I once counted up how many days of Abby’s life I didn’t spend with her because of shared custody. Don’t do this. It hurts too much, first of all. Second of all, as I’ve tried to say before, you can’t count loss. Mark took Abby skiing for the first time, and I never saw it. They went camping, and she caught a fish that I never witnessed her catching. She sprained her ankle when they were on a hike, and I didn’t know they’d been to the emergency room until after they’d returned home. If a child falls in a forest and you aren’t there to see it, do you feel like shit for years after? She goes away for a weekend and comes back with a new haircut. She rides a horse for the first time, away from you. Put a number to that.
Sometime after I first met Ian, I had taken Abby to our suburban neighborhood pool. I had just parked in the busy lot. I was collecting my bag and our towels and was searching for my book, which had slid under the seat, when I looked up and saw Ian there, with Bethy and Kristen. It was unplanned, but it felt like especially good luck, the kind of good luck that makes you secretly believe in fate.
“Look who’s here! Guys! It’s Abby and her mom!” Ian had said. His smile was bright against his summer tan. His sunglasses were on his head. I could tell even from there that he smelled like suntan lotion. I was so happy to see that man.
We hugged hello. Just the day before, we’d spent a few illicit hours wrapped in each other’s arms on a blanket on the university campus. We were secretly in love and I was buoyant with it.
We walked as a group from the parking lot to the pool entrance, Abby and Bethy talking shyly, Kristen dragging a snorkel against the sidewalk. We parted ways as soon as we got in, because Ian was meeting Neal and his kids. But for those few moments, during that walk, as Ian and I each held a stack of towels and toted a bag, I imagined us as a family. A restructured family but still whole. The three girls and us, heading to the pool for a day of fun. This was what it could be like.
I was such an idiot.
Of course, you have your losses, and your children have theirs. In that iconic stepfamily, the Brady Bunch, there were no ex-wives or ex-husbands, and Jan didn’t resent Peter for the attention he got from her own mother, Carol. Marcia, Jan, and Cindy didn’t return home after a visit with their father, sporting new clothes and cellphones, eliciting feelings of jealousy in Greg, Peter, and Bobby. Mike Brady didn’t hate the girls’ father; Carol didn’t think Mike spoiled his boys. Greg didn’t bring up his mother and the good old days every two seconds, inspiring murderous annoyance in Carol. Cindy didn’t start wetting the bed, causing Carol to believe that her daughter was damaged for life and that it was all her fault, and Bobby’s mother didn’t phone every week (usually right during the middle of the Brady family dinner) to argue with Mike about school-picture money or Bobby’s missing shin guards.
Here is a stepfamily recipe: Take your pain and his loss and the children’s anger. Add his ex’s intrusions and your ex’s inconsistencies. Fold into a house with at least one shared bathroom and mutual holidays. Blend.
Anna Jane kisses me goodbye after a quick lunch at the houseboat. I wonder if she is as relieved to get away as that man in the store had been.
“I feel bad leaving you all alone,” she says.
“I’m fine.”
“I can wait for Abby to get back.”
“No, no. You’d better get going. Traffic over the bridge …”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” She gives my arm a final squeeze.
I watch her drive away. I know she’ll turn and wave, and so I wait until she does. I don’t want to wait, but I force myself to. And then, the very second her car turns the corner, I head back. That letter, that lie—I need to do what I can to find out what happened to Ian, and fast.
The party, the drive home, the grim face. The key, the dog, the heels. The cool sheets. The bliss of rest! Goddamn it! Remember!
The cuff link.
I could see why you’d be pissed … An argument.
I do remember. And I know I need to talk to Desiree Harris. Now.
“Dani?”
It’s my neighbor, Maggie Long. She wears a pair of culottes—who knew anyone still had those? She’s run out to meet me in those swingy, skirt-like pants; she even leaves her front door open, she’s in such a hurry to catch me. She’s probably been watching for me out her front window. Her brown hair is pulled back in a butterfly clip. Butterfly clip—the words make me think of a thorax pinched tight between thumb and forefinger. All those beer bottles in the Longs’ recycling bin—the alcohol is beginning to show on Maggie’s face. Alcohol really ages a person.
