During that spring of 1987, Charlie learned to cover his tracks. The Friday overnight shift, for instance. It was useful. If an officer worked surveillance on Friday night and had to return the car to the station on Saturday morning, it was entirely understandable that he might go upstairs, take advantage of the peace and quiet, and catch up on work for a few hours.
Sometimes these excuses were actually true. That day—Saturday, April 18, to be precise—happened to be a truthful day. He wasn’t at the station on any treasonous errand for Mary. But he was wired from the coffee he’d drunk during his overnight shift, and he was behind on paperwork, and, spurred by the constant awareness of his betrayal, he felt like he ought to be giving the agency one hundred and ten percent. The irony was rich. In his effort to offset the bad with the good, Charlie was doing better work than he’d done in years.
Later in the evening, the coffee wearing off, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep, he finally called it quits. Stepping outside into the fresh spring air, his hunger awakened. He wondered what Helen had planned for dinner. Lasagna, he hoped. She was on an Italian kick lately, and she made an excellent lasagna. But as he started home, Charlie had the nagging sense that he was, somehow, meant to help with dinner. There had been a plan. Right? Wasn’t he meant to pick something up? But now he was nearly home, so maybe he would just have to go inside and ask her. He rounded the corner to their street and looked up at their building, and for some reason, the light coming from their living room window suddenly caused him to remember:
April 18, 1987. His daughter’s fourth birthday.
Oh God. He checked his watch: just past 6 p.m. Oh God. The birthday party had begun at noon. He was meant to pick up the cake from the bakery in the morning, on his way home from his shift. Chocolate cake, vanilla frosting, decorated with a drawing of Elmo. Helen had stopped him as he’d walked out the door on Friday, saying, “You won’t forget the cake? It’s already paid for. Just give them my name.” And Charlie nodded, even while feeling offended by the question, because what kind of father forgets his own daughter’s birthday?
He climbed the stairs like he was ascending to the guillotine. He opened the door to find the living room scattered with detritus: a red balloon bobbing against the ceiling, frosting-smeared plates, crumpled paper napkins. A string of colorful handmade rainbow letters tacked to the wall spelled out: HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA.
Helen and Maurice were sitting at the far end of the living room. Maurice looked up, but Helen kept her gaze fixed on Maurice, saying: “No, keep going. You were telling me about that student of yours.”
Maurice cleared his throat, uncertain. “Right…. This student, he was saying, well, uh…”
“I’m so sorry,” Charlie said. “Helen, I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, well. Thankfully Maurice was able to pick up the cake.”
“Helen.” His voice was fraying. “I can’t believe I forgot, it just—”
“Maybe save the explanation for your daughter. It was her birthday, after all.”
“Is Amanda…?”
“I put her to bed. She was exhausted. Maurice? Can I get you more coffee?”
All the while, she refused to look at him.
Maurice stood up. “No, no. I’ve stayed too long as it is.”
Helen accompanied him to the door, brushing past Charlie. She said goodbye, closed the door, and turned to Charlie. He thought it would be a relief, this moment when she finally looked at him, but he was wrong. This was even worse. Helen stared at him with uncomprehending disgust. “I always wondered,” she said, “why you were so rude to that woman. But it makes perfect sense. She’s your mistress.”
“I—What?”
“Don’t play dumb, Charlie. It just makes you look worse.”
“But I’m not—”
“I saw you. I was dropping Amanda off for a playdate. You came out of the building, and a minute later, she came out, too. Don’t you dare lie to me. Don’t pretend this is some bullshit with your job. This is twisted. I mean, this is really sick. This woman comes up to me and Amanda and pretends to be a babysitter and meanwhile she’s sleeping with you? What kind of a person does that?”
He opened his mouth, but she snapped: “No! Shut up! You don’t get to talk.”
“Helen. Helen. Please let me explain.”
“I knew something was wrong,” she said. “I knew it months ago. Your clothes smell like perfume. You come home with a bruise on your neck. But somehow I explain it all away. I don’t let myself see it. Until it becomes too fucking obvious to ignore.” Her voice broke. “In broad daylight. On the same street as Amanda’s best friend. What the fuck, Charlie. It’s like you wanted me to find out.”
