The following evening, Mark drove to Dublin—Chloe’s neighborhood, on the north side of the city, outside the 670 loop—to meet her for dinner at a Mediterranean place they both liked. It was a forty-minute drive for Mark during rush hour, but at least Chloe hadn’t suggested her boyfriend Steve’s restaurant downtown.
Before leaving, Mark had lingered for a while in front of his closet—what did one wear, when one had news such as his to deliver? He chose khaki slacks, a black buttondown shirt, a sport coat: the sort of clothing he had never worn when they were married.
He and Chloe did this sort of thing, now—they dressed nicely for each other.
On the drive he thought about Chloe sitting beside Brendan’s grave. She usually spent Brendan’s birthday with her parents, who lived an hour northwest of the city; eventually, along with her mother, she’d go to the hilltop cemetery in Marysville, where three generations of her family had been buried, to leave flowers at Brendan’s headstone. Mark used to go with her, even after the divorce, but he’d given that up. The grave meant far less to him than his drawings, than his dinners with Chloe. He’d said that to her, once: I just don’t feel him there.
Mark had said this, too: I’ll grieve in my own goddamned way.
But he still imagined Chloe, shivering against the cold, kneeling in the snow and murmuring—he knew she did this—to their son. He saw the picture clearly, and felt a terrible ache.
And then, even though he tried not to, he imagined Brendan, in the old house, looking down at Connie Pelham’s sleeping son.
All afternoon Mark had tried to come up with a plausible reason for canceling tonight, but he couldn’t. Even with a week’s head start, he didn’t know how to tell Chloe any of what he had to say—about the engagement, about Connie Pelham. After ten years of marriage and six of divorce, he could not predict Chloe’s response to either piece of news.
Still, Mark looked forward to seeing her, to sitting across the table from her. Despite her cruelty, during the divorce and after, despite Allison, he wanted very badly to see her. He had long ago given up denying that for the rest of his life he would need to be aware of her: her life, her storms, her infrequent happiness. Chloe, he believed, needed him, too. They had tried not speaking, for over a year—and in the end they’d buckled. They had shared a decade, Brendan, his loss. No one else alive had known him like they had; no one could return that faint submarine ping.
Chloe was late. In the restaurant lobby Mark paced, too nervous to sit at one of the benches. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Allie, texting him: Thinking of u. xoxo.
He turned off the phone without replying. Despite Allie’s thoughtfulness earlier, she’d tensed up tonight, while they readied themselves to go out. What are you going to tell her? Allie kept asking, until finally he’d admitted—more angrily than he’d wished—that he still didn’t know. Her text—which really meant Don’t forget your fiancée—deserved to be ignored.
He’d just deleted it when Chloe walked through the front doors in a long gray coat; she smiled gratefully at an older man who held the door for her, and he turned his head to follow her passage.
Chloe’s eyes touched his—and there, right away, Mark knew: Something was wrong. She might be smiling, but her eyes were shifting, full of chaos. Had Connie found her?
But then she smiled—the lopsided, slightly pained smile he’d gotten used to, since. She walked to him, brushing back her long, straight hair—back to its original blond, now, from the muddy red-brown she’d been dyeing it. He was surprised to see her narrow, black-framed glasses; she’d never needed them. Not surprisingly, they looked fantastic on her.
It was always like this: He saw Chloe, and his heart lifted—as it always did, because she was so beautiful, still, because he had loved her for so long—and then, immediately, his heart sank, because she was so beautiful, because he had loved her for so long, and didn’t any longer. Couldn’t, any longer.
She opened her arms to him. “Hey,” she said.
Chloe almost never spoke his name.
They embraced. He closed his eyes, breathed her in. She still smelled of the same perfume—a French name he could never remember—and beneath it he could make out the scent of the detergent she used to clean her clothes, of the conditioner she used on her hair, the particular smell of the blush she used—it had never been necessary; he could never convince her. He rubbed his hand across the rough wool of her coat, between her shoulder blades, and which of them paused an extra second, held the other close, he could not discern, except to know that it had happened.
“Chloe,” he said. That old magical spiral. Her name a spell, cast.
She handed her coat to the hostess. Beneath it she wore dark blue jeans and black high-heeled boots; over a gray blouse she wore an odd, cropped yellow-and-black checkerboard jacket that looked as though it belonged on some poodle-skirted fifties teenager. In the past Chloe could have made clothing like this work through sheer force of personality, but tonight? If he didn’t know her, he might have thought: Here’s a woman pretending.
But then, he now wore a goatee to mask his slight double chin, his drooping jowls.
“You look good,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said, averting her eyes.
She never said, You too.