“We’ve been talking about you,” Maggie says. What had Ian been thinking, going away like this? There was no way everyone would not know his business now. Our business. You want everyone to think you’re perfect, and you do this? You blow it all up in one big move? Was this just a last giant fuck-you to everyone? To me and Nathan and his kids and his father and everyone who’d ever loved him and let him down? The police have visited every neighbor on the dock, of course. We’ve called every person in Ian’s life. Unless he has a very good, innocent reason for being gone (and what might that be? A kidnapping? Amnesia?), we’ll have to leave this place if he ever comes home. Domestic drama in a sprawling suburban neighborhood was bad enough for him; on this small dock, it would be intolerably humiliating. Every time he stepped out the door, there would be Jack or Maggie Long or Mattie or even old blissed-out Joe Grayson, with their awareness of his failures. Every day he walked into his office … He couldn’t live with that. I know that about him. Even if he comes back, our old life is over.
“I appreciate it,” I say to Maggie. “This has been hell.”
“I can’t even imagine.” Maggie shakes her head, but it’s an obligatory move. It’s the comma between two sentences, the pesky have-to before she gets to what she can’t wait to say. “Listen, Jack and I—we were going over that night. Replaying it. You guys went out to that party …”
“We did.”
“Later on, in the early morning, did you hear that boat?”
“No.” My chest clutches up, bracing for some blow.
“I can’t believe you didn’t hear it. It was sitting out there for a few hours! I’d forgotten all about it. This motor—one of those obnoxious ski boats. You know how the sound carries.”
“What did it do?”
“Nothing. I just remember waking up and hearing it, and Jack rolling over and saying, ‘Fuck!’ and thinking it was some stupid kids sitting out there drinking on Daddy’s toy. I put a pillow over my head and went back to sleep.”
I don’t know what to think about this news. I try to make some connection in my head, but there are noisy boats all the time, at all hours. It’s one of the negatives of living on the lake. I stand there with Maggie Long like an idiot, as she looks at me, waiting. I don’t know what she’s trying to tell me.
“Is it possible?” she asks. I shake my own head now. I have no idea what she’s getting at. She sighs. She squinches her nose, as if it’s distasteful to have to say. “Could he have left that way? By boat?”
I feel the air leave me, as if she’s socked me in the gut. I’ve played so many scenarios in my head, but never that one.
“Jack said, ‘His car is there, you know?’ I didn’t want to mention it to you, but Jack said, ‘You gotta tell her. Maybe she hasn’t thought of it.’ The car doesn’t mean anything, you know, necessarily.”
“It never occurred to me.”
“People get picked up on the docks every day.”
For dinner, for a boat ride to a Husky game. Not to disappear into a new life. I rapidly flip through the images: Ian standing at the dock with his wallet and cellphone, waiting to hop a ride. A boat cruising up, sloshing and rocking our home as I slept like the dead.
“I looked at my clock, too.” Maggie Long’s eyes are bright. This is more excitement than she gets on an ordinary day, doing the books for that accounting firm, or cooking Jack a mediumrare T-bone. God, she looks as excited as Pollux does when I shake the treat box. “I made sure to check the time. One-thirty. I always look at the clock when I hear an unusual sound in the night. You never know when it might be important.”
It’s obvious that she’s imagining herself the star witness at some trial. Thank you, Miss Marple! Thank you, you fucking nosy neighbor! This is as helpful as those psychics who claim they saw the missing person next to a red fence in a yellow field. I wonder if Maggie and Jack had their big revelation after their first six-pack of the night or their second. Maybe the news team could come, and Maggie could be interviewed. She’d be the perfect one to say, “They were just normal people. They kept to themselves. We always thought they were a little too quiet.…” All of her friends could come over to watch KING 5 at six. They could scream and point at the screen when she came on. They’d reassure her that she hadn’t looked fat on TV at all.
