Denise missed hearing him saying sorry like that to her, plaintively, like he meant it. That was how it was at the beginning; he was always so sorry that he had to go back home to his wife. So sorry that he had to cancel their dinner plans again. When he got the apartment for Denise on the Upper West Side, she thought the sorries were close to over. He told his wife that having a place in the city just made sense for the nights he needed to work late. His lies were getting craftier, more complex, and the stakes were higher. Denise knew this was a good thing for her, that it meant there would be more sorries for the wife and fewer for her.
He never told Denise he’d leave his wife, but he made her feel soft and pliable; she let him do whatever he wanted to her. How she ached just watching him walk naked across their bedroom—their bedroom! He made her whole body feel bright and calm. She didn’t have to do anything but bask in that feeling, like lying on the side of the bed where the sun shines right on you.
When they got into the city, Mark’s cursing and road rage worsened. He flipped off cabbies and honked at pedestrians. “This is why I don’t drive here,” he said as he held down his horn when a bus cut him off.
“You were in the bus lane,” Denise said jokingly.
“Out of all people, you’re going to tell me how to drive right now?”
“I was just trying to make light of it.”
He let out a chortle without an iota of humor in it. “Light? Make light? Okay, let’s make light of this.” He took one hand from the steering wheel and started counting off with his fingers. “You call me on a Sunday. You have me leave my family and come up to Upstate New York to get you. You have me pay five hundred dollars—”
“I didn’t ask you to pay that!”
“You couldn’t pay it, Denise! You’re broke!”
“I am not. They just wouldn’t let me leave.”
“And then I have to take you all the way into the city and lie to my wife about it. Yet again.”
“I could have taken the train.”
“Well, you didn’t present that option at the time, did you?”
She’d promised herself she would never cry in front of him. Her mother used to warn her about that, even when she was a girl: “Don’t you ever cry in front of a man. They’ll take your weakness and build themselves up with it.” But she’d broken that oath a long time ago. He’d seen her cry so many times at this point that he now held her weaknesses in the palm of his hand.
He turned onto Amsterdam. He looked over at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he saw that she was upset. “That was uncalled for.”
Denise quickly wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.
He pulled onto her block and slowed the car in front of the apartment building.
“Why do you hate me?” she said.
He put the car into park.
She wanted to hear him say “I don’t hate you.” Instead he took a breath through his nose, like a bull preparing to fight.
“I heard on a talk show that the opposite of love isn’t hate,” she said, sniffling. “It’s neutral.”
“It’s not the same as it was.”
“But don’t you remember what it felt like? It was the best feeling in the world. That kind of thing just doesn’t go away.”
“I remember,” he admitted, and then used his fatherly tone again. “But you knew the deal. It was your choice to…” He trailed off, not saying the unspoken thing that was always there. Rachel was a choice; Rachel was her choice. “You know I wouldn’t give her up for the world now. It’s just that this”—he gestured between the two of them—“this was never going to happen in a real, long-term way.” He put one arm on her shoulder. “It can’t happen.” He always said this, and then they would always fall into things all over again.
When Rachel was a little girl, Denise had tried to make it work, being a mistress. She raised Rachel in the apartment that Mark paid for. They would get a babysitter and go out on weeknights, and though Denise initially thought having a child together would put a damper on the sex, she found it actually brought them closer, sharing this person together. It was a more profound bridge between them than she could have ever imagined. As Rachel got older, Mark had started to pull away from Denise, but they would still sleep together from time to time. Their sex became more secretive and urgent—no more dates, just late-night visits, him leaving early in the morning before Rachel awoke.
“If Rachel hadn’t been born,” Denise said now, “do you think—”
“I’m married, Denise,” he said softly. “I have a family.”
“You have two families.”
She could see how sorry he was, the bags underneath his eyes lined with weariness. “I have two families. And I love both of my families. I love Rachel very much, and this isn’t good for her,” he said.
She could tell by how sad he looked, how hard it seemed for him to say this, that he was serious about it now. Like picking her up from this faraway police station had been his final straw. She had done this to herself.
“The on-again, off-again. Her knowing about my situation, us literally shoving it into her face every time I’m around. The sneaking behind her back, which she definitely knows about. I just think…I think a strictly platonic relationship between you and me is healthier for her.”
She fought it; she cried; she pawed at him and said hurtful things about his wife, about who he was as a person. Uncharacteristically, he sat there and took the flak, which also meant that he meant it this time.
But she knew he was right. He loved their daughter. He loved her so much.
Denise got out and slammed the door without saying goodbye. She starting walking toward the glass door of her apartment building and then, instinctively, turned around. She could see that he already had his hand on the gearshift, but she tapped on the passenger-side window before he could drive away.
He rolled down the window and looked at her.
“I’ll pay you back,” she said adamantly.
He shook his head. “No you won’t.”
“That was the deal,” she said. “Not a dollar for me.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay me back. I’m saying that you won’t.”
“But you don’t—”
“You are an adult woman, Denise,” he continued. “This is not a matter of being ‘too busy’ to pay speeding tickets. You have responsibilities that you do not take seriously.”
He had always taken care of her, but there didn’t used to be this hardness.
“Frankly,” he continued in that patriarchal tone, “it’s worrisome.”
“I’m paying you back,” she said again. “And don’t fucking talk to me like that. I’m not your daughter.”
Denise looked into his face. Rachel got those long eyelashes from him.
3
Helen Larkin wasn’t paying attention in biology. She was writing her name in bubble letters in the margins of her Five Star notebook. She figured a person paid attention to the things she wanted to pay attention to, and there was a reason for that.
It was March 1, 2006. As her creepy teacher, Mr. Browne, droned on, she counted the remaining days in the calendar at the back of her notebook. One hundred sixteen to go until camp. Her last summer at Camp Marigold, as it would turn out.