The hostess led them down a narrow set of stairs, past a series of wooden booths. Mark looked into the faces of the men and women seated there: an old game, dating all the way back to his and Chloe’s first night out. These strangers watched Chloe pass, then turned to him, the man who got to walk with her. The lucky guy. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he felt again the old giddiness, the old sense of magic good fortune. He should have answered Allie’s text.
The hostess sat them at a small table against the back brick wall. She lit the candle, and then left. Chloe’s face was softer in the candlelight—ghostlier, and fuck him for thinking it.
Her eyes were puffy. She had been at the graveside, crying.
“So,” Chloe said, brightly. “How’ve you been?”
He wasn’t ready. Not yet. “You first,” he said. “Long day.”
Chloe gave him an old, old look. The you’re-being-weird look. “How’ve I been?” she said, wincing. “Wow.”
She was about to say more, but then the waiter came for their drink orders. Chloe turned to him with relief. She ordered wine; like Allison, she was into wine now, thanks to Steve and his expensive restaurant, with the best goddamn cellar in the state of Ohio—and then, when the waiter had gone, she looked over her menu, frowning.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
Her pale lashes fluttered. Three years ago she might have snapped at him: Apart from our son being dead? Now she only shook her head. “I guess I should just say it, huh? Steve left. He’s gone. We’re—we’re done.”
“Chloe,” he said. “God. I’m so sorry.”
He wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. Mark had hated Steve from the first. Steve was from New York City, and seemed to have devoted his entire life to acting out the cliché of a New Yorker trapped in Cowtown; he’d curse the provincials, and then, in the same breath, pretend that all of Columbus had gone apeshit over his très chic little bistro, named—subtly—Gotham. Mark and Allison had had dinner with Chloe and Steve there—this was the last time he had seen her, and he had never figured out what possessed them to try it. Steve—big and thick-necked and glowering, with too-white teeth—had been unable to sit still, had gotten up endlessly to inspect dishes coming out of the kitchen, to shake the hands of regulars, to insist he had a better bottle of wine stashed than anything on the list. He ordered for Mark and Allie, explaining, I want you to eat the best we got tonight, on me. He’d slung his heavy arm over Chloe’s shoulders, the implication clear: Except you don’t really get the best. Not anymore.
How could Chloe, Mark had thought, have loved both of them? Was he flattering himself, or torturing himself, to think she’d deliberately chosen his opposite? Had he done the same with Allison?
It didn’t matter. Steve was gone, Steve was gone.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. “Or I can pretend you never said anything.”
Chloe shook her head, which he thought was probably as much a denial of threatening tears as it was an answer. He could see her sitting on the edge of a long drop—knowing she had to talk, wanting to collapse, unwilling to do either in front of him.
“It’s all right,” she said.
He couldn’t stop himself. “How’d it go down?”
She said, softly, “This has been coming for a while.”
“Did he—?”
Chloe’s mouth twisted. “The short version is, I’m never going to be Jewish, and I’m a bad person for grieving Brendan.” The cords in her neck pulsed. “He said he was worried what sort of mother I’d be.”
Chloe had met Steve at her school; she’d taught Steve’s young daughter in her class. Chloe had loved that girl; Mark’s theory had always been that she loved the child a lot more than the man. But calling Chloe a bad mother? He wished he believed in a hell, so he could condemn Steve to the flames.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Chloe’s eyes were moist; she was obviously not seeing a word on the menu. And now he was supposed to tell her about Allie? About Connie Pelham?
“You didn’t have to come tonight,” he said.
“I’m thirty-nine,” she said. “I’d like to think I’m beyond collapsing over a guy.”
He scanned this for criticism, found everything and nothing.
“Come on,” he said. “Like we’re not allowed to ever be sad about anything else?”
A line of Gayle’s, probably. He always hated himself when these sorts of sentences popped out—especially in front of Chloe, no stranger to therapists, either.
The waiter came back. Mark ordered something full of lamb and oil, and a salad and an iced tea—he ached for a glass of wine, but he’d tried hard, these last years, to show Chloe he didn’t drink anymore. Chloe, ever the rabbit, ordered salad, as little falafel as they’d serve her, and a martini. He thought the words before she said them: two olives, dirty. She gave a sweet smile to the waiter. Even in her dismal state of mind, the smile transformed her; the waiter grinned back.
I love you, Mark wanted to say. I’ve always loved you, and I love you still.
This happened every time he and Chloe went out. He weathered it, let out a breath, made himself step back into the world.
“So,” Chloe said, her voice brighter. “Let’s change the subject. What’s new? How’s Sam?”
His father was always a safe topic. Mark told her about Sam’s book, about the new girlfriend—who, Sam had promised them, would be coming out to Ohio with him for Christmas. Chloe didn’t seem bothered at all by the thought of Helen Etley; she laughed to hear of Sam’s embarrassment.