I’m losing my mind. This is getting to me. It’s changing me in ugly ways. I am transforming. There is all this anger, which is burning away my soft silk threads. I like Maggie. She’s only trying to be helpful; I know that. My rational self does. The self that began disappearing eight days ago, when Ian did. The self that is utterly gone now that Detective Jackson has my laptop with that letter on it.
Maggie grips my arm. Her eyes shine. I remember this, from my adultery and divorce in the suburbs—how thrilling your tragedy can be to other people.
Desiree Harris is not listed anywhere. I am searching the white pages on my phone with no luck. If I had my damn computer, this would be easier. I try to call Nathan, knowing he’ll have access to her cell number, but there’s no answer. What now? Think, think, think.
Kitty, the receptionist. She could get that information. But it’s Sunday, and she won’t be at work. Kitty what? What’s her last name? Wait. Something funny. Bizarro? Maybe Bissaro? Please, please, please. I try my phone again, but those damn online white pages are useless. I hunt for her name in the phone book that, thankfully, we still have under the kitchen counter. It’s been years since I’ve used a phone book, and, wow, the print has grown smaller. How do people even read these things? I hunt around for my reading glasses. Katherine Bissaro, there it is, thank you.
She answers. “ ’Lo?”
“Kitty?”
“Yes?”
“This is Dani Keller. I’m sorry to call you at home, but I need your help. I’m trying to reach Desiree Harris, but I don’t know her number. You don’t happen to have that, do you?”
“Not here.”
“God, Kitty, I’m sorry to ask this of you, but can I meet you over at BetterWorks and get it from you? It’s an emergency.”
She hesitates. “Yeah, uh, hold on a sec.” I hear her speaking to someone on the other end, and then she’s back. “Mrs. Keller? I live, like, two miles away. I usually bike. My boyfriend, Jesse, said he’d give me a ride over. I’ll call you back.”
“Kitty, that would be amazing. Thank you so much. I really need to get in touch with her.”
“No problem. If I can help at all about, you know, Mr. Keller …”
“Thank you.”
I’m an idiot, though. Because when I hang up, I realize I haven’t given her a way to reach me. Wait, if she has Desiree Harris’s number, she’ll certainly have mine! And what about caller ID? I don’t need to worry. But I do worry. As the minutes pass, I’m getting more anxious. I need to get a hold of this Desiree immediately. I need some answers before Detective Jackson comes up with answers of his own. How long does it take to go two blocks? I wait five minutes exactly, and then I phone BetterWorks.
There is ringing, and then the answering system picks up. Of course, it’s Sunday. I try one of the back lines, but there is only more ringing, endless trilling. I wait four more minutes exactly and try again. And again.
Finally, “BetterWorks.”
“It’s me. Dani Keller.”
“I just got here.” She’s out of breath. “Let me find it for you.”
“Fantastic,” I say. “Thanks so much again.”
She puts me on hold. The piped-in music comes on automatically—some jazz piano number. I feel a weight on my chest, as if something’s pressing there. It’s hard to catch my breath. I felt this way once before, when I fell off the monkey bars in elementary school and landed flat on my back. I remember the recess teacher’s big face looking into mine, the orange balls of her necklace dangling over me. I thought I was dying. No air, no ability to even gasp … Wait—twice. I’ve felt this way twice. I’d gone to court for a temporary order of separation from Mark, and I met my attorney in her office beforehand. This same thing had happened. She pulled a paper bag from her desk and made me breathe into it. I thought it was darkly humorous that she kept a stash of them handy. When my bill grew, I understood even better why they might be necessary.
Kitty is back. “Mrs. Keller? I know I took a long time, but I was talking to Doug, and I was thinking that it’s against policy to give out those numbers.”
“It’s against policy. I was thinking maybe I should call Desiree and give her your number.”
“Kitty.” I try to breathe. “Do you understand that this is an emergency?”
“Just stay right there. I’ll call her now.”
