“For God’s sake, get in the car.”
So I did. He was right; traffic was terrible. We inched along in silence. An accident had narrowed Memorial Bridge down to one lane for cars crossing into Virginia. Beneath us the river flowed sullenly, the water choppy and brown.
Will’s Jeep had a baseball glove and tennis rackets thrown in the back. The radio was tuned to NPR. We listened as the Morning Edition anchors delivered gloomy updates on the latest horrors in Mali, in Syria, on Capitol Hill. Strangely, my mood lifted as they forged on. So many people in the world had worse problems than I did. By the time the newscasters introduced a story about an oil spill and the resulting environmental catastrophe off the coast of Norway, I broke into a grin.
Will glanced over. “Oil spills are funny?”
“No, but honestly, are you listening to this?” I shook my head. “If we don’t all die from toxic oil fumes, we’ll be overwhelmed by rising -Islamist militants from the Middle East. There’s no hope.”
He grinned, too. “I was only playing NPR to impress you. Want music instead?”
“Sure. Whatever you like to listen to is fine.”
He hesitated. “Country, actually. You probably think it’s corny. But, yeah, I love it. Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, all the old honky-tonk stuff. Garth Brooks isn’t bad.”
“No. Seriously? Garth Brooks?”
“Well, but mostly I listen to C-SPAN radio. Obviously. Unlike you, I find there’s nothing like live coverage of a House Agriculture subcommittee to get a guy going in the morning.”
I smiled. We fell quiet again, but the silence was more amiable now. I studied his hands on the steering wheel. No wedding ring.
Will Zartman was not my type. I tend to go for undernourished, slightly tragic-looking academics. You know the sort: pale, artsy guys who chain-smoke while wearing skinny jeans and black turtlenecks. It’s a pathology, I know. Too much time spent studying abroad in Paris during my formative romantic years. My penchant for the Euro look has provided endless amusement for my brothers over the years; they excuse themselves to the kitchen and break out in the “Sprockets” routine from Saturday Night Live whenever I bring a new boyfriend home. Tony in particular has perfected Mike Myers’s mincing hip wriggle (“Now is ze time vhen ve dance!”).
Annoyingly, I had the feeling that Tony and Martin would like Will. He looked both robustly healthy and robustly American. He was into country music, of all things. Definitely not my type.
Will pulled up to the curb at airport departures exactly fifty-two minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off. I didn’t have luggage to check; I should just make it.
“Thanks for the ride. It was awfully nice of you.” I reached for the car door. He saw me flinch as I jerked at the handle with my right hand.
“Hang on.” He put the car in park, jumped out, ran around, and opened my door from the outside. “Door-to-door service. There you go.”
I felt simultaneously charmed and irritated. “Okay. Well. Thanks again.”
“I’m going to make that appointment for you with Marshall Gellert. How about the end of this week?”
“Fine.”
“But will you back here by then?” He searched my face.
I nodded. “By Wednesday or Thursday, I would think. I need a few days down in Atlanta. To try to make peace with things. And to see their old house and whatever else is left to see, which I’m guessing isn’t much.”
“Right. But, Caroline, if that bullet is pressing down on a nerve . . . if that’s what has inflamed your wrist . . . then you really need to get it checked. Before there’s any further damage. Promise.”
“Cross my heart.”
Then, before I quite understood what was happening, he stepped close. I smelled soap and coffee and something else, an animal scent, as though he’d recently been in the company of a warm dog. He lifted a lock of my hair. His fingers slid down the dark curl, then closed around it and held still for a moment. My breath caught. The gesture was astonishingly intimate.
He dropped the curl lightly on my shoulder and stepped back. “Be careful. Take care of yourself.”
“I will.” I couldn’t think what else to say, so I turned and walked -toward the bright lights of the terminal. Glass doors slid open and then sealed shut behind me. I did not look back, and for two days I did not again think of Will Zartman.
PART TWO
Atlanta
Ten
* * *
I wish that I could report a dramatic development the first time I stood outside that house on Eulalia Road.
It was early afternoon on Monday when I pulled my rental car up to the curb. The front of the house was in shadow, and the street was quiet. Either few children lived on this block or else they were not yet home from school. Wind rustled the leaves of the graceful elm tree that dominated the front yard. How old must that tree be? Fifty years old? Seventy---five? It was stout enough that it must already have been well established when the Smiths lived here. I must have played under these branches, must have tried to wrap chubby little arms around this trunk. I waited for an epiphany. For some ancient shard of memory to dislodge itself and come rushing back to me.
But no: it was just a tree. The house was just a house.
I felt nothing.
I crossed the lawn, climbed five brick steps to the front porch, and knocked.
No answer.
I knocked again and was about to conclude the house was empty when the door cracked open.
“Yes?” An older woman’s voice. I could see a patch of gray hair above the safety chain, which remained fastened.
“Hello, forgive me for disturbing you. My name’s Caroline Cashion, and I used to live in this house, when I was a child.”