He dropped to his knees. “It was nothing. Helen. It meant nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. You don’t get to say that.”
He shuffled forward, wrapped his arms around her legs. She was nearly knocked off-kilter (“No, no, Charlie—stop it! Just stop it!”), but he held her tighter, and pressed his cheek against her dress. “I love you,” he said. “I don’t deserve to love you, but I love you. Helen. Helen. I love you more than anything in this world.”
This time, she didn’t manage to stifle her sob. “And I waited for you,” she said. “That’s the worst part, Charlie. I thought you would come clean. I thought you must have a scrap of conscience left. I was naive. I was an idiot. You were never going to tell me.”
He stood up and held her while she cried, her head cradled against his chest. He offered to explain everything, but she didn’t want to hear it. Had he slept with this woman? Yes or no? That was enough. She didn’t want more than that. Eventually Helen pushed him away, her face blotchy and swollen, and said: “You’re such a fucking asshole, Charlie.”
He spent the night on the couch. The ambient glow of the streetlights cast a dim gray rectangle across the ceiling. Charlie felt nauseous. I was naive. I was an idiot. It had always been Helen’s greatest gift, her ability to believe that any person, even the most despicable, would eventually do the right thing. She had believed this about him. And Charlie, in the worst way possible, had proved this tenet wrong. He had broken her heart, broken their vows, but what filled him with the most shame was the idea that he might have broken her capacity for trust.
He must have slept at some point, because around dawn, as the sky was lightening, he woke to the soft pad of footsteps across the carpet. Amanda stood at the end of the couch, dressed in her flannel nightgown. Her thumb was in her mouth, and in her other hand she carried a plush Elmo. She took out her thumb and whispered: “Daddy!”
It was the first Charlie had seen of her. She climbed into his lap. He stroked her hair, silky and warm, tangled from sleep. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he said: “Did you have a good birthday, sweetheart?”
“We played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Linna had never played it before.”
“Linna,” he said. Linna Kivi. Amanda’s best friend from preschool, the one whose family lived near the harbor, on the same street as Mary. He had known this, he had known this, and yet it had never factored into his behavior.
“And, Daddy, Daddy! Guess who won!”
“Let me guess.” He squeezed her tighter. “Was it a little girl named Amanda Cole?”
She wriggled with pleasure. As she continued whispering about the party (somehow knowing she was meant to whisper: the dawn light, her father on the couch, her mother in the next room), Charlie felt another wave of shame. The anchoring heft of her body, the powdery smell of sleep. His daughter. He had done this to her, too.
Later that morning, Helen came into the living room to find Amanda nestled alongside Charlie. Amanda was asleep again, her thumb in her mouth. Charlie had remained rigid, not wanting to wake her with his movement. Flatly, Helen said: “You’re still here.”
“Of course I’m still here.”
“Of course. Sure. Well, since you’re still here, you can take care of our daughter. I’m going out.”
He craned his neck, watching her walk toward the door. “Where are you going?” he whispered, but she either didn’t hear him, or, more likely, knew that she was under no obligation to answer his questions.
When Amanda woke up for good, Charlie attempted to make them pancakes. Amanda sat at the table, Elmo clutched in her lap, watching as the pancakes smoked and blackened in the skillet. “You’re doing it wrong,” she said gravely. “Mommy doesn’t do them like that.” So Charlie agreed to let her put ice cream on her pancakes to make up for the burn, and it was as he was scooping out the ice cream that Helen walked through the front door.
Of course she was going to come back. Helen might walk out on Charlie, but she would never, never walk out on Amanda. But still. To actually see her, standing there in the kitchen, gave Charlie the smallest thread of hope. Their eyes met for a long second. Two seconds, three seconds. Amanda tugged impatiently at his sleeve. “Daddy,” she said. “The ice cream.”
After the confrontation, Helen slept like a rock. The wondering, the worrying, the infinite loops of speculation, they had driven her crazy over the last few months. So he was having an affair. So now she knew. She passed out as the exhaustion reached its climax.
