They saw a sign a few exits later and Graham pulled into the parking lot. Audra said she had to go to the bathroom so she would go inside and get their food.
Graham stayed in the car. He looked back at Clayton and Matthew, who were still asleep, and saw that Matthew had moved so his head rested against Clayton’s shoulder. Graham was flooded with a surge of love so strong it made his throat ache. He had been wrong earlier when he thought he would change any part of Matthew, that he would trade any of Matthew’s sweet guilelessness for some sarcastic little kid. Matthew was beautiful, perfect, just as he was. Graham loved Matthew, he loved Audra, at that moment he almost loved Clayton. There, in the Arby’s parking lot, he felt almost overwhelmed by love for his family, and a certainty of his course of action. He would forget all about Jasper and who he might be to Audra. He would stop observing her, stop monitoring her, stop snooping and hoping to find proof of anything. He would love her and trust her—he did love and trust her!—and his love would bind them together, like the atoms in hydrogen, the compass needle and the North Pole, like the rings around Saturn—
“You will not believe this, but they were out of Horsey Sauce,” Audra said, getting in and slamming her door shut. She had a way of bringing him back down to earth.
—
Graham unlocked the door to the apartment and held it open. Audra walked in, saying, “Home again, home again,” and Matthew said, “Jiggety-jig.” It was their routine since Matthew’s babyhood, and made Graham think instantly of strollers and sippy cups and Cheerios everywhere.
Matthew ran off to his room to do origami, and Audra went to their room to unpack. She always unpacked right away. Graham took the mail and went into his study and sat at his desk.
He flipped through some letters, checked his email and the stock market. He could hear Audra moving around in the bedroom and kitchen. She seemed restless, opening and shutting the refrigerator, pulling out a chair (he heard the scrape of it on the floor) and then pushing it back in.
She appeared in the doorway, wearing an oversize sweater of dark green yarn. Her face was pale and her hair was pulled back messily, but her smile was as warm and sweet as always. He had married her for that smile. “I’m going down to see Lorelei for a while,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Sure, just tired.”
“It makes me so sad that the best thing I can say about this weekend is that it’s over,” Audra said. She kissed the top of his head. “See you later.”
After she left, Graham went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. He felt the same restlessness he’d sensed in Audra. It seemed like there should be more to do—groceries to buy, laundry to start, bills to pay, lists to make. But there wasn’t.
Graham left his tea sitting on the kitchen counter and walked down the hall to the front door. Audra’s handbag rested on a small table there.
He took the piece of paper with Jasper’s number from his pocket and put it carefully back in her wallet, exactly as he’d found it. He vowed that he would never look to see if it was there, not ever again. Eventually, he would forget about it, he would go back to being the person he was before.
He walked back down the hall, stopping to check the thermostat because the apartment felt cold. But it was set at seventy-two the way it always was, and they hadn’t turned the heat down when they left anyway. It was only the fact that they’d been away that made him imagine this coolness in his chest, this feeling that he ought to rub his hands together and start the blood flowing. That was ridiculous. It had only been a little more than twenty-four hours, not nearly long enough for a chill to set in.
Chapter Four
No one had canceled Thanksgiving.
Graham found that remarkable. Although maybe that was the most stressful thing about holidays: they couldn’t be canceled. The holidays marched in unwanted and forced themselves upon you like Vikings invading a village, or a wet dog who shakes himself next to you, or the dirty and unshaven man who had once pinched Audra’s bottom at a midtown salad bar.
Still, this year, when Graham felt so—so unbalanced, so guarded, so wary despite himself—you’d think Thanksgiving might be canceled. Or postponed. But no.
There are rumored to be people who enjoy getting up early, but Graham was not one of them. He had to force himself out of bed at six on Thanksgiving morning. Audra slept on next to him, a dim humped shape under the comforter. Graham pulled on his robe and left the bedroom quietly, pulling the door shut gently.
The kitchen was almost literally bursting with food. The refrigerator shelves were stacked with all the dishes Graham had made ahead—the cheese spread, the crab dip, the three-bean salad, the glazed brussels sprouts—and heaped with balls of pie dough, cartons of heavy cream, and sticks of butter for the dishes he had not yet started. The vegetable bins were stuffed with celery, asparagus, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and green beans. No room for the white wine—it was chilling in the dishwasher, which Graham had filled with ice the night before. He could hear the ice trickling as it melted. The counters were crowded with bread set out to stale for the stuffing, and net bags of onions and yams and potatoes. The turkey was defrosting in a roasting pan on the counter. Its skin was pale and dimpled, with a faint purplish tinge as though it were cold. Graham thought he’d never seen anything less appetizing in his life. He was not in the proper frame of mind for this. He wanted to be left alone to brood.
It wasn’t as though Audra behaved like someone having an affair—and who would know affair behavior better than Graham? Cheating spouses were supposed to be distant and preoccupied, to be secretive about their whereabouts, to be obsessed with their cellphones.
Well, cellphones! Sometimes Graham wanted to have an affair, just so he could benefit from the ease of cellphones. (It was like he sometimes wanted to take up skiing again now that there were fleece hats, which didn’t make your head itch like the wool ones.) But what if your wife had always been obsessed with her cellphone? She’d been obsessed with her landline! Accusing Audra of having an affair because she made too many phone calls was like accusing Tiger Woods of having an affair because he played too much golf. (Although, you know, maybe Tiger Woods was not the best possible comparison here.)
—
Graham started the coffee machine and cut open the bag of potatoes. He should peel them while the coffee perked but found he didn’t have the energy. Instead he leaned against the counter and stared at the guest list Audra had taped to the refrigerator.
Lorelei
Doug
Bitsy
Clayton
Pearl
Manny
Alan
Dr. Moley, Matthew’s pediatrician
Dinah, Dr. Moley’s wife
Mr. Vargas, Matthew’s piano teacher
Mrs. Bellamy, the old lady on Six