She puts me on hold again. The jazz song ends, and another begins. It’s the screaming-horns kind of jazz, and I want to claw at my own skin at the sound of it and at this waiting, waiting, furious, crazy waiting. Ian doesn’t even like jazz. Why he has jazz on his answering system is beyond me. I once played a mellow guitar-type jazz album at a dinner we held for some colleagues of his, and he said, I thought you had better taste than this.
I stamp down a feeling of fury, the way you make sure a fire is completely out at a campground. It doesn’t do much good. Cinders are flying everywhere now. I make a deal with myself. If she’s not back in ten seconds, I’m going to get in my car and drive over there. I’ll talk my way past that guard. I’ll get on the damn computer and find the number myself. It’d be quicker than this.
“Mrs. Keller?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Desiree isn’t answering.”
I keep the cry of anger down with great effort. I imagine Desiree Harris at Nordstrom. She’s in the dressing room. Her cellphone is ringing, but she has a new red dress half over her head. Or else maybe she and Kitty did talk. They talked and Desiree is avoiding me. That’s what’s going on. Of course it is.
I try not to sound as furious as I am, I really do. “May I have her cell number please? As you can imagine, this is rather important.”
Kitty sounds nervous. “We can’t give those out, Mrs. Keller. It’s against the rules.”
“My husband made those rules. You might want to remember that.”
Oh, the dripping venom, the bitch tongue. My old self is gone, and good riddance to her, the pathetic, self-defeating Goody Two-shoes. Ian gives me a hard time about the way I pour on the nice to every salesperson, barista, waiter, telemarketer, or person I bump into in an elevator. A guy came to repair our furnace once, and I asked him if he needed something to drink. I asked how long he’d been in furnace repair. I told him that it must be gratifying to do his job, to provide something people needed so badly, warmth on a November day. Ian was disgusted. You act like you’re personally responsible for everyone’s self-esteem. He was right.
Kitty’s voice is strained, stretched tight as glass. “I’m so sorry, I can’t …”
I open my mouth, where a string of vicious words are waiting—I can feel them pressing in my throat. Instead of speaking, I slam that phone down so hard that the plastic case smacks against the wall, which causes Pollux to leap to his feet in alarm. His eyes are chocolate pools of distress.
I dial Nathan. I reach Tim’s Shoe Emporium instead, whatever and wherever the hell that is. Goddamn it! I try again.
“Dani? You okay?” Nathan says this instead of hello. “I’m sorry, shit. I see you’ve been calling me. I’m in my car. I couldn’t hear over the radio.”
“I’ve got to reach Desiree Harris and can’t get her number. I tried Kitty, but she won’t give it out. Kitty called Desiree herself, but she says she’s not there. I don’t believe it. I think she’s avoiding me.”
“I’m not … I’m at … Just a sec.” I hear him place an order for a number three with a root beer, and an intercom voice gives him a total.
“You’re at Taco Time?” I’m shocked, actually. It seems so wrong. A detective is about to catch me in a lie about my missing husband, and his business partner is ordering a beef soft-taco meal.
“Dani, you sound awful.”
“You’ve got to get her to meet me. Or at least talk to me on the phone.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea—”
“Nathan.” I attempt to infuse my voice with reason. I unclench my fist, where my nails have left little red crescents in my skin. “She might know something. I’ve got to reach her.”
“I’m worried, Dani.”
“No one’s more worried than I am.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, this might not look good. It feels … aggressive. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”
“It’s not aggressive, Nathan. It’s desperate. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, there’s a reason.”
“She’s probably afraid.”
“Exactly.”
“No, I mean, you calling like this …”
“Afraid of me?” Ludicrous. I can’t even imagine it.
“Yes.”
I don’t say anything.
“You should hear your voice.”
I shut my eyes. It’s a two-second form of prayer without words. “Nathan, please help me,” I beg.
“Let me call her,” he says.
I hear a voice on the intercom again. Hot sauce or ketchup with that? And then there is the rustle of a paper bag. I summon every atom of calm I might have in my sorry cells.