But the next morning, as soon as she opened her eyes, she was struck by the inevitable question. Now what was she meant to do? Her first year at Conn College, Helen had gotten a bad flu. The illness made her horribly homesick. Her mother, who could hear it in Helen’s voice, immediately got in the car. Mrs. Dennehey spent the next several nights sleeping on the dorm room floor, feeding Helen soup, laying cool cloths against her brow. This felt just like that, but a thousand times worse. She was a thirty-three-year-old woman with a four-year-old daughter, but as she curled into the fetal position, her eyes filling with helpless tears, all she could think was: I want my mom.
Theoretically she could call her parents, but it was still the middle of the night on the East Coast. The phone ringing at 1 a.m. was a terrifying thing, and she didn’t want to scare them. She would have to wait another five, six, seven hours to talk to them. She imagined her mother’s unreachable voice and cried for a while longer. What would she say? What advice would she give? What do you do when you find out your husband is cheating on you? Helen didn’t know. They didn’t teach you that at Conn College. But her mother would know; she would say any number of wise things. Things like, Eat something. Take a hot shower. Take a walk. Go to church. Pray. Pray? Yes, that was absolutely something her mother would tell her to do.
She took a hot shower. She ate something. She saw Charlie on the couch, Amanda asleep beside him, and told him she was going out.
Her walk took her past the neighborhood park. It was the first real day of spring, the breeze turning mild, the snow finally melting. It wasn’t until she arrived at the church, and saw the lilies on the steps outside, that she remembered what day it was. It wasn’t just Sunday; it was Easter. Well, she thought mordantly. Maybe that makes us even. Charlie had forgotten about the birth of their daughter, but Helen had forgotten about the resurrection of Christ.
Mass had already begun. Helen slipped into a pew in the back. It had been—She didn’t want to think how long it had been. The service was in Finnish, but the rhythm was familiar enough that she was able to follow along. As Catholic churches went, this one was modest. Tattered red carpet, simple white walls. And yet: the scent of incense, beeswax, and lily. The sound of voices joining in hymn. The warmth of a stranger’s hand during the passing of the peace. The rituals brought her a measure of calm, of comfort.
And was that it? Was the reassurance simply a physical thing? Chicken broth for an aching throat, damp cloth for a fevered brow. Or did it mean more than that, even after so many years away? She walked up the aisle, dipped the wafer in the wine. She felt lucky, having come back on this Sunday of all Sundays. The Easter pageantry cranked up to eleven. If anything could manage to distract Helen from herself, it was this.
At first the timing felt like a cruel twist of fate: that she had found out about the affair on their daughter’s birthday, that the two things would forever be paired. Four years later (she and Amanda living in New York, regularly attending Mass again), the timing felt like a gift, that the day she walked back into the church happened to be the holiest day of the year. And many years after that (the Helsinki chapter of her life now vague and distant) the timing didn’t seem to mean anything. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been an ordinary Sunday. The resurrection happened every week, not just on Easter.
And was that it? The question followed her back to her pew, the wafer and wine dissolving slowly on her tongue. She was thirty-three years old. For the past twelve of those years, to the wider world, she had been Mrs. Charles Cole. (He hadn’t insisted she change her name, not exactly, but the expectation was clear enough.) They could be married for another twelve, and another twelve and twelve after that, but it would never change what had always been true in her heart. She was always going to be Helen Martha Dennehey, the studious bookworm, the scrappy middle sister, the girl who needed her mother to get her through the hard times.
Of course this meant something to her. How could it not?
At the end of Mass, she shook the priest’s hand and thanked him in clumsy Finnish. She began walking away, and then she turned around, looking back at the church. She didn’t feel at peace, not by a long shot, but for the first time in weeks, she felt the possibility of peace. A twinge so fleeting that she couldn’t even be sure. The weathered red bricks, the bell tower and steeple. Home, she thought. This is a home.
And the sight of Amanda, smiling gleefully at the container of ice cream. Home.
And the sight of Charlie, gamely scooping out that ice cream. Home.
Was he her home?
Maybe. Maybe not. She didn’t know yet. But maybe, for now, for the sake of that smiling little girl, she would be willing to try.