “Unless you want me gone?”
She reached over and turned off the kitchen faucet. “Anton,” she said, her eyes searching his face, “you can stay as long as you want. You know that. But what’s really going on? Are you simply avoiding your dad?”
He bit his lower lip. “I’m tired, Carine. I’ve been working really long hours. This is a good break, that’s all.”
She nodded. “Of course. Well, honey, as you can see, the boys love having you here. Stay as long as you want.” She reached for a pod of garlic from a jar to his right. “The boys have a playdate at a neighbor’s house at four o’clock. I’ll be gone for less than ten minutes to drop them off. Think you can stay out of trouble that long?”
He smiled his gratitude. “I think so.”
“Good,” she said. “Now get me six eggs from the fridge and beat them for me, would you?”
“Yes’m.”
ANTON WAS LYING in the lounge chair in the backyard, a newspaper draped over his face to protect it from the sun, when Carine got home from dropping off the boys. She came up to him and removed the newspaper, and the light from the sun was so fierce that he squinted as he looked up at her. She had on a white cotton dress, and her dark skin glinted in the sunlight. “You look gorgeous,” he said before he could stop himself.
“Why, thank you,” she said lightly. “You, on the other hand, will look like a boiled tomato unless you get out of this heat.”
He laughed and allowed her to pull him out of the chair. She led him into the kitchen, still holding his hand, and let go only to open the refrigerator. She poured two tall glasses of lemonade and handed him one.
“Wow,” he said, smacking his lips. “How’d you learn to make that?”
“How’d I learn to make lemonade?” Carine fixed him with a baleful look. “Shit, Anton, even my kids know how. Didn’t your mama teach you?” Her hand flew to her mouth as soon as the words had left her mouth.
He grinned to show her he wasn’t offended. “No. She didn’t. Though ask me how to fill a crack pipe and I’ll show you.”
He had meant the words jokingly, but they came out bitter, and his voice, harsh. Carine stared at him for a moment and then turned away.
“Hey,” he said, reaching for her wrist. “That was a joke.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. You have the most expressive face.” He waited for her to respond, but she simply made her way into the sunroom. He stood dumbly in the kitchen for a second, sensing her disapproval but unsure what had caused it. Then he followed her and sat on the couch beside her. “What time do the kids come home?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Around eight, I guess. They’re eating dinner at Mary’s.”
He lifted up her wrist with his index finger and then let it drop onto her lap. “You wanna go out for dinner? I’ll buy.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, shook her head as if having an argument with herself, glanced at him, and then opened her mouth again.
“Good God, Carine.” He laughed. “What is it? Spit it out.” Despite his laugh, there was a tightness at the base of his throat.
“Nothing. It’s just that . . . I was thinking. I mean, being a mom myself.” She turned to him, her dark eyes filled with a light he could not name. “Are you still angry with her, Anton? Even after knowing what really happened? Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive her? I know there’s nothing my kids could do that would make me disown them. But is the opposite not always true? Is it possible for you to walk away from her forever? Anton?”
He stiffened, not liking the judgment he heard in Carine’s voice. Most of all, he didn’t appreciate the intrusion of reality on this brief idyll, with the endless moral and ethical questions that he was made to confront each time he thought about the woman he’d left alone in the yellow cottage. He was tired of atoning for other people’s mistakes, he really was.
“It’s complicated, Carine,” he said, unable to keep the patronizing note out of his voice.
But she was having none of it. “What’s complicated? Whether you love your birth mom or not? That seems like the easiest question in the world.”
The easiest question in the world. That was the whole problem, the dilemma he had grappled with his entire life. His analytical mind was an asset when it came to figuring out the constitutional questions that came before him, but the easy questions about love and commitment rendered him mute. This was why he hadn’t proposed yet to Katherine. Why he had left behind an impoverished woman to whom he was the sun and moon and stars. His public record on women’s rights was impeccable. His personal record, not so much.
Something tore in Anton’s chest then. He stared at the tiled floor, unable to look up, feeling his Adam’s apple bob up and down. He sensed that Carine was looking at him, but his gaze felt rooted to that spot on the floor.
Carine took his hand in hers and held it. “You know what I don’t get?” she said softly.
“What?” he whispered, his voice hoarse with shame.
“How you bear it.”
He forced himself to raise his head and look at her. “Bear what?”
“You. How you bear being you.” Carine bit down on her lower lip, and for a second, her eyes looked apologetic. Then they were bright again. “How do you do it, Anton? This . . . self-control. This weird composure. Don’t you ever want to just let it all out? I don’t get it.”
His mouth went dry, but he managed to croak out a laugh he didn’t feel. “What’re you talking about, Carine?”