“Thank you, Nathan,” I say.
Picture this, my first meeting with Paul Hartley Keller:
Ian and I are drinking a glass of wine in that narrow furnished apartment. It’s just the two of us so far. Ian keeps looking at his watch. Paul Hartley Keller is late.
Our knees are touching. Ian rubs my leg. I reach for my glass on the coffee table.
“Darling,” he says. “If you hold the glass up there, you warm the wine. Hold it by the stem. Or with your fingertips.”
“Ian, relax. Why are you so nervous?”
“I’m not nervous.”
I feel a prickle of irritation. “I won’t embarrass you.”
He leaps up at the knock. I stand, too, and pull my black skirt down. We’re going to the Twilight, Ian had said earlier in the week. You know that black skirt you have? That tight white satin shirt? That’d be perfect.
Ian answers the door. I can see where Ian gets his looks, first off, and his taste for expensive things. Paul Hartley Keller, even with his fleshy jowls, is a handsome man. He’s got a full head of gray hair, brushed back from his face, and icicle-blue eyes under bushy brows. He’s a big man. His suit is dark, beautiful, and he has a cashmere overcoat. His voice is large, too.
“Hell of a lot closer to civilization than your last place,” he says as he comes through the door. He is huffing badly; I hear a little wheeze that makes me nervous. But he fills that room. I feel his energy the minute he steps inside. This is much better than I was imagining. All at once, the night seems to hold possibilities. I’m actually excited for it. Who knows what might happen. You can tell this about Paul Hartley Keller right off: He makes things happen.
“Dad.” Not a hug, but a handshake. “This is Dani.”
“Mr. Keller,” I say.
He looks me directly in the eyes, holds my gaze. “Paul. Please.” He takes my hands. “Oh, your hands are so warm,” he says.
Ian stands around. He’s waiting for something, I can tell. What? Some acknowledgment of his new living arrangements? The apartment is stylish; there’s a view. The building is new and it still smells new. The furniture it came with is leather. The appliances are stainless, though Ian never uses anything in the kitchen except the microwave. But, really, what is there for Paul Hartley Keller to admire?
“Shall we?” Paul Hartley Keller says. “I left the car unlocked.”
“Not exactly a dangerous neighborhood,” Ian says, and meets my eyes. I smile, but I think he’s being overly sensitive. Paul Hartley Keller takes my arm, a firm grip, and stands close to me in the elevator. I slow my pace to his on the way to the car, aware of his effortful breathing, but the truth is, it’s better for me, too, with the shoes I’m wearing.
“Aren’t you a breath of fresh air,” he says. “A beautiful one like you, I bet you’re a very powerful woman.”
I laugh. “Well …” I say. We arrive at his Mercedes. It’s new. Gorgeous. Brushed silver.
He knows what I’m thinking. “Silver fox like me, eh?” I almost blush. I feel nervous, but it’s the good kind of nervous, the kind that’s hiding a secret center of giddiness. He opens the front door for me. There’s a moment of awkwardness, as I don’t want to sit in the front, but I do so anyway. This leaves Ian to sit in the back. I glance behind me, give him a brief look of apology. He looks like he’s about seven years old back there.
Paul Hartley Keller asks me what I do, and I tell him about my graphics firm. I use the word firm, though you could hardly call it that. I admit this. He chuckles. “Creative professions have the highest job satisfaction in the world,” he says. Maybe he’s making this up, but, oh, well. Who cares? He pays the parking attendant with a folded bill and doesn’t wait for change. It’s a small, thrilling world in that car; it smells lush, lush leather and breath mints, and it feels lush. Music is playing, and the ride is like velvet. Ian keeps poking his head between us from the backseat, interjecting comments.
“I can’t hear anything back here,” he whines.
“You want me to turn this down, just say so.” Paul Hartley Keller’s hand hovers near the car’s stereo system.
“That’s fine,” Ian says.
