It began to seem as though Graham was trapped in some awful social quicksand and the more he tried to free himself, the deeper he sank. It seemed that he would never get out of the hospital and back to the apartment without at least one unwanted guest.
Mrs. Bellamy was admitted to the hospital overnight for observation, so she was no problem, but everyone else seemed determined to return. The old Graham might have let them; the new Graham could not bear it. And yet what could he do when Alan began wondering aloud about turkey sandwiches and Manny said he had low blood sugar and Clayton said Thanksgiving didn’t seem like Thanksgiving without at least one slice of pumpkin pie? Graham was afraid to open his mouth for fear the quicksand would flow in and choke him. He would sink without a trace.
Of course it was Audra who saved him. “Goodness,” she said to Manny and Alan, “weren’t you smart to bring your backpacks! We won’t have to go back for them.”
“We always bring our backpacks with us,” Manny told her. “We don’t want to get trapped somewhere without origami paper.”
“Well, now, that’s very forward-thinking,” Audra said. “Perhaps after you and Alan help Clayton get Pearl home, you can all fold something together.”
“I guess we could order Chinese food,” Clayton said thoughtfully.
“White rice, though,” Manny said quickly.
“So let’s see,” Audra said. “We’ll need one—two—three taxis. One to Clayton’s house, one for the Moleys, and one for Mr. Vargas. It’s so late! You all must want to get home. Thank goodness no one has any travel plans tomorrow.”
(It was possible that she didn’t say that last sentence, that Graham only imagined she did because he wanted to say it so badly himself.)
“Dr. Moley, can I ask you to flag the taxis for us?” Audra said. “Come on, everyone.” She put her hand on Graham’s arm and whispered, “I’ll see you at home.”
And they were off, everyone obediently trailing behind Audra like the world’s oldest human ducklings, and Graham and Elspeth were alone.
Elspeth wore a pale yellow coat, almost the same color as her hair. She looked, as always, tidy and poised and slightly starched, more like Graham’s vision of a nurse than any nurse actually here in the hospital.
“What a night,” she said to him.
He smiled. “It won’t be good publicity for your catering business.”
Elspeth gave him a narrow look. She had never liked his humor very much.
She tightened the belt of her coat. “It was good to see you,” she said formally.
“Very good,” Graham said, trying to make up for offending her.
She paused. “Perhaps we’ll see each other again soon.”
“I’d like that,” he said.
Her eyes flashed up to his instantly.
“We’ll figure this out,” he said. “How to be friends.”
She nodded, lifting her chin slightly. “If you want.”
Without really planning to, Graham stepped forward and took her in his arms. He felt her stiffen, and then she sighed and relaxed. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he thought of how long and slender her neck was, how vulnerable. He put his hand on the back of her head and held her that way for a long, long moment, not caring if anyone saw them. He didn’t do it because he felt guilty, or because he felt he owed it to her, or even because he wanted to. He did it because it was the one thing he felt he could do right.
—
He waited on the sidewalk with Elspeth until a cab came. She got into it the primly sexy way women wearing narrow skirts always get into cabs: with a slight swing of her hips and a little hop. Graham leaned forward to close the door, but she was already pulling it shut from the inside. That was Elspeth.
He began walking home. He should have been exhausted but he felt energetic. Maybe Audra would be waiting for him with a bottle of wine. He would make turkey sandwiches and they would drink wine and discuss Thanksgiving, and she would say, as she did after every dinner party they had, “On a scale of Delightful to Never Again, where would you rate it?”
Graham looked forward to that suddenly, looked forward to being with Audra.
And then tomorrow he would call Elspeth and that was something to look forward to also. He hadn’t realized he intended to call her until the plan was there, already in his mind. He would call Elspeth and they would meet for drinks. It felt like the right decision, as certain as death and taxes, as inevitable as bifocals and paper cuts and bad TV on Saturday nights.
This was where he had gone wrong all those years ago, he saw that now. He had gone too suddenly—too completely—from Elspeth to Audra. He was finally at a place where he and Elspeth could have a relationship that was free of bitterness, free of guilt. They could be close again. Not romantically—he didn’t want that—but close, intimate, even loving in some way that only former spouses could be.
This idea seemed so clear to him that for a moment he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. He felt something in his chest clutch and release, the way it felt when he thought he’d left his wallet in a restaurant and then touched his pocket and realized he still had it with him. Of course. He remembered. Things were different now.
Chapter Five
So this is how it works, Graham thought.
Life went on. You learned the unimaginable, but life went on. The earth should have stopped spinning, or at least have tilted another twenty-four degrees on its axis, creating new seasons, new weather—a new, harsher world for everyone. But it didn’t. Everything went on as normal. Your child folded origami and your wife obsessed about United Nations Day and the afternoon doorman, Julio, lived in your den because—because—well, Graham wasn’t exactly sure why. Bedbugs? Landlord dispute? He couldn’t remember.
Graham looked out the window sometimes and expected to see a postapocalyptic world, with a cold gray skyline and abandoned cars clogging the street, not a living soul in sight. But when he looked outside, he saw only the normal Manhattan traffic and people hurrying around, with their shopping bags in their hands, or cellphones to their ears, gesturing at no one. The postapocalyptic world was inside him but no one seemed to notice.
Right now, for instance, Audra was talking to Julio in the kitchen. Julio was a good-looking Dominican guy in his early twenties who was so grateful to be staying with them that he did everything he could to be helpful. He and Audra had just returned from the vegetable stand. Graham was reading the paper in the living room but he could hear them perfectly.
“I’ve devised this whole new system for dividing the population into two groups,” Audra was saying. “It’s very simple: if you don’t like United Nations Day, you can be my friend. If you do like it, then you can’t.”
“What’s wrong with United Nations Day?” Julio asked.
“I don’t mean the actual United Nations Day,” Audra said. “I mean, United Nations Day at Matthew’s school, which is this day where every classroom is decorated like a different country and the children visit each country and learn about different cultures and stuff.”
“Well, what’s so awful about that?” Julio asked.