Lisa Unger - Smoke

“You wore him out,” she said with a smile, pulling onto the West Side Highway. There was a lot of traffic for the time of night and it was slow going as the river of traffic tried to squeeze past the construction she would swear had been going on for about fifteen years.

“He wore me out,” Dylan said with a light laugh. “The kid just has this boundless energy, a million questions.” He was quiet for a second, smiling to himself. Then, “I don’t know how you do it, Jez. On your own, full time. I know it’s hard.”

There was a heavy silence between them, populated by their regrets and all that had passed between them.

“I’m sorry it turned out like this,” he said finally.

She glanced over at him and quickly put her eyes back on the road. He was staring down at his fingernails, looking sad. A little too sad , something inside her whispered. He’s playing you . She didn’t say anything, just stared ahead of her. In their marriage together, she had always rushed to fill the silences. There was always too much talking, not enough listening. She sensed that he hadn’t said what he really wanted to say so she just kept quiet.

“Do you ever think about us? About if we could make it right again?” he asked her softly, putting a hand on her knee. She cursed her mutinous heart for fluttering.

“Don’t, Dylan,” she said. “Not now. Not with him in the car.”

Dylan’s cell phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket. She saw him glance at the caller ID and stuff it back in his pocket without answering.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “You’re right. I just wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking about it.”

She couldn’t even look at him. Her heart was thumping and tears threatened but she held them back. She didn’t know what to think of him or how he was acting. He was kind, mature, thoughtful-all the things she’d wanted from him when they were together, all the things that had seemed so impossible for him. It just felt too good to be true. On the other hand, maybe the scare he’d had was a wake-up call for him.

She thought about this and they rode in silence the rest of the way back to the Upper West Side. Miraculously, she found a spot on the street and didn’t have to spring for a night in the garage. While she grabbed her bags and Ben’s from the trunk, Dylan was able to extract Ben from the backseat without waking him and carried him up the street.

“Did you talk to your PBA rep today?” she said quietly.

“Yeah, I did,” said Dylan, shifting Ben up a little. “He thinks it’s going to be okay. The shooting was good. I know it and everyone who was there that night knows it. I just have to go in and answer questions, so do the other guys. It’s still going to be a week without my weapon, at least.”

She put a hand on his arm. “It’s going to be fine,” she said. They both knew there weren’t any guarantees. If there was unrest in the community over the incident, or if there was some unspoken agenda to come down on white cops that shot black kids, or if he just got an unsympathetic investigator, things could go badly for him.

“It’s good to be with you, Jez. Thanks for being here for me.”

In the elevator, the cell phone rang again but he made no move for it. Benjamin stirred at the noise but didn’t quite wake up.

“Don’t you need to get that?” she asked.

“Nah. It’s probably just Barnes again. The guys are getting together tonight but I told him I needed to spend some time with my family.”

I would have been crazy to divorce this guy, thought Jesamyn. But who the hell is he?

Ben woke up long enough to brush his teeth and put on his pajamas. She knelt down on the floor beside him as she tucked him into bed and kissed him on the head.

“Mom?” he said as she turned off his big light and flipped on the aquarium night-light. “Do you like Dad again?”

She quashed the rise of guilt and smiled. “I’ve always liked your dad. He gave me you. And I love you more than anything.”

He looked into her eyes and gave her that smile, a carbon copy of his father’s. Irresistible.

“I love you, too,” he said, turning over.

She closed the door mostly, leaving it slightly ajar the way Ben liked it, and moved quietly down the hall. She heard the tone in his voice before she saw him leaning in the doorjamb to the kitchen, talking into his cell phone like he was making out with it. That tone, that sweet, coaxing tone she knew so well.

“Not tonight, baby,” he said, his voice low. “I’m working. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. Hey, and honey, don’t call anymore tonight. You’ll get me in trouble with my boss.”

She felt her stomach bottom out and she remembered… a dozen other overheard phone calls, the nights he said he’d made a collar but there was no overtime in his paycheck, once an earring in her couch. Each time it had hit like a blow to the solar plexus. Tonight was no different. She put a hand against the wall. She couldn’t believe he could still do it to her, run her through a gamut of emotions in just a few hours. Was she really this weak, this stupid ?

In a way she was relieved, because it meant she was right about him all along. She had come to believe that he was pathologically unfaithful, that it wasn’t part of his makeup to be present for her and Ben. He wanted to play; he wanted to party. He didn’t really want to be a husband and a father, not full time anyway. This was why she’d decided to end their marriage. She hadn’t been wrong. Small comfort, but she’d take it.

She picked up his coat off the couch and stood behind him, waiting for him to feel her there. After another sickening few seconds of him cooing on the phone to whomever it was he was cooing to, he flipped the phone shut and turned around.

“Uh-” he said. He looked stricken. “That was Barnes. We were just fooling around.”

“Oh, spare me, Dylan,” she said, handing him his coat. “Just go.”

“Jez, please,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “I really need you guys right now.”

“Key,” she said.

“What?”

“Give me that goddamn key before I take it from you. And you know I can.”

He looked at her and his eyes went from pleading to angry.

“This is why we’re not married anymore, Jesamyn,” he said, reaching into his pocket and fishing out the keys. “No understanding, no compromise.”

She let go of a little laugh. “There are some points on which people are not expected to compromise,” she said.

He fumbled with the keys, his jacket over his arm, took one of them off the ring and handed it to her. His face had flushed red and she could see a vein pumping in his temple.

“Both of them,” she said forcing herself to keep her voice down. “The apartment door, too.”

He sighed and took another one off the ring. She tested it in the door; the lock turned.

“I’ll follow you down and check the other one, too. If you don’t mind.”

“You don’t trust me?”

She gave him a smile. She locked the door behind her and they rode the elevator down together in a cool silence.

“I can’t believe I thought-” she started and then clamped her mouth shut.

“You and I haven’t been together in a long time, Jez,” he said softly. “I have every right to be involved with someone else. I didn’t know things were going to heat up between us again.”

She shook her head and didn’t respond further. The doors slid open and she walked quickly to the outside entrance and tried the key. When the lock turned, she stepped aside and held it for him.

“Jez, let’s talk about this.” He spoke softly, reaching for her hand. She folded her arms across her chest.