“It’s the José Granada Trio,” he says to me. It’s some sort of flamenco. He turns it up a notch. “Like it?” I do like it. I like it a lot. It’s unusual and sexy and fun. He snaps the fingers of one hand as he keeps a casual but commanding hold of the wheel with the other. He smiles as if to say we share the joke. He’s the kind of man who’d be a great dancer, though. He’d guide you with a strong, definite hold. He’d know what to do.
The city looks especially beautiful through those tinted windows. Paul Hartley Keller pulls up to valet parking at the restaurant. The college kid opens the door for me. He’s dressed in black valet pants, a vest, and a crisp white shirt. It’s crazy, but I feel somehow glamorous getting out of that car. My legs feel longer; I’m more elegant.
Paul Hartley Keller has his hand on the small of my back as we go inside. We walk in together. Ian is behind us somewhere, separated at the revolving door. All these stories I’d heard about his father, and now look. He’s utterly charming. He’s not at all what I’d been expecting.
Paul Hartley Keller seems to know the hostess. We’re seated at a perfect table by the window. And this place—wow. There is a view here, too. A wider, more expansive view than the one in Ian’s apartment or office; it’s of the city and the sound and the mountains beyond. It goes on forever.
Ian is already looking at his menu. “What’s the rush?” Paul Hartley Keller says. “You have a train to catch?” Ian sets the menu down. The restaurant is glittery with candlelight. I glide my napkin to my lap, where it feels as delicate as an orchid.
Paul Hartley Keller orders wine. The sommelier arrives with a white towel over one arm. Paul Hartley Keller sniffs and swirls and nods his approval. The wine is poured—red. I make sure to hold my glass with only my fingertips.
“Better than this,” Ian says. He holds his glass out to me, cupped in two hands. It’s cruel. I redden. I don’t know why he wants to skewer me.
“Private joke?” Paul Hartley Keller says.
“The way Dani was holding her glass earlier.”
“She could keep it on the table and lick from it like a cat, and she would look lovely doing it.” He clinks my glass. I clink his.
“Are you having the trout?” Ian says to me. He’s forgotten that I don’t like white fish.
“The grilled bluefin is excellent,” Paul says.
“I’ll have the petite filet,” I say to the waitress when she returns.
“Ah, the girl likes her meat,” he says. It sounds seductive, electrifying. I may be a powerful woman after all, who knew? Paul Hartley Keller tells us in great detail about a trip he’s thinking about taking, a cruise, but not the kind where a hundred people are huddled together on deck chairs. He likes his space. He likes the best service. The Greek Islands, the Aegean Sea, Santorini, Ios. The way he describes them, they sound like luxurious chocolates in a blue silk box.
“I should tell Dani my Microsoft story,” he says.
“I could tell her. I know it by heart,” Ian says. He’s becoming snippier and increasingly rude as the night goes on. The wine is amazing. A gentle heat blows through and disappears after each sip.
Paul Hartley Keller tells me how he warned Bill Gates about the idea Bill had to develop a computer for a regular person to use. “ ‘Doomed to fail,’ I said to him. ‘The average person doesn’t want to mess with that technological bullshit.’ He was sitting right there in my own living room. Just a kid. And Paul on my other side. The other Paul.”
“Oh, no,” I groan appreciatively. “Now, there’s a big if only …”
“How are things going with your start-up?” he asks Ian.
“Six years, it’s still a start-up?”
“Whoa,” Paul says. He holds up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “The best companies can take years to get off the ground.”
“It’s going great. Profitable. Too profitable. Fifty percent of my stock may go to my ex-wife.” He looks up at his father. I can see it for what it is. It’s a line of connection thrown out his father’s way. Paul Hartley Keller lost a fortune to Ian’s mother when they divorced.
Paul shrugs.
“It’s been tough, you know?” Ian’s eyes are soft in the candlelight. They are almost pleading.
“You’ve been sitting in the middle of this for over a year,” Paul says. He spins the wine in his glass, sips again.
“I know. It’s hell.”