Then she asked: “And Allison?”
He took a sip of his tea. “I’m not sure this is the right time to talk about her. Considering.”
Chloe frowned. “I’m a big girl, Mark.”
An old slight. He condescended to her, apparently. Well, then: “We just decided this week. We’re getting married in September.”
Chloe took a deep breath, drew back from the table. Almost as though he’d slapped her.
“September,” Chloe said.
He might have been imagining it in the low light, but he thought she had blanched.
“I finally got up the guts to ask.”
She shook her head. He was, oddly, excited. The news hurt her; news about him could still hurt her.
Ask me to come back, he thought. Come on. Beg.
And what would he do, if she did? If Chloe stood up and said, I love you, I’ve always loved you, don’t do this?
He didn’t know. All he did know was that he wanted to say her name—to cast the spell of her again. To reach for her. To comfort her, like a husband did. He’d spent half his adult life holding her, rubbing her back, her hands, her feet. Telling her that her mistakes were forgivable, apologizing for his own, receiving forgiveness. Why couldn’t he do it now?
Because he’d put a ring on Allison’s finger, that’s why.
He couldn’t go back, now. But for all these years, throughout all these awkward dinners, he’d always assumed that someday he might.
Unbidden, he remembered the first night he and Chloe had made love, back in college. They’d only known each other two weeks, yet still they were twisting together on her bed, fumbling at buttons, gasping. But Chloe had hesitated, just for a moment, as he lowered his weight. A sudden strangeness was in her eyes. Like panic.
I’ll never hurt you, he’d told her.
She’d let out a long breath. Smiled. I believe you, she said, and pulled him down, in.
And here they were: Chloe in front of him, hurt and hurt and hurt again. Their story a complicated stitchwork of hurt.
“Would you like me to go?” he asked.
“Yes.” The speed of her answer surprised him. She dropped her forehead into her hand. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Not tonight.”
Numbly, he stood. Chloe was still covering her eyes. He wanted to bend over, to hug her goodbye. And say what, then? I’m sorry? I hope you can be happy for me?
So. “Goodbye, Chloe.”
He turned and walked upstairs, stopping only to tell the waiter to cancel his order.
He was halfway home, his thoughts a whirl, before he remembered he hadn’t told Chloe about Connie Pelham.
When Mark unlocked the door he found the townhouse empty; a note on the counter, in Allie’s scrawl, read: Went to salon with Yancey, back eight???
He winced. That Allie had picked Yancey for company meant the salon would be just a starting point, and that eight??? would be more like midnight or after, and she’d be coming home in a cab.
He found some leftover soup to reheat and ate it while watching basketball on television. He thought for a while about calling his father, but he didn’t want to tell Sam what had just happened. For that matter, he hadn’t told Sam about Connie Pelham, either—a task as impossible, in its way, as telling Chloe would be. He closed his eyes, wishing fervently he could erase the last week from his memory.
An hour later the buzz of his cell startled him awake. He was so expecting Allie to be on the other end he didn’t check the number. “Hey, you,” he murmured.
“Mark,” Chloe said. “I’m so sorry. I had no excuse to talk to you like that.”
Her voice was thick with misery. He sat up. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He was nearly whispering, as though Allie was upstairs, and might hear him.
“No, it’s not okay. It’s been six years. I walked out on you. I don’t get to—to throw a fit when you’re happy.”
“I shouldn’t have told you today,” he said.
She ignored this. “Mark—if we’re going to be in each other’s lives, we need—I need—to be happy for you.”
What else could he say? “Thank you.”
Some sort of magnetic strangeness caused a long whine to rise and fall in his ear. Then Chloe said, “Steve left me for someone else.”
Mark lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Honey. He’d called her honey.
Chloe didn’t seem to have noticed. “Some girl he met at the fucking gym,” she said. He heard then what he should have when he answered: Chloe had come home from the restaurant and gotten very drunk.
“Christ,” she said. She was crying. “And then it’s Brendan’s birthday, and you tell me this, and I—”
She never finished, and Mark wondered—he couldn’t help but wonder—if what she wanted to say, truly, was, Don’t marry her. Come back to me.
“God,” she said, “I miss him so much, and then to hear you—”
If Mark ever wrote the history of the two of them he’d include a chapter on pauses like this one: on himself waiting, a phone clutched to his ear, for Chloe to break his heart, or mend it.
She let out a long, wavering breath. “Be happy, Mark. That’s all I want for you.”
“I want it for you, too.”
I want you, too, he could have said.
He waited for her, now, to say the last thing. The important secret he heard impending in her voice.
But she only said, “Good night, Mark,” and hung up.