Джозеф Файндер - Company Man

“You get back here,” Nick shouted after him, standing in the doorway. “This cannot go on!”

But Lucas was running down the stone path into the darkness. “I’m sick of this fucking house, and I’m sick of you!” came his son’s voice, echoing.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Nick yelled back. “You get back here right now!”

He thought about taking off after his son, but what would be the point, really? He was overcome with a sense of futility and desperation. He stood there on the threshold until the sound of Lucas’s footsteps faded to silence.

Julia was there at the bottom of the stairs when he turned around. She was weeping.

He went up to her, gave her a tight squeeze, and said, “He’ll be okay, baby. We’ll be okay. Now you go to bed.”

In the shower a little later, Nick cursed himself for how badly he’d handled the whole thing, how ham-handed he’d been, how emotionally obtuse. There had to be ways of reaching Lucas, even if he didn’t know them. It was like a foreign country where the language sounds nothing like your own, the street signs are unreadable, you’re alone and lost. As the needles of water stung his neck and back, he looked at the row of shampoos and conditioners in the tiled inset: Laura’s stuff, all of it. He hadn’t bothered to remove it. Couldn’t bring himself to remove it, really.

He soaped himself up, got soap in his eyes, which made them smart so that when they started stinging and watering, he couldn’t tell if it was the soap or the tears.

He put on a T-shirt, pajama bottoms, and got into bed just as he heard the front door open, the alert tone go off. Luke had returned.

He switched off the bedside lamp. As always, he slept on the side of the bed that had always been his, wondered when, if ever, he’d start sleeping in the middle of the bed.

His bedroom door opened, and he thought for a split second that it might be Lucas, here to apologize. But it wasn’t, of course.

Julia stood there, her lanky shape and curly hair silhouetted by the nightlight in the hall.

“I can’t sleep,” she said.

“Come here.”

She ran to Nick, scrambled into the bed. “Daddy,” she said very softly. “Can I sleep in your bed? Just for tonight.”

He brushed back the curls, saw the tear-streaked face. “Sure, baby. But just for tonight.”

Leon slept late, of course, so it was no problem for Audrey to be up long before him Saturday morning. She enjoyed the quiet of the morning, the solitude, being in her own head. She made herself a pot of hazelnut coffee — the kind Leon hated, but she’d make regular coffee when he got up — and read the morning papers.

The weekends used to be their little island of intimacy, before — before he lost his job, before she started working overtime hours in order to be gone as much as possible. They’d sleep late on Saturday, snuggle, make love. They’d make brunch together, read the papers together, sometimes even make love again. Take a nap together. Then go out and enjoy the weekend, shopping or going for walks. Sundays he’d sleep until she returned from church, and then they’d maybe go out for brunch or make something at home, and they’d make love too.

Those days were like ancient Mesopotamia. She’d almost forgotten what they felt like, they’d receded so into the distant shrouded past.

This Saturday morning, after she’d had her coffee, she considered getting out her case files and working. But a glimmering of ancient Mesopotamia arose in her mind.

Someone had to break the gridlock, she told herself. They were both frozen. Neither wanted to make the first move to try to change things.

She debated internally, the way she debated most things large or small. How many times are you going to keep trying? she asked herself. How often are you going to butt your head against a brick wall before you realize it feels better to stop? The other voice — the wiser, more generous voice — said: But he’s the damaged one. He’s the hurt one. You need to take the lead .

This morning — maybe it was the still beauty of the morning, maybe it was the deliciousness of the coffee, maybe it was the time alone — she decided to take the lead.

She walked quietly through the dark bedroom, careful not to wake him. She slid open her bottom dresser drawer and pulled out the pale apricot silk teddy she’d bought from the Victoria’s Secret catalog, never worn.

She closed the bedroom door and went down the hall to the bathroom, where she took a nice hot shower, using the loofah. She applied lotion all over — her skin tended to get ashy if she didn’t — and then put on makeup, something she never did unless she was going out. She daubed perfume on in all the right secret places — Opium, the only perfume that Leon had ever complimented her on.

Wearing just her teddy, and feeling a bit silly at first, she went into the kitchen and made brunch. French toast, bacon, even some cantaloupe balls. His favorite breakfast: he liked French toast even more than eggs Benedict. A fresh pot of coffee, the kind he liked. A white porcelain creamer, in the shape of a cow, filled with half-and-half.

Then she arranged everything carefully on a bed tray — it took her a while to find it in the overhead storage in the little pantry, and then she’d had to wash off the accumulated dust — and went in to wake up Leon.

Since he’d been in a sour mood for most of the last year, she was pleasantly surprised at his sweet smile upon seeing her and the breakfast she’d placed on the bed.

“Hey, Shorty,” he rasped. “What’s all this?”

“Brunch, baby.”

“French toast. It’s not my birthday, is it?”

She climbed into the bed and kissed him. “I just felt like it, that’s all.”

He took a sip of coffee, made a contented noise. “I got to go take a whiz.” The breakfast tray tottered dangerously as he tried to extricate himself from the bed.

She could hear the sound of his urine splashing noisily in the toilet bowl, the toilet flushing, then she could hear him brushing his teeth, something he didn’t normally do before breakfast. A good sign. Even though he was getting as big as his sister, he remained a very sexy man.

He came back into the bed; she moved the tray to allow him to get in without upsetting it. He kissed her again, to her surprise. She shifted her body, angled it toward him, a hand on his upper arm, ready — but then he pulled away and took another sip of coffee.

“You forgot the syrup,” he said.

She touched the white porcelain gravy boat.

He tipped it over the stack of French toast, dousing it liberally, then took the knife and fork and cut a tall wedge. She’d even dusted it with powdered sugar, which he liked.

“Mmm-mmm. You warmed it.”

Audrey smiled, pleased. Didn’t they always say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach? Maybe this was all it took to break through the ice floes that had accumulated in their marriage.

After he’d wolfed down half the stack of French toast and all but two of the bacon strips, he turned to her. “How come you’re not eating?”

“I ate some in the kitchen.”

He nodded, devoured another piece of bacon, took another swig of coffee. “I thought you were working today.”

“I’m taking the day off.”

“How come?”

“Well, I thought we could spend some time together.”

He turned his attention back to the French toast. “Hmph.”

“You feel like going for a walk later, maybe?” she asked.

After a moment, he said, “I thought we needed the money.”

“One day’s not going to send us to the poorhouse. We could go for a drive out in the country.”