“What’re you doing this halfway for? Get in and finish the job. Move on.” Well, obviously, I couldn’t agree more. He touches the cuff of my blouse with the tip of his finger. He looks in my eyes. “I’m a man who always finishes the job.”
I feel a warm rush, and I am ashamed of myself. It’s attraction, but it’s also turning to disgust. I’m not sure who attracts me and who disgusts me. I look at Ian, and I swear he has shrunk; it’s the wine or maybe the terrible, terrible yanking ropes of lineage and years of humiliation, but I swear Ian looks about a foot tall. He’s a tiny man sitting in that chair.
The waitress arrives. She has our plates balanced on her arms. Poached salmon and grilled bluefin and my filet with fine Roquefort potatoes. “Diane,” Paul says. The waitress has no name tag, so he obviously knows her from another visit. “When is your birthday? Let me guess.…” He waits; he looks her over. A man at another table is signaling his need for her with an upraised hand. It makes me nervous—the other diner wants his check and Diane is still hanging around, as if she has all the time in the world. “October,” Paul Hartley Keller declares.
“November.” She giggles. She has auburn hair. She has a long, thin neck like a ballet dancer.
“I knew it. Scorpio! Dynamic, passionate … aggressive.” He lifts one eyebrow at the last.
She laughs again. “Ah, yes. Watch out, mister.” She shakes my steak knife at him before setting it down next to my plate. I have an ugly feeling. Jealousy, repugnance. My own shine is dimming. “Anything else?” She pours him more wine without asking.
“That’s quite enough,” he flirts. He watches her ass as she leaves.
Definitely enough. My mood is turning sour. His charm is shriveling in my eyes now, too. That disgust I feel—it’s making its rounds. First it was Ian who disgusted me, then Paul. But I’m disgusted with myself the most.
We decline dessert, but he relishes his. He licks the spoon with a fat pink tongue.
On the way out, Paul sees someone he knows. He takes her hand, kisses her cheek. Her eyes shimmer. “Oh, your hands are so warm,” he says.
Paul asks the valet to call us a cab. He has people he’s going to meet. His fingers look like stout sausages as he hands over his credit card to pay. Ian and I don’t speak. The cab takes forever to get there. We stand at the curb, waiting and waiting, as the glittering people come and go.
Eight months later, Ian got a call with the news. Paul Hartley Keller had had a massive heart attack. He was dead. It happened at “a friend’s” apartment. I tried not to imagine the scene but did anyway: Paul Hartley Keller eating oysters in bed, post-sex. A “powerful woman” with her powerful thighs wrapped around his waist. It was a complete fabrication, but this is what I imagined when I thought of him dying. There were other factors, too, though, I guess, other than lust and desire. I remembered that wheezing when we walked uphill toward his car. And he had that diet of rich food and flattery that was obviously bad for the heart.
Not three days before this call, Ian’s divorce had been finalized. Paul Hartley Keller would never know it had happened.
Ian didn’t cry at the news that his father was gone; he only seemed stunned. Days afterward, stunned. He didn’t sleep. Abby was at Mark’s that first night, so I was with Ian. He sat on that temporary couch in that furnished apartment, and he stared out the window at the city lights. He was not an angry little boy then; he was a sad and lost man.
“It’ll never be different now,” he said.
It would never have been different, anyway, but I didn’t say that. We can need so much from people. That need is so thick sometimes, we can barely see through it.
Ian dressed in his most beautiful suit for the funeral. He shaved carefully. I held his hand during the short service at the funeral home.
They were there at the graveside service, scattered across that dewy green lawn. The butterflies. The one silently weeping behind her sunglasses. The one in those high, high heels, which were sinking into the grass. The one in a red dress, obviously defying conventional black in some way she felt Paul Hartley Keller would approve of.
I don’t believe he’s gone, Ian had said. Not: I can’t believe he’s gone. Not: It doesn’t seem real that he is gone. But: I don’t believe he’s gone. He was probably right about that.
We got married three months later. Three months to the day of Paul Hartley Keller’s death. To Ian, it was more important than ever to prove that he was a man who could finish the job.