Dennis Lehane - Since We Fell

When they left 93 for 95 South and the signs for Providence, she considered the possibility that he could have chosen to fly out of TF Green Airport, the only major airport in Rhode Island. She’d known people to prefer it to the crowds at Logan, but she also knew for certain they wouldn’t have a direct flight to Moscow.

“He’s not going to any fucking Moscow,” she said aloud.

A few miles later she was proved correct when he engaged his turn signal at least ten miles short of the airport and began to glide smoothly across the lanes. He got off in Providence, at the Brown University exit, where the neighborhoods of College Hill and Federal Hill met. Several other cars chose the same exit, including Rachel’s, three back of his. At the top of the exit ramp, Brian went right but the two cars between them took a left.

She slowed as she neared the intersection, let him get as far ahead as possible, but there wasn’t much stalling to be done. A Porsche swung wide on her left, engine revving, and shot out in front of her. She’d never been happier for a small penis driving a small penis car to act like a small penis because she again had cover between her and Brian.

It didn’t last, though. At the first light, the Porsche drifted into the left-turn-only lane, then floored it, zipping around Brian as they crossed the intersection, and roaring up the road ahead of him.

Little dicks, Rachel thought again, and their little dick cars. Shit.

Now there was no buffer between her and her husband, no way to control whether he looked into his rearview and recognized her. She passed through the intersection. She kept four car lengths between them, but the driver of the car behind her was already craning his head to see past her, as if to discern why she’d commit the unforgivable sin of not keeping pace with the car in front of her.

They drove into a neighborhood of Federalist clapboard homes, Armenian bakeries, and limestone churches. Once, Brian’s head tilted up and to the right — he was clearly checking his rearview — and she damn near stomped her brake pedal in panic. But, no, no, he looked back at the road. In two more blocks, she saw what she’d been looking for — the shoulder widened by a doughnut shop and a gas station. She put on her turn signal. She pulled over by the doughnut shop and prepared to pull right back out again as the green Chrysler pulled past her.

But behind the green Chrysler was a brown Prius and behind the Prius was a tan Jaguar and right behind the Jaguar was a Toyota 4Runner with monster wheels and, Jesus, behind the 4Runner was a minivan. By the time she pulled back out, not only was she five cars back, but the minivan was too tall to see past. And even if she could, she’d then find herself staring at the back of the 4Runner, which was even taller than the minivan.

The traffic stopped at the next signal and she had no way of knowing if Brian had actually passed through the signal before the light turned red.

The traffic moved again. She followed as they continued along in a straight line, no curves in this road. Just give me one curve, she prayed, just one fucking curve and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to catch a glimpse of him.

A mile up, the road forked. The Prius, the minivan, and the 4Runner all went right onto Bell Street, while the Chrysler and the Jaguar stayed the course on Broadway.

Only one problem — Brian’s Infiniti was no longer in front of the Chrysler. It was nowhere at all.

She screamed through gritted teeth and gripped the steering wheel so hard it felt like she might rip it out of the drive shaft.

She banged a U-turn. She did it without thought or warning, meriting angry beeps from both the car behind her and the oncoming one in the opposite lane that she cut off. She didn’t care. She didn’t feel fear, she felt rage and frustration. But mostly rage.

She drove back up Broadway, drove all the way to the gas station and the doughnut shop where she’d lost sight of him. She U-turned again — this time with warning and a bit more finesse — and drove back down the way she’d just come. She looked at every side street as best she could at thirty miles an hour.

She reached the fork again. Resisted the urge to indulge in another scream. Resisted the urge to cry. She took a left into a tiny lot outside a VFW Post and turned back again.

If she hadn’t hit a red light, she never would have found him. But she did. And as she sat at it, with another gas station and a drab insurance agency to her right, she looked down the cross street and saw a large Victorian with a tall white sign on its front lawn that listed the businesses housed within. And there, in the parking lot that branched off the side of the building under a wrought-iron fire escape, was Brian’s Infiniti.

She found a parking space six houses past the Victorian. Walked back up the sidewalk. The street was lined with old oaks and maples, the shaded parts of the sidewalk still a bit damp from the dew the trees had shed this morning, the May air filled with the scents of decay and rebirth in equal measure. Even now, approaching a building in which her husband hid the truth of himself — or certainly a truth of himself — she could feel the street and its odors calm her.

The sign on the front lawn listed three psychiatrists, a family practitioner, a mineral company, a title company, and two attorneys. Rachel stayed in the shade of the great trees until she reached the alley along the side. A large sign at the entrance to the alley warned that the parking spaces were for occupants of 232 Seaver Street only, while a series of smaller signs bolted to the siding identified whose spot was whose. Brian’s Infiniti was parked in the spot reserved for Alden Minerals Ltd.

She’d never heard of Alden Minerals Ltd., and yet it seemed vaguely familiar, as if she had heard of it. But she was certain she hadn’t. Yet one more paradox in a week full of them.

Alden Minerals Ltd. was on the second floor, suite 210. Seemed like now would be as good a time as any to storm up the stairs and burst into the suite and see exactly what her lying husband was up to. Yet she hesitated. She found a spot under the fire escape and leaned against the building and tried to ferret out if there could be any logical explanation for any of this. Men sometimes engaged in elaborate hoaxes on their wives if they were, say, planning a surprise party.

No. They didn’t. At least not to the point where they claimed to be in London when they were in Boston or claimed to be flying to Moscow when they were driving to Providence. No, there was no acceptable explanation for this.

Unless...

What?

Unless he’s a spy, she thought. Don’t spies do this kind of thing?

Well, yes, Rachel, a sarcastic voice that sounded like her mother’s agreed, they surely do. So do cheating husbands and sociopaths.

She leaned against the building and wished she still smoked.

If she confronted him right this second, what would she gain? The truth? Probably not, not if he’d been lying to her this successfully for this long. And whatever he told her, she wouldn’t believe it anyway. He could show her his CIA credentials and she’d think of the selfie he’d “sent” from London (how did he fake that, by the way?) and tell him to take his fake CIA credentials and find a way to go fuck himself with them.

If she confronted him, she’d get nowhere.

Harder to admit, of course, was that if she confronted him, whether he lied to her in the moment or not, the relationship — or whatever she’d call it from here on — would leak out on the floor. And she wasn’t ready for that yet. It was a humiliating realization, but at this moment she couldn’t stomach the loss of him from her life. She pictured their condo emptied of his clothes, his books, his toothbrush and titanium razor, the food he liked gone from the fridge, the scotch he preferred removed from the liquor cabinet or, worse, forgotten and left behind as a reminder until Rachel poured it down the sink. She pictured the magazines he subscribed to still showing up months after he left and her long empty days bleeding into long endless evenings. Since her on-air meltdown, she’d lost most of her friends. She had Melissa, yes, but Melissa was the type of friend who expected her to “buck up” and “think positive” and — Excuse me, waiter, could I have one more of these with less ice this time? — “shake it off.” Beyond that, her friends weren’t friends at all but casual acquaintances; it was hard, after all, to maintain social contact with a virtual shut-in.