Dennis Lehane - Since We Fell

Here she went again. It was just a receipt. She tossed it in the trash basket. She added detergent to the washer and turned it on. She walked out of the alcove.

She came back. She pulled the receipt out of the trash and looked at it again. It was the date that bothered her. 05/09/14. May 9, 2014. Which, yes, was the date Brian was in London. Month, day, year. But in Britain, they didn’t record their dates that way. Instead of month, day, year, they would write day, month, year. If this receipt were truly from a shop in London, it wouldn’t read 05/09/14. It would read 09/05/14.

She put it in the pocket of her pajama pants and made it to the bathroom before she threw up.

She survived dinner with him, though she barely spoke. When he asked if anything was wrong, she said her allergies were acting up and the manuscript was turning into far more work than she’d anticipated. When he pressed, she said, “I’m just tired. Can we leave it there?”

He nodded, a resigned and deflated look on his face, a martyr forced to bear the hostile caprices of an unreasonable wife.

She slept in the same bed as him. She hadn’t believed she’d be able to fall asleep, and for the first hour or so she just lay there, one side of her face pressed to the pillow, and watched him sleep.

Who are you? she wanted to ask. She wanted to straddle him and pound his chest and scream it.

What have you done to me?

What did I do to myself when I committed to you? When I locked myself to you?

Where do your lies lead?

If you’re a fraud, what does that make my life?

Somehow she fell asleep, a restless sleep, and woke the next morning with a startled “Oh” escaping her lips.

While he took his shower, she went into the living room and looked out the window at the small red Ford Focus she’d rented yesterday from the Zipcar lot around the corner. Even from this height, she could make out the orange parking ticket a meter maid had slipped under the right windshield wiper. She’d expected that; she’d parked in a resident-only parking zone yesterday because it was the only way she could place the car where she needed it to be today — with a view of their garage exit.

She dressed in workout clothes and a hoodie. When the shower shut off, she knocked softly on the bathroom door.

“Yeah?”

She opened the door, leaned into the frame. He had a towel around his waist and his neck and jaw were covered in shaving gel. He’d been about to cover his cheeks but now he looked at her, a small swirl of purple gel in his right palm.

“I’m gonna go work out.”

“Now?”

She nodded. “That instructor I like? On Tuesdays she’s only there at this time.”

“Okay.” He crossed to her. “See you in a week.”

“Fly safe.”

They stood there, faces a few inches apart, his eyes searching hers, her eyes not moving at all.

“Bye.”

“Love you,” he said.

“Bye,” she said again and closed the door behind her.

Yesterday, when she’d driven the Zipcar from the lot around the corner to the parking spot by their building, she’d covered a distance of two blocks, and even that had been a little nerve-racking. Now, as she watched Brian pull out of the garage and drive up the ramp to street level, all the oxygen in her body pushed into her heart. Brian turned onto Commonwealth and immediately got into the left lane. She pulled out with a jerk. A cab hurtled up on her left. A horn blared. The cab veered around her, the driver throwing his hand in the air at this idiot who couldn’t balance driving and paying attention at the same time.

She sat, half in the parking spot, half in the lane, and heat flushed through her head and throat.

Quit.

The next time he goes on a trip, try it again.

But she knew if she listened to that voice she’d never do it at all. She’d spend the next year (or years) indoors, in fear, in mistrust and resentment until those very things became a balm, an ironic salve, the worry stone she caressed until that caress replaced every caress she’d ever give or receive again. And the worst of it was that by that point, she’d have convinced herself it was more than enough.

She pulled out onto Commonwealth and could hear her own breathing, never a good sign. If she didn’t get it back in tempo, she’d hyperventilate, maybe black out and crash, as Brian had once predicted. She exhaled slowly through pursed lips. Brian took a left on Exeter. She dropped in behind the cab that had almost hit her as it made the same turn. She exhaled again, just as slowly, and her breathing resumed a manageable rhythm. Her heart, on the other hand, continued to scamper like a penned animal watching the farmer approach with an ax. She gripped the steering wheel like an old lady or a driving instructor, her neck tight, palms wet, shoulder blades scrunched.

Brian took a left past the Westin and she lost him for a moment, which was not the place to lose him. He had too many options there — he could loop around onto the Mass Pike, head straight down Stuart, or turn right onto Dartmouth and head into the South End. She caught his brake lights as he did just that and passed the mall on his right. She lost the cover of the cab, though, as it continued straight and she turned right. Brian was half a block ahead but there were no cars in between them. If she got any closer he’d be able to see her face in his rearview.

She’d considered a disguise yesterday but it seemed so ridiculous — what was she supposed to do, wear a Groucho face? A hockey mask? As it was, she wore a newsboy cap, something she rarely did, and sunglasses with wide round rims that he’d never seen before, so she’d pass the test if he looked at her from a reasonable distance but definitely not close up.

He turned left on Columbus, and another car slid into the mix, a black station wagon with New York plates. Rachel dropped in behind it and they continued in unison for a couple of miles. All three of them left Columbus for Arlington together and Arlington for Albany and headed toward I-93. When she realized they might be getting on the expressway, she feared she might projectile-vomit onto the dashboard. The surface streets were hard enough, the noise, the bumps, the jackhammers breaking open pavement at a construction site, the pedestrians who dashed across the crosswalks, the other cars pressing in, cutting in front, riding up hard on her tail. But that was at twenty-five miles an hour.

There wasn’t much time to think about it because there was Brian pulling onto 93 South. Rachel followed, feeling as if the on-ramp sucked her forward. Brian punched the gas and bolted across three lanes of traffic into the left lane, his Infiniti rocking on its wheels. She stepped on her own gas pedal and the immediate result wasn’t much different than if she’d stepped on a boulder and expected it to gallop. The small Ford inched forward and then inched forward a tiny bit faster and then a little bit faster again. By the time it reached the seventy-five miles an hour or so that Brian had reached near instantaneously, his Infiniti was a quarter mile ahead. She kept pressing on the pedal, staying one lane to his right, and soon she made up enough of the distance that by the time they’d passed through Dorchester into Milton she had a perfect bead on him from five cars back.

She’d concentrated so hard on the task at hand that she’d forgotten all her terror at being on the expressway in the first place. Now it returned, but it wasn’t quite terror, just a persistent fluttering at the base of her throat accompanied by the certainty that her skeleton might burst through her skin.

And a sense of betrayal and rage as toxic as Drano. Because what was abundantly clear, though there had never been much doubt, was that Brian was not headed to the airport. Logan was fifteen miles in their rearview.