The Last September: A Novel

“Slowly.” I didn’t want to talk about my dissertation. What I wanted to do was tell Ladd something I hadn’t told anybody aside from Maxine and our marriage counselor; I wanted to tell him about Deirdre. You were right, I wanted to say. Charlie broke my heart.

“A lot’s happened since you went away,” I said. It occurred to me that he was just back from an adventure, a life-changing experience. I should have asked him about that. But I was too full of my own life-changing experience. So I said something else, something for which I must never be forgiven: “Charlie had an affair with the hostess at his restaurant. So we had to come here for a while to get away from all that.”

Ladd leaned against the sink, his fists behind him closed around the edge of the counter. I remembered those same fists closing around my wrists and guessed that he did, too. That same flush of anger came over his face. At first I thought it was directed at Charlie. Then I realized it was at me, for confiding in him.

“Why are you telling me this?” he said.

“I don’t know. Why did you write me that letter?”

Ladd pushed away from the sink and walked toward me, but he didn’t make it all the way across the room. Instead he took a seat in an ancient armchair. This cottage had been built in 1920, and the chair—with its unraveling weave and tired springs—looked like it had been there from the beginning. Everything as old and worn as the pain that Charlie had caused me, and the echoes I had stirred here with Ladd. I felt like I should step back a little, retreating from what I might have just set in motion. But I couldn’t get any closer to the table without moving around it, toward the far wall, which I felt would call too much attention to myself. As it was, Ladd hadn’t taken his eyes off me. He watched me like something he was studying, and when he spoke, his voice was careful, considered.

“What am I supposed to say now?” he asked. “Something about how I thought of you while I was in the jungle?”

“I guess you could say I told you so.”

Ladd blinked, letting up his gaze the tiniest bit. “I always wanted to ask,” he said, “if you left because I made you sign that thing. Because if that was the reason, you could have told me. Christ, you could have done anything in the world except run off with Charlie.”

So long ago and far away, that day in the Boston lawyer’s office. Clearly the point of that day was not to expect anything as a gift. It would all be on loan—the man, the marriage, the family fortune, the good pen. Dependent on my good behavior.

“Charlie Moss,” Ladd said. “Of all people in the world.”

That name, even or especially then, like a fist closing around my heart. And I was so tired of feeling that way. As usual, I thought of Deirdre, her wounded, icy-blonde face.

“So you’re not going to say it?”

“What?” Ladd said. “I told you so? Would it make a difference now?”

“I doubt it.”

“You know,” Ladd went on, “that day you left my house, when I didn’t come after you, I thought I was doing what I had to, what I was supposed to do. Respecting your wishes. I felt so horrible. Charlie never did one thing to deserve you and you married him anyway. Lately I’ve been thinking about it, all the time I’ve spent doing what I’m supposed to do. Every second and minute when I’ve been obedient and responsible and considerate. What would be so bad about taking one minute to myself, to just